Speaker 1: This is The Dream Team Tapes, a Diversion Podcasts original
Speaker 1: series in association with I Heart Radio. This is the
Speaker 1: story of the United States Olympic basketball team that won
Speaker 1: gold in Barcelona, known worldwide as the Dream Team. You know,
Speaker 1: I would like to play it a little bit longer,
Speaker 1: maybe a year or two more, but there's just no
Speaker 1: way possible I was going to be able to do that.
Speaker 1: So today I'm retiring, and uh, I'm still gonna be around,
Speaker 1: but not in the capacity I once was. And now
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, we get in a game and
Speaker 1: he he has this scratch. It's an open wound, but
Speaker 1: you know it's a non bloody wound in a control situation,
Speaker 1: and you know, I have to dress it, and I
Speaker 1: have these gloves in my pocket, and I look up
Speaker 1: and all these eyes are on the all his teammates
Speaker 1: and the cameras on me, and I said, I just
Speaker 1: can't do it because it's it would be sending a
Speaker 1: mixed message to everything. Man. That stuff start happening almost
Speaker 1: from the moment the Dream Team plane touched back in
Speaker 1: the United States. The first voice you heard was that
Speaker 1: of Larry Bird. The second voice was that of Gary VT.
Speaker 1: The long time, much respected trainer of the Los Angeles Lakers.
Speaker 1: We're going to get to that in a second, but
Speaker 1: let's go back to Bird. The last game in which
Speaker 1: he ever played was not against his ancient and forever rivals,
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles Lakers, or the seventies sixers or the Knicks.
Speaker 1: It was against Croatia and the gold medal game of
Speaker 1: the Olympics. Bird hardly played. He had zero points, zero assists,
Speaker 1: and to rebounds. His back had given out completely. He
Speaker 1: flew home on the team's charter plane in a reclined position,
Speaker 1: and a couple of days later he said goodbye, not
Speaker 1: to basketball altogether. He became an advisor, a team president
Speaker 1: Dave Gabbett, and later a successful coach in execut with
Speaker 1: the Indiana Pacers, but he did say goodbye to his
Speaker 1: immortal playing career now Gary Vedi, as I said, the
Speaker 1: Lakers trainer Magic Johnson had come triumphantly home from Barcelona
Speaker 1: clutching a gold medal, his HIV apparently in the rear
Speaker 1: view mirror, but it wasn't. The comment from Karl Malone,
Speaker 1: which we'll talk about later, followed by this preseason game
Speaker 1: in Charlotte and back it came, and because of that,
Speaker 1: Magic Johnson followed his good friend Bird out the door.
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to episode eight, the final episode of
Speaker 1: the Dream Team tapes. I'm Jack McCallum. The story has
Speaker 1: taken lots of twists and turns, but in the immediate
Speaker 1: aftermath of the Barcelona glory, this one was a pronounced dip.
Speaker 1: Bird had decided to retire even before he went to Barcelona,
Speaker 1: but according to him, he hadn't even told his wife,
Speaker 1: so his retirement press conference was sudden, but not really shocking.
Speaker 1: It was hard to realize how long Bird had been playing,
Speaker 1: not in top physical shape. His back had started to
Speaker 1: go out as long ago as the last time his
Speaker 1: Celtics had won the title. Remember that although Larry and
Speaker 1: Magic had come into the league together, Bird was more
Speaker 1: than three years older than Johnson. We would miss him,
Speaker 1: but it was time. So at the point when he left,
Speaker 1: there had been no Lebron, no Kobe, no Tim Duncan,
Speaker 1: no Shack. So where would Bird rank? Top five? That
Speaker 1: would be a stretch. Top ten absolutely. Meanwhile, Magic, who
Speaker 1: had turned thirty three dority Olympics, was still, as he
Speaker 1: saw it, a force. He was rare to go for
Speaker 1: the season, still believing wrongly. I might add that the
Speaker 1: Lakers could challenge Jordan's bulls. And then and then there
Speaker 1: was this preseason game between them alone and Stockton Jazz
Speaker 1: and the New York Knicks. Magic wasn't even involved. He
Speaker 1: wasn't there. Harvey Araton, the Hall of Fame writer from
Speaker 1: the New York Times, wandered over to talk to Karl Malone,
Speaker 1: and suddenly the mailman started to talk about Magic and
Speaker 1: what he perceived as unspoken fears about playing against someone
Speaker 1: with HIV. This is from Harvey's story. Look at this,
Speaker 1: scabs and cuts all over me, said Malone. He pressed
Speaker 1: a finger to a small pinkish hole on his thigh
Speaker 1: that was developing into a scab. I get these every night,
Speaker 1: every game, he said. They can't tell you that you're
Speaker 1: not at risk, and you can't tell me there's one
Speaker 1: guy in the NBA who hasn't thought about it. Now,
Speaker 1: where did that come from? Why did it come up suddenly?
