WEBVTT - Lasting Impressions 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:04.120 This is The Dream Team Tapes, a Diversion Podcasts original 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:09.720 series in association with I Heart Radio. This is the 0:00:09.760 --> 0:00:12.440 story of the United States Olympic basketball team that won 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:23.000 gold in Barcelona, known worldwide as the Dream Team. You know, 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:24.640 I would like to play it a little bit longer, 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:27.760 maybe a year or two more, but there's just no 0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:29.640 way possible I was going to be able to do that. 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:34.080 So today I'm retiring, and uh, I'm still gonna be around, 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:38.839 but not in the capacity I once was. And now 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:40.960 all of a sudden, we get in a game and 0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:44.360 he he has this scratch. It's an open wound, but 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:49.080 you know it's a non bloody wound in a control situation, 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:54.120 and you know, I have to dress it, and I 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:56.440 have these gloves in my pocket, and I look up 0:00:56.600 --> 0:01:01.080 and all these eyes are on the all his teammates 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:05.040 and the cameras on me, and I said, I just 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:07.760 can't do it because it's it would be sending a 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:11.639 mixed message to everything. Man. That stuff start happening almost 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:14.039 from the moment the Dream Team plane touched back in 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:18.000 the United States. The first voice you heard was that 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:21.399 of Larry Bird. The second voice was that of Gary VT. 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:25.840 The long time, much respected trainer of the Los Angeles Lakers. 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:28.319 We're going to get to that in a second, but 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:30.880 let's go back to Bird. The last game in which 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:33.959 he ever played was not against his ancient and forever rivals, 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:37.640 the Los Angeles Lakers, or the seventies sixers or the Knicks. 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:41.160 It was against Croatia and the gold medal game of 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:46.399 the Olympics. Bird hardly played. He had zero points, zero assists, 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:50.640 and to rebounds. His back had given out completely. He 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:54.400 flew home on the team's charter plane in a reclined position, 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:57.240 and a couple of days later he said goodbye, not 0:01:57.320 --> 0:02:00.880 to basketball altogether. He became an advisor, a team president 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:04.000 Dave Gabbett, and later a successful coach in execut with 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:06.840 the Indiana Pacers, but he did say goodbye to his 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:11.560 immortal playing career now Gary Vedi, as I said, the 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:16.400 Lakers trainer Magic Johnson had come triumphantly home from Barcelona 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:20.359 clutching a gold medal, his HIV apparently in the rear 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:23.959 view mirror, but it wasn't. The comment from Karl Malone, 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:27.440 which we'll talk about later, followed by this preseason game 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:31.799 in Charlotte and back it came, and because of that, 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:35.320 Magic Johnson followed his good friend Bird out the door. 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:39.440 Hello and welcome to episode eight, the final episode of 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:43.120 the Dream Team tapes. I'm Jack McCallum. The story has 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:45.919 taken lots of twists and turns, but in the immediate 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:50.200 aftermath of the Barcelona glory, this one was a pronounced dip. 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:54.360 Bird had decided to retire even before he went to Barcelona, 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:56.960 but according to him, he hadn't even told his wife, 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:01.840 so his retirement press conference was sudden, but not really shocking. 