Speaker 1: Was he really voicing widespread concerns years later? It remains
Speaker 1: a mystery. I couldn't get Malone to talk about it
Speaker 1: during our long interview for my Dream Team book, but
Speaker 1: it has been cleared throughout that Malone just didn't like
Speaker 1: the showman side of Irvin Magic Johnson, and during our interview,
Speaker 1: Carl kept making several references to people he thought were real. Pointedly,
Speaker 1: Magic was not one of them. Barkley was one of
Speaker 1: those real guys, and these two guys were another. I've
Speaker 1: seen people that it's kind of different when the cameras.
Speaker 1: You know, some people when the camera's one and depend
Speaker 1: on who it is for consaying, that's why I thought
Speaker 1: the world and that's why Stott was saying. Chris Mother
Speaker 1: and Conor was one of my favorite. Magic says that
Speaker 1: he and Malone never talked about it when they got back,
Speaker 1: never talked about it at all over the course of
Speaker 1: now going on twenty seven years. Only Carl knows whether
Speaker 1: his personal resentment of Magic was the reason he made
Speaker 1: the comment, or was he genuinely frightened about HIV, despite
Speaker 1: the fact that he had spent much of the summer
Speaker 1: in Magic's company. I just don't know, but it's worth
Speaker 1: hearing all of what Magic said when I asked him
Speaker 1: about it in two thousand and eleven. We did a
Speaker 1: great job of educating not just to play it, but
Speaker 1: the world because the world was not educated and we
Speaker 1: stely think about all the misinformation that was out there.
Speaker 1: So I had to be the person who could now, okay,
Speaker 1: let me give you the right information. Let me education.
Speaker 1: And then the Olympics actually gave me the platform to
Speaker 1: show the world that a guy what HIV could still
Speaker 1: play play at a high level and he wasn't going
Speaker 1: to get HIV by playing against me. So when carl
Speaker 1: want to come back, and he said that, that's kind
Speaker 1: of set what I had did, and the Olympics said
Speaker 1: it back zones that now I got more work to do.
Speaker 1: But the fatal blow to Magic's return were the optics
Speaker 1: from that night in Charlotte that Gary VD was talking
Speaker 1: about the pressure got to be too much for him.
Speaker 1: It was one of those moments that you understand the
Speaker 1: power of image. Metaphorically speaking. The whole world was watching
Speaker 1: Gary VD treat Magic Johnson's cut without gloves. Magic realized
Speaker 1: that almost right away he saw the uproar and uncomfortable
Speaker 1: nous it caused, and heng it up for the second time.
Speaker 1: Now there would be a third after an abbreviated return,
Speaker 1: but for all intents and purposes, Magic went out with
Speaker 1: the man he came in with bird. Now a word
Speaker 1: about Gary VT, the Lakers trainer, A wonderful man. He
Speaker 1: is in anyone's Hall of fame a trainers, but there
Speaker 1: are others like him in the NBA. You could hear
Speaker 1: the emotion in Gary's voice during that radio interview. Trainers
Speaker 1: get extremely close to players and they carry secrets to
Speaker 1: the grave, and I've known very few that will betray confidences.
Speaker 1: I should know. I've tried. What else was going on
Speaker 1: after Barcelona, Well, let's go to Jordan's He led the
Speaker 1: Bulls to their third straight championship and I can still
Speaker 1: see him celebrating with his father in the Bulls locker
Speaker 1: room in Phoenix. Five weeks later, James R. Jordan's Sr.
Speaker 1: Was found murdered in his car, and a few months
Speaker 1: after that October six, I'm very solid with my decision
Speaker 1: of not to play the game of basketball name b A.