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:04.920 It was hard to realize how long Bird had been playing, 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:08.440 not in top physical shape. His back had started to 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:12.240 go out as long ago as the last time his 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:15.480 Celtics had won the title. Remember that although Larry and 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:19.240 Magic had come into the league together, Bird was more 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:22.840 than three years older than Johnson. We would miss him, 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:25.720 but it was time. So at the point when he left, 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:28.560 there had been no Lebron, no Kobe, no Tim Duncan, 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:34.120 no Shack. So where would Bird rank? Top five? That 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:39.280 would be a stretch. Top ten absolutely. Meanwhile, Magic, who 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:41.960 had turned thirty three dority Olympics, was still, as he 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:44.600 saw it, a force. He was rare to go for 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:49.240 the season, still believing wrongly. I might add that the 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:54.240 Lakers could challenge Jordan's bulls. And then and then there 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:58.080 was this preseason game between them alone and Stockton Jazz 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:01.520 and the New York Knicks. Magic wasn't even involved. He 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:04.440 wasn't there. Harvey Araton, the Hall of Fame writer from 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:07.480 the New York Times, wandered over to talk to Karl Malone, 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:11.080 and suddenly the mailman started to talk about Magic and 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:15.480 what he perceived as unspoken fears about playing against someone 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:19.280 with HIV. This is from Harvey's story. Look at this, 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:22.000 scabs and cuts all over me, said Malone. He pressed 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:24.720 a finger to a small pinkish hole on his thigh 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:28.000 that was developing into a scab. I get these every night, 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:31.080 every game, he said. They can't tell you that you're 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:34.040 not at risk, and you can't tell me there's one 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:38.280 guy in the NBA who hasn't thought about it. Now, 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:40.880 where did that come from? Why did it come up suddenly? 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:45.640 Was he really voicing widespread concerns years later? It remains 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:48.520 a mystery. I couldn't get Malone to talk about it 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:51.279 during our long interview for my Dream Team book, but 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:54.280 it has been cleared throughout that Malone just didn't like 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:58.640 the showman side of Irvin Magic Johnson, and during our interview, 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:03.760 Carl kept making several references to people he thought were real. Pointedly, 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:06.440 Magic was not one of them. Barkley was one of 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:09.640 those real guys, and these two guys were another. I've 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:12.080 seen people that it's kind of different when the cameras. 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:14.600 You know, some people when the camera's one and depend 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:17.320 on who it is for consaying, that's why I thought 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:19.840 the world and that's why Stott was saying. Chris Mother 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:22.320 and Conor was one of my favorite. Magic says that 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:24.440 he and Malone never talked about it when they got back, 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:27.560 never talked about it at all over the course of 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:31.559 now going on twenty seven years. Only Carl knows whether 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:34.680 his personal resentment of Magic was the reason he made 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:39.680 the comment, or was he genuinely frightened about HIV, despite 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:41.600 the fact that he had spent much of the summer 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:45.320 in Magic's company. I just don't know, but it's worth 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:47.960 hearing all of what Magic said when I asked him 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:50.680 about it in two thousand and eleven. We did a 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:53.200 great job of educating not just to play it, but 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:56.159 the world because the world was not educated and we 0:05:56.520 --> 0:06:00.240 stely think about all the misinformation that was out there. 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:04.880 So I had to be the person who could now, okay, 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:07.560 let me give you the right information. Let me education. 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:11.279 And then the Olympics actually gave me the platform to 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:14.719 show the world that a guy what HIV could still 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:18.719 play play at a high level and he wasn't going 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:21.960 to get HIV by playing against me. So when carl 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:24.400 want to come back, and he said that, that's kind 0:06:24.440 --> 0:06:27.440 of set what I had did, and the Olympics said 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:29.840 it back zones that now I got more work to do. 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:33.720 But the fatal blow to Magic's return were the optics 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:36.720 from that night in Charlotte that Gary VD was talking 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:39.680 about the pressure got to be too much for him. 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:42.279 It was one of those moments that you understand the 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:47.599 power of image. Metaphorically speaking. The whole world was watching 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:53.760 Gary VD treat Magic Johnson's cut without gloves. Magic realized 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:57.920 that almost right away he saw the uproar and uncomfortable 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:02.160 nous it caused, and heng it up for the second time. 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:07.159 Now there would be a third after an abbreviated return, 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:11.320 but for all intents and purposes, Magic went out with 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:14.360 the man he came in with bird. Now a word 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:17.240 about Gary VT, the Lakers trainer, A wonderful man. He 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:19.880 is in anyone's Hall of fame a trainers, but there 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:22.320 are others like him in the NBA. You could hear 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:26.320 the emotion in Gary's voice during that radio interview. Trainers 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:30.000 get extremely close to players and they carry secrets to 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:34.080 the grave, and I've known very few that will betray confidences. 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:40.720 I should know. I've tried. What else was going on 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:44.120 after Barcelona, Well, let's go to Jordan's He led the 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:47.480 Bulls to their third straight championship and I can still 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:50.600 see him celebrating with his father in the Bulls locker 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:55.200 room in Phoenix. Five weeks later, James R. Jordan's Sr. 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:59.000 Was found murdered in his car, and a few months 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:04.880 after that October six, I'm very solid with my decision 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:09.200 of not to play the game of basketball name b A. 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:13.160 The reason being, I've heard a lot of different speculations 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:17.360 about my reasons for not playing, but I've always stressed 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:20.000 to people that have known me and the media that 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:24.800 has followed me that when I lose the sense of 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:27.600 motivation and the sense of to prove something as a 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:31.040 basketball player. It's time for me to move away from 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:33.560 the game of basketball. For whatever reason, Michael always loved 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:36.439 to say the game of basketball. He was like those 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:40.120 football coaches and commentators who feel compelled to say football 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:42.760 all the time. We moved the football real well, we're 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:44.480 a good football team right now. We just got to 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:48.480 become a better football team. Jordan loved to say the 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:52.120 game of basketball. The Jordan's story has been told endlessly, 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:54.840 so I won't tell it again in detail. Michael went 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:57.960 on to minor league baseball. Questions dogged him about whether 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:01.200 or not his gambling debts or something else was behind 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:05.439 his father's murder. They continue today, but I don't believe them. 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:10.560 And the league going into the season, found itself without 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:14.640 Michael Magic Larry. I'm trying to think of something comparable. Hey, 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:17.480 let's go see the Beatles. But listen, John, Paul and 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:20.400 George are all out, but Ringo will still be there 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:24.560 on drums. And the NBA was also without Jack McCallum. 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:27.640 I know the loss wasn't quite on a par with 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:32.360 Jordan's Magic and Bird, but something felt empty. How could 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:34.839 it get any better than covering the league during its 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:38.199 renaissance and that's what I had done. The last of 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:41.439 dr Ja, the best of Magic and Bird, the brilliantly 0:09:41.520 --> 0:09:44.880 tough bad boy Pistons, the creation of All Star Weekend, 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:48.480 and the Duncan three point contests. Really good players who 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:52.080 didn't make the Dream Team, like James Worthy, Dominique Wilkins, 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:56.559 Isaiah Thomas. He had the ascendancy of Jordan's and then 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:59.240 you had the dream Team. So I left after the 