Speaker 1: The reason being, I've heard a lot of different speculations
Speaker 1: about my reasons for not playing, but I've always stressed
Speaker 1: to people that have known me and the media that
Speaker 1: has followed me that when I lose the sense of
Speaker 1: motivation and the sense of to prove something as a
Speaker 1: basketball player. It's time for me to move away from
Speaker 1: the game of basketball. For whatever reason, Michael always loved
Speaker 1: to say the game of basketball. He was like those
Speaker 1: football coaches and commentators who feel compelled to say football
Speaker 1: all the time. We moved the football real well, we're
Speaker 1: a good football team right now. We just got to
Speaker 1: become a better football team. Jordan loved to say the
Speaker 1: game of basketball. The Jordan's story has been told endlessly,
Speaker 1: so I won't tell it again in detail. Michael went
Speaker 1: on to minor league baseball. Questions dogged him about whether
Speaker 1: or not his gambling debts or something else was behind
Speaker 1: his father's murder. They continue today, but I don't believe them.
Speaker 1: And the league going into the season, found itself without
Speaker 1: Michael Magic Larry. I'm trying to think of something comparable. Hey,
Speaker 1: let's go see the Beatles. But listen, John, Paul and
Speaker 1: George are all out, but Ringo will still be there
Speaker 1: on drums. And the NBA was also without Jack McCallum.
Speaker 1: I know the loss wasn't quite on a par with
Speaker 1: Jordan's Magic and Bird, but something felt empty. How could
Speaker 1: it get any better than covering the league during its
Speaker 1: renaissance and that's what I had done. The last of
Speaker 1: dr Ja, the best of Magic and Bird, the brilliantly
Speaker 1: tough bad boy Pistons, the creation of All Star Weekend,
Speaker 1: and the Duncan three point contests. Really good players who
Speaker 1: didn't make the Dream Team, like James Worthy, Dominique Wilkins,
Speaker 1: Isaiah Thomas. He had the ascendancy of Jordan's and then
Speaker 1: you had the dream Team. So I left after the
Speaker 1: any three season, did some editing, covered college basketball for
Speaker 1: a year general stuff, and did return to the NBA
Speaker 1: until early in the two thousand's, just in time to
Speaker 1: see Jordan's swansong with the Washington Wizards. Now, after this
Speaker 1: first dream team, nobody could figure out if the term
Speaker 1: dream team could be used again. The US Olympic basketball
Speaker 1: team was called in some quarters dream team too, but
Speaker 1: in other quarters, how about this was a nightmare. That
Speaker 1: was Barkley who played on the team, as did Pippin
Speaker 1: the loan, Robinson and Stockton. But it was kind of
Speaker 1: an f and nightmare. It had the same unmerciful on
Speaker 1: court beatings of without the charm and well maturity of
Speaker 1: that first team. Now, in a way it was inevitable.
Speaker 1: It was like when you and your partner were young
Speaker 1: and rented a cabin in the woods, and the weather
Speaker 1: was perfect, and the cabin was quaint, and you cook
Speaker 1: scrambled eggs in an old cast iron pan, and you
Speaker 1: made love under a blanket on the couch. And then
Speaker 1: you went back four years later and replicated that rained
Speaker 1: every day, The cabin roof leaked, the sex blanket was
Speaker 1: wet and moldy, and by the end of the weekend
Speaker 1: you're throwing the eggs at each other. By the way,
Speaker 1: this absolutely never happened to me. More on Dream Team too, No,
Speaker 1: I can't call it that, but more on that in
Speaker 1: a minute. In the immediate aftermath of the first Dream Team,
Speaker 1: the biggest winner was probably Barkley. He went to Phoenix,
Speaker 1: won an MVP award, carried his team to the finals,
Speaker 1: where of course he was disposed of by Jordan's. He
Speaker 1: talked endlessly as to others like Pippin, David Robinson and
Speaker 1: Chris Mullen about how the experience had made him better,
Speaker 1: gave him ideas about leadership the kind showed by Magic
Speaker 1: and Michael, and commitment the kind showed by Karl Malone.
Speaker 1: Was during that Championship series, of Barkley told his daughter Christiana, Honey,
Speaker 1: no matter how good I am and I believe I'm
Speaker 1: the second best player in the league, there's no way
Speaker 1: I'm better than that some bitch in Chicago. Another player
Speaker 1: to make out well in the aftermath of the Dream
Speaker 1: Team was David Robinson. He didn't win a championship right away.
Speaker 1: That wouldn't come until the strike the late season of
Speaker 1: and again in two thousand three, and it didn't come
Speaker 1: at all until he got Tim Duncan as a running mate.