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:03.680 any three season, did some editing, covered college basketball for 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:06.880 a year general stuff, and did return to the NBA 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:09.880 until early in the two thousand's, just in time to 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:24.240 see Jordan's swansong with the Washington Wizards. Now, after this 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:27.520 first dream team, nobody could figure out if the term 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:32.079 dream team could be used again. The US Olympic basketball 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:35.600 team was called in some quarters dream team too, but 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:40.240 in other quarters, how about this was a nightmare. That 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:43.320 was Barkley who played on the team, as did Pippin 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:46.680 the loan, Robinson and Stockton. But it was kind of 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:49.800 an f and nightmare. It had the same unmerciful on 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:54.640 court beatings of without the charm and well maturity of 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:57.479 that first team. Now, in a way it was inevitable. 0:10:58.000 --> 0:10:59.800 It was like when you and your partner were young 0:10:59.840 --> 0:11:01.680 and rented a cabin in the woods, and the weather 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:04.120 was perfect, and the cabin was quaint, and you cook 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:07.160 scrambled eggs in an old cast iron pan, and you 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:09.960 made love under a blanket on the couch. And then 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:13.200 you went back four years later and replicated that rained 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:16.720 every day, The cabin roof leaked, the sex blanket was 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:19.199 wet and moldy, and by the end of the weekend 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:22.280 you're throwing the eggs at each other. By the way, 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:25.719 this absolutely never happened to me. More on Dream Team too, No, 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:27.440 I can't call it that, but more on that in 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:31.280 a minute. In the immediate aftermath of the first Dream Team, 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:35.240 the biggest winner was probably Barkley. He went to Phoenix, 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:38.840 won an MVP award, carried his team to the finals, 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:42.680 where of course he was disposed of by Jordan's. He 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:45.880 talked endlessly as to others like Pippin, David Robinson and 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:49.320 Chris Mullen about how the experience had made him better, 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:53.520 gave him ideas about leadership the kind showed by Magic 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:57.480 and Michael, and commitment the kind showed by Karl Malone. 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:02.760 Was during that Championship series, of Barkley told his daughter Christiana, Honey, 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:05.319 no matter how good I am and I believe I'm 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:07.800 the second best player in the league, there's no way 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:11.360 I'm better than that some bitch in Chicago. Another player 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:13.360 to make out well in the aftermath of the Dream 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:16.320 Team was David Robinson. He didn't win a championship right away. 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:18.560 That wouldn't come until the strike the late season of 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:22.960 and again in two thousand three, and it didn't come 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:25.680 at all until he got Tim Duncan as a running mate. 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:28.160 In fact, one of the whispers about the Admiral was 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:30.959 that he never would have won without Tim. But that's 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:33.320 another story. But in the wake of the Dream Team, 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:38.200 Robinson clearly became a very impactful center, the very ideal 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:42.440 of the mobile, athletic, versatile center who was still a center, 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:45.240 not a seven foot stretch for but back to the 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:51.280 basket pivot man. On on the evening of one of 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:54.960 the most amazing statistical anomalies in the history of the 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:58.440 NBA occurred in a late season game against the Los 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:03.839 Angeles Clippers. San Antonio's David Robinson put up seventy one 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:08.480 points at that time, the seventh highest single game total 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:11.760 in the history of the NBA, the same point total 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:15.160 that Elgin Baylor had scored for the Los Angeles Lakers 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:18.160 in nineteen sixty five. Of the others came from Will 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:23.320 Chamberlain and the sixth from David Thompson. Parenthetical alert. Twelve 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:27.319 years after the Admiral's explosion, the late great Kobe Bryant, 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:30.720 as many of you remember, got eighty one against the 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:34.840 Toronto Raptors. Now, what was going on in that Robinson came. Well, 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:37.840 he had been battling Shaquille O'Neil for the scoring title. 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:41.600 But those were long ago days, huh, when Sentators actually 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:45.079 scored a lot of points, and this outburst gave David 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:47.640 the title. He talks about the guidance he got that 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:52.040 night from John Lucas, who was in the Spurs coach. Yes, 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:55.240 there was a time before Gregg Popovich coached the Spurs. 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:59.120 I'm gonna make sure every shot and I was like, 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:03.960 are you crazy? Like you know, the last thing I 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:05.880 want to do is go out there and try to 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:09.320 do something like that. Man, that's classic Robinson. I don't 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:12.280 want to take every shot. Coach. Remember what Jordan's said 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:16.760 about him. Basketball wasn't in David's DNA. I wonder what 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:20.040 Robinson would have been like had he had the mentality 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:23.360 to get seventy one every night. Another Dream Teamer who 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:25.920 made out well was Clyde Drexler, who was traded from 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:31.200 Portland to Houston halfway through season and his Rockets won 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:35.000 the championship. As Clyde saw it, this finally provided a 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:37.440 comeback line to all the crap he took from the 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:41.040 Dream Team in the media about getting torched by Jordan's 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:44.280 and being on teams that weren't very smart. This is 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:47.800 Clyde talking about the comeback he used when the alpha 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:52.080 male antagonists primarily Jordan and Magic, used to get on 0:14:52.160 --> 0:15:01.720 his ass and let's side of I couldn't help laughing 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:05.080 when I interviewed Clyde. His answer to almost every question 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:09.080 was some version of how much he was disrespected. And 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:11.600 as far as shutting up Magic and Bird and Jordan's 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:15.000 real quick I doubt it. Those guys never shut up 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:18.880 far less quickly. But Drexler's point was that when he 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:21.160 got to Euston, he had a great center in a 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:24.480 Chemo La Juan, and that's what he always needed to 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:28.400 be a champion. Another great player now He's correct to 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:31.680 an extent, but even then Drexler couldn't escape Jordan's shadow. 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:37.600 Jordan was off playing baseball for the season, came back late, 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:42.280 not enough time to get the Bulls completely right. So 0:15:42.360 --> 0:15:45.640 the Rockets, who won two straight titles will never be 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:49.560 fully appreciated. They were the team that won when the 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:54.920 Bulls were without Jordan's and without being fully Jordanized. While 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:57.120 on that subject, you have to remember how many fingers 0:15:57.320 --> 0:16:00.760 and whose fingers were left ringless by and being around 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:05.960 the fingers of Barkley Malone, Stockton, Ewing Gary Payton were 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:10.200 all directly impacted by Jordan's particularly those of Malone and Stockton, 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:15.360 who lost to the Bulls in both the finals. And 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:18.840 So back to the Olympics in Atlanta, the one that 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:22.360 followed the original Dream team, the US again rolled through. 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:25.600 Their closest game was predictably against Lithuania, and they won 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:29.560 that by twenty two points. But but almost nobody cared. 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:35.200 There just wasn't much. Buzz I wasn't covering basketball that Olympics, 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:37.720 but I was free to go anywhere, and I rarely 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:41.000 even went to watch basketball. I went to the semifinal 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:45.040 against Australia, saw Barkley and he said, jack get me 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:47.960 the funk out of here. But that team was in 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:52.480 a tough position. Remember the right stuff. Immortal movie adapted 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:56.960 from Tom Wolfe's Immortal nonfiction book. When Alan Shepard, the 0:16:57.000 --> 0:17:00.520 first man into space, returns after his fifth teen minute 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:07.680 suborbital successful mission, he's greeted with national acclaim JFK Jackie 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:12.040 the whole bit. Less than three months later, Gus Grissom 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:15.200 goes up on a similar mission and almost nobody cares. 