Speaker 1: In fact, one of the whispers about the Admiral was
Speaker 1: that he never would have won without Tim. But that's
Speaker 1: another story. But in the wake of the Dream Team,
Speaker 1: Robinson clearly became a very impactful center, the very ideal
Speaker 1: of the mobile, athletic, versatile center who was still a center,
Speaker 1: not a seven foot stretch for but back to the
Speaker 1: basket pivot man. On on the evening of one of
Speaker 1: the most amazing statistical anomalies in the history of the
Speaker 1: NBA occurred in a late season game against the Los
Speaker 1: Angeles Clippers. San Antonio's David Robinson put up seventy one
Speaker 1: points at that time, the seventh highest single game total
Speaker 1: in the history of the NBA, the same point total
Speaker 1: that Elgin Baylor had scored for the Los Angeles Lakers
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty five. Of the others came from Will
Speaker 1: Chamberlain and the sixth from David Thompson. Parenthetical alert. Twelve
Speaker 1: years after the Admiral's explosion, the late great Kobe Bryant,
Speaker 1: as many of you remember, got eighty one against the
Speaker 1: Toronto Raptors. Now, what was going on in that Robinson came. Well,
Speaker 1: he had been battling Shaquille O'Neil for the scoring title.
Speaker 1: But those were long ago days, huh, when Sentators actually
Speaker 1: scored a lot of points, and this outburst gave David
Speaker 1: the title. He talks about the guidance he got that
Speaker 1: night from John Lucas, who was in the Spurs coach. Yes,
Speaker 1: there was a time before Gregg Popovich coached the Spurs.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make sure every shot and I was like,
Speaker 1: are you crazy? Like you know, the last thing I
Speaker 1: want to do is go out there and try to
Speaker 1: do something like that. Man, that's classic Robinson. I don't
Speaker 1: want to take every shot. Coach. Remember what Jordan's said
Speaker 1: about him. Basketball wasn't in David's DNA. I wonder what
Speaker 1: Robinson would have been like had he had the mentality
Speaker 1: to get seventy one every night. Another Dream Teamer who
Speaker 1: made out well was Clyde Drexler, who was traded from
Speaker 1: Portland to Houston halfway through season and his Rockets won
Speaker 1: the championship. As Clyde saw it, this finally provided a
Speaker 1: comeback line to all the crap he took from the
Speaker 1: Dream Team in the media about getting torched by Jordan's
Speaker 1: and being on teams that weren't very smart. This is
Speaker 1: Clyde talking about the comeback he used when the alpha
Speaker 1: male antagonists primarily Jordan and Magic, used to get on
Speaker 1: his ass and let's side of I couldn't help laughing
Speaker 1: when I interviewed Clyde. His answer to almost every question
Speaker 1: was some version of how much he was disrespected. And
Speaker 1: as far as shutting up Magic and Bird and Jordan's
Speaker 1: real quick I doubt it. Those guys never shut up
Speaker 1: far less quickly. But Drexler's point was that when he
Speaker 1: got to Euston, he had a great center in a
Speaker 1: Chemo La Juan, and that's what he always needed to
Speaker 1: be a champion. Another great player now He's correct to
Speaker 1: an extent, but even then Drexler couldn't escape Jordan's shadow.
Speaker 1: Jordan was off playing baseball for the season, came back late,
Speaker 1: not enough time to get the Bulls completely right. So
Speaker 1: the Rockets, who won two straight titles will never be
Speaker 1: fully appreciated. They were the team that won when the
Speaker 1: Bulls were without Jordan's and without being fully Jordanized. While
Speaker 1: on that subject, you have to remember how many fingers
Speaker 1: and whose fingers were left ringless by and being around
Speaker 1: the fingers of Barkley Malone, Stockton, Ewing Gary Payton were
Speaker 1: all directly impacted by Jordan's particularly those of Malone and Stockton,
Speaker 1: who lost to the Bulls in both the finals. And
Speaker 1: So back to the Olympics in Atlanta, the one that
Speaker 1: followed the original Dream team, the US again rolled through.
Speaker 1: Their closest game was predictably against Lithuania, and they won
Speaker 1: that by twenty two points. But but almost nobody cared.
Speaker 1: There just wasn't much. Buzz I wasn't covering basketball that Olympics,
Speaker 1: but I was free to go anywhere, and I rarely
Speaker 1: even went to watch basketball. I went to the semifinal
Speaker 1: against Australia, saw Barkley and he said, jack get me
Speaker 1: the funk out of here. But that team was in
Speaker 1: a tough position. Remember the right stuff. Immortal movie adapted
Speaker 1: from Tom Wolfe's Immortal nonfiction book. When Alan Shepard, the
Speaker 1: first man into space, returns after his fifth teen minute
Speaker 1: suborbital successful mission, he's greeted with national acclaim JFK Jackie
Speaker 1: the whole bit. Less than three months later, Gus Grissom
Speaker 1: goes up on a similar mission and almost nobody cares.