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:19.640 And when the capsule's hatch blows open prematurely and Grissom 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:22.320 is blamed, the nation went out of its way to 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:26.040 ignore the fact that somebody had squeezed himself into what 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:29.160 amounts to a hole in the wall, risk his life 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:32.560 by flying into space and crashing into a cold ocean. 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:37.040 In the movie, Grissom's wife is offended and she should 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:41.160 be by the lack of attention. Where's Jackie this time? 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:44.639 She wants to know did anyone ever get more screwed 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:47.080 than Gus Grissom? By the way, six years after this 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:50.439 Mercury mission, he along with two other astronauts, dies in 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:54.119 a fire during the testing for the Apollo missions. Forgotten 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:57.160 Hero So the second dream team in the third which 0:17:57.160 --> 0:17:59.760 won the gold in Australian two thousand, just couldn't win 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:03.760 even though they want. There wasn't the glamour, the glitz, 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:08.239 the excitement and most of all the preternatural novelty of 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:11.160 seeing all these guys together. And the two thousand team 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:14.920 almost didn't win. It beat Lithuania by only nine points, 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:18.320 then beat them again by only two points in the semifinals. 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:21.359 Lithuania muster three pointer at the buzzer that would have 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:24.400 given them the win, and Dream Team three. By now 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:27.600 nobody was calling them that only won the gold medal 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:30.919 game against France by ten points. That USA team was 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:35.560 composed of solid players Jason Kidd, Ray Allen Vince Carter, Alonso, 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:42.160 Morning Gary Peyton, Kevin Garnett. But they weren't the dream team. 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:47.480 That's the burden they carry. They weren't the dream team. 0:18:47.520 --> 0:18:52.080 And by two thousand and four Athens, even with NBA players, 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:55.000 they won the bronze medal. Coming back, if you could 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:59.120 call at that after an opening to seventy three lost 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:04.240 to Puerto Rico. Let me repeat that, after a seventy 0:19:04.320 --> 0:19:07.560 three loss to Puerto Rico. So the pressure of living 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:09.840 up to the first Dream Team. The only dream Team 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:14.520 wasn't the primary reason that US primacy began to evaporate. 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:19.040 The world had gotten better. See, there had already been 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:22.520 a foundational cast of international players in the NBA by 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:25.080 the turn of the century, a La Joan ric Smits, 0:19:25.080 --> 0:19:29.440 Bloody divach To Kembe Matumbo and earlier my friend Shrunus 0:19:29.480 --> 0:19:33.879 Marshalonis and the late great Drazen Petrovitch who died in 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:37.760 a car accident the year after the Barcelona Games. But 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:42.680 the Dream Team's arrival in Barcelona, and that was the key, 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:45.760 that was the explosion. It was almost like a door 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:50.879 to a different world had been blown open. Why well, 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:55.840 fifteen year old Manu Ginobili was watching the games from Argentina. 0:19:56.640 --> 0:19:59.840 Fourteen year old Dirk now Whiskey, already heading towards seven 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:03.440 tall with a sweet jump shot, was watching from Germany. 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:07.840 Another growing boy, Pau Gasoul, was twelve, watching from Spain, 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:11.159 and he had a younger brother named Mark who was 0:20:11.200 --> 0:20:16.320 also watching. Hato Turkulo was twelve. He was watching from Turkey. 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:19.919 Two eleven year olds were watching from different parts of 0:20:19.960 --> 0:20:23.200 the world. Andre Carolinko was cheering on the unified team 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:26.679 from Russia, and Yao Ming was watching from China. A 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:31.280 giant eight year old named Andrew Bogatt was watching from Australia, 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:35.400 and Australia was already pretty good. A lightning fast ten 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:39.320 year old named Tony Parker was watching from France. And 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:43.440 seven years after the Barcelona games, the Spurs got Genoble 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:46.280 with the fifty seven pick of the draft, and two 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:49.119 years later they got Parker with the final pick of 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:53.680 the first round. They helped the Spurs become the team 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:57.320 of the first decade of this century. You see, so 0:20:57.400 --> 0:20:59.960 many of us saw the lopsided results of the Dream 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:05.199 Team games and saw only slaughters, mismatches, one team so 0:21:05.280 --> 0:21:08.200 far ahead of the other that standard metrics of comparison 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:12.080 didn't even apply. But the players in these other countries, 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:16.280 the real players at least, saw something else. They saw 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:21.440 a game that was demystified. Hey, the Dream Team isn't gods. 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:23.440 They're not ten ft tall, they don't have the speed 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:25.919 of Mercury. They passed the screen away, they find the 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:28.840 open man, they go back door. When it's there, they 0:21:28.920 --> 0:21:30.960 box out. Okay, Barkley never did, but he got the 0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:34.400 rebound anyway. They play the game the same way we do, 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:39.160 only a hundred times better. That's the difference we can 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:44.040 get there. One game, one world. And now there were 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:47.520 a hundred and eight international players a hundred and eight 0:21:48.280 --> 0:21:51.439 on NBA rosters at the beginning of the two thousand, 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:54.520 nineteen twenty season. There have been as many as a 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:59.840 hundred and thirteen, with forty two countries represented forty two. 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:04.000 It was once a novelty. Now it's just standard operating procedure, 0:22:04.760 --> 0:22:07.879 and they're not marginal players. They include some of the 0:22:07.880 --> 0:22:10.280 best players in the game. The Greek freak in Milwaukee, 0:22:10.400 --> 0:22:13.600 Janis andez Copo. That's how he says to pronounce it, 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:18.480 Luka don Chick and Christaps Porcingis in Dallas, Nicolo Jokich 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:23.160 in Denver, Joel Embiad in Philadelphia, Pascal Siakim in Toronto, 0:22:23.600 --> 0:22:28.280 Taco Fall in Boston, and Demontus Sabonis in Indiana. He is, 0:22:28.359 --> 0:22:30.480 by the way, the son of the great Arvidas Sabonis, 0:22:30.480 --> 0:22:34.680 who played for Lithuania in the nine two Olympics, a 0:22:34.760 --> 0:22:36.840 great Samonas story. By the way, he was not present 0:22:36.880 --> 0:22:40.320 for the podium ceremony. The reason was widely believed to 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:45.720 be too much vodka. That was Sabonis. So the great 0:22:45.760 --> 0:22:48.160 irony of the Dream Team was that it started out 0:22:48.200 --> 0:22:51.679 as a celebration of American basketball and ended up as 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:55.959 a launch pad for basketball around the world. And remember 0:22:55.960 --> 0:22:58.879 who was telling us that over thirty years ago, the 0:22:58.920 --> 0:23:03.400 inspector of Beat Good Old Boris Stankovic. The only way 0:23:03.440 --> 0:23:07.720 we grow the game is if everybody plays against each other. 0:23:18.760 --> 0:23:20.560 That was my pleasure to take you on this journey, 0:23:20.560 --> 0:23:23.080 and that's what it felt like. Remember that Mad Men 0:23:23.160 --> 0:23:26.199 episode when Don Draper creates a campaign for the slide 0:23:26.200 --> 0:23:29.520 Projector and he talks about being a time machine that 0:23:29.600 --> 0:23:33.679 makes you ache with nostalgia and etcetera, etcetera. Well, this 0:23:33.800 --> 0:23:37.800 wasn't that. I don't feel nostalgic about the Dream Team. 0:23:37.840 --> 0:23:40.159 I don't want to go back there. But what the 0:23:40.200 --> 0:23:43.320 podcast has given me the opportunity to do, though, is 0:23:43.359 --> 0:23:46.399 remember from time to time how lucky it was to 0:23:46.400 --> 0:23:48.720 be on the journey. There was a place in a 0:23:48.800 --> 0:23:50.879 Dream Team book when I conjured up the idea of 0:23:50.920 --> 0:23:55.760 concentrated greatness being in one place at one time. There's 0:23:55.760 --> 0:23:59.919 a legendary photo taken in by Art Kane of a 0:24:00.040 --> 0:24:03.639 group of jazz musicians in Harlem. The names are Staggering, 0:24:03.840 --> 0:24:07.959 Count Basie, are Blaky, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman, Hawk and Steen, Cruper, 0:24:08.119 --> 0:24:13.640 Charlie Mingus, the Loneous Monk, Jerry Mulligan, Sonny Rollins. Where 0:24:13.680 --> 0:24:16.320 the hell Miles Davis is I don't know, but he 0:24:16.400 --> 0:24:19.159 was around at that time too. I also brought up 0:24:19.160 --> 0:24:22.159 a photo that was in Ronald W. Clark's biography Einstein 0:24:22.280 --> 0:24:25.560 The Life and Times. There at one time was a 0:24:25.640 --> 0:24:28.840 physics symposium attended by most of the great minds of 0:24:28.920 --> 0:24:34.520 the time, Einstein, Madame Marie Curie, Andre Lorenz, Max Planck, 0:24:34.960 --> 0:24:37.800 and the famous French mathematician on the three point Kari, 0:24:38.400 --> 0:24:42.119 whom Einstein considered his loan intellectual equal. I used to 0:24:42.160 --> 0:24:45.800