Speaker 1: And when the capsule's hatch blows open prematurely and Grissom
Speaker 1: is blamed, the nation went out of its way to
Speaker 1: ignore the fact that somebody had squeezed himself into what
Speaker 1: amounts to a hole in the wall, risk his life
Speaker 1: by flying into space and crashing into a cold ocean.
Speaker 1: In the movie, Grissom's wife is offended and she should
Speaker 1: be by the lack of attention. Where's Jackie this time?
Speaker 1: She wants to know did anyone ever get more screwed
Speaker 1: than Gus Grissom? By the way, six years after this
Speaker 1: Mercury mission, he along with two other astronauts, dies in
Speaker 1: a fire during the testing for the Apollo missions. Forgotten
Speaker 1: Hero So the second dream team in the third which
Speaker 1: won the gold in Australian two thousand, just couldn't win
Speaker 1: even though they want. There wasn't the glamour, the glitz,
Speaker 1: the excitement and most of all the preternatural novelty of
Speaker 1: seeing all these guys together. And the two thousand team
Speaker 1: almost didn't win. It beat Lithuania by only nine points,
Speaker 1: then beat them again by only two points in the semifinals.
Speaker 1: Lithuania muster three pointer at the buzzer that would have
Speaker 1: given them the win, and Dream Team three. By now
Speaker 1: nobody was calling them that only won the gold medal
Speaker 1: game against France by ten points. That USA team was
Speaker 1: composed of solid players Jason Kidd, Ray Allen Vince Carter, Alonso,
Speaker 1: Morning Gary Peyton, Kevin Garnett. But they weren't the dream team.
Speaker 1: That's the burden they carry. They weren't the dream team.
Speaker 1: And by two thousand and four Athens, even with NBA players,
Speaker 1: they won the bronze medal. Coming back, if you could
Speaker 1: call at that after an opening to seventy three lost
Speaker 1: to Puerto Rico. Let me repeat that, after a seventy
Speaker 1: three loss to Puerto Rico. So the pressure of living
Speaker 1: up to the first Dream Team. The only dream Team
Speaker 1: wasn't the primary reason that US primacy began to evaporate.
Speaker 1: The world had gotten better. See, there had already been
Speaker 1: a foundational cast of international players in the NBA by
Speaker 1: the turn of the century, a La Joan ric Smits,
Speaker 1: Bloody divach To Kembe Matumbo and earlier my friend Shrunus
Speaker 1: Marshalonis and the late great Drazen Petrovitch who died in
Speaker 1: a car accident the year after the Barcelona Games. But
Speaker 1: the Dream Team's arrival in Barcelona, and that was the key,
Speaker 1: that was the explosion. It was almost like a door
Speaker 1: to a different world had been blown open. Why well,
Speaker 1: fifteen year old Manu Ginobili was watching the games from Argentina.
Speaker 1: Fourteen year old Dirk now Whiskey, already heading towards seven
Speaker 1: tall with a sweet jump shot, was watching from Germany.
Speaker 1: Another growing boy, Pau Gasoul, was twelve, watching from Spain,
Speaker 1: and he had a younger brother named Mark who was
Speaker 1: also watching. Hato Turkulo was twelve. He was watching from Turkey.
Speaker 1: Two eleven year olds were watching from different parts of
Speaker 1: the world. Andre Carolinko was cheering on the unified team
Speaker 1: from Russia, and Yao Ming was watching from China. A
Speaker 1: giant eight year old named Andrew Bogatt was watching from Australia,
Speaker 1: and Australia was already pretty good. A lightning fast ten
Speaker 1: year old named Tony Parker was watching from France. And
Speaker 1: seven years after the Barcelona games, the Spurs got Genoble
Speaker 1: with the fifty seven pick of the draft, and two
Speaker 1: years later they got Parker with the final pick of
Speaker 1: the first round. They helped the Spurs become the team
Speaker 1: of the first decade of this century. You see, so
Speaker 1: many of us saw the lopsided results of the Dream
Speaker 1: Team games and saw only slaughters, mismatches, one team so
Speaker 1: far ahead of the other that standard metrics of comparison
Speaker 1: didn't even apply. But the players in these other countries,
Speaker 1: the real players at least, saw something else. They saw
Speaker 1: a game that was demystified. Hey, the Dream Team isn't gods.
Speaker 1: They're not ten ft tall, they don't have the speed
Speaker 1: of Mercury. They passed the screen away, they find the
Speaker 1: open man, they go back door. When it's there, they
Speaker 1: box out. Okay, Barkley never did, but he got the
Speaker 1: rebound anyway. They play the game the same way we do,
Speaker 1: only a hundred times better. That's the difference we can
Speaker 1: get there. One game, one world. And now there were
Speaker 1: a hundred and eight international players a hundred and eight
Speaker 1: on NBA rosters at the beginning of the two thousand,
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty season. There have been as many as a
Speaker 1: hundred and thirteen, with forty two countries represented forty two.
Speaker 1: It was once a novelty. Now it's just standard operating procedure,
Speaker 1: and they're not marginal players. They include some of the
Speaker 1: best players in the game. The Greek freak in Milwaukee,
Speaker 1: Janis andez Copo. That's how he says to pronounce it,
Speaker 1: Luka don Chick and Christaps Porcingis in Dallas, Nicolo Jokich
Speaker 1: in Denver, Joel Embiad in Philadelphia, Pascal Siakim in Toronto,
Speaker 1: Taco Fall in Boston, and Demontus Sabonis in Indiana. He is,
Speaker 1: by the way, the son of the great Arvidas Sabonis,
Speaker 1: who played for Lithuania in the nine two Olympics, a
Speaker 1: great Samonas story. By the way, he was not present
Speaker 1: for the podium ceremony. The reason was widely believed to
Speaker 1: be too much vodka. That was Sabonis. So the great
Speaker 1: irony of the Dream Team was that it started out
Speaker 1: as a celebration of American basketball and ended up as
Speaker 1: a launch pad for basketball around the world. And remember
Speaker 1: who was telling us that over thirty years ago, the
Speaker 1: inspector of Beat Good Old Boris Stankovic. The only way
Speaker 1: we grow the game is if everybody plays against each other.
Speaker 1: That was my pleasure to take you on this journey,
Speaker 1: and that's what it felt like. Remember that Mad Men
Speaker 1: episode when Don Draper creates a campaign for the slide
Speaker 1: Projector and he talks about being a time machine that
Speaker 1: makes you ache with nostalgia and etcetera, etcetera. Well, this
Speaker 1: wasn't that. I don't feel nostalgic about the Dream Team.
Speaker 1: I don't want to go back there. But what the
Speaker 1: podcast has given me the opportunity to do, though, is
Speaker 1: remember from time to time how lucky it was to
Speaker 1: be on the journey. There was a place in a
Speaker 1: Dream Team book when I conjured up the idea of
Speaker 1: concentrated greatness being in one place at one time. There's
Speaker 1: a legendary photo taken in by Art Kane of a
Speaker 1: group of jazz musicians in Harlem. The names are Staggering,
Speaker 1: Count Basie, are Blaky, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman, Hawk and Steen, Cruper,
Speaker 1: Charlie Mingus, the Loneous Monk, Jerry Mulligan, Sonny Rollins. Where
Speaker 1: the hell Miles Davis is I don't know, but he
Speaker 1: was around at that time too. I also brought up
Speaker 1: a photo that was in Ronald W. Clark's biography Einstein
Speaker 1: The Life and Times. There at one time was a
Speaker 1: physics symposium attended by most of the great minds of
Speaker 1: the time, Einstein, Madame Marie Curie, Andre Lorenz, Max Planck,
Speaker 1: and the famous French mathematician on the three point Kari,
Speaker 1: whom Einstein considered his loan intellectual equal. I used to
Speaker 1: stare at it, fascinated that all those visionary thinkers were
Speaker 1: gathered together at one time, a fortuitous accident of history.
Speaker 1: No basketball inc jazz, well, to a certain extent, it is,
Speaker 1: but it certainly ain't physics. But it was still all
Speaker 1: that concentration of greatness, a delicious acts of timing. That
Speaker 1: was a dream team. I'll leave you with two sound bites.
Speaker 1: The first is from John Stockton. I can't think of
Speaker 1: anyone less likely to talk about basketball, heaven and poetry
Speaker 1: and stock Well, that's why I mean, all the way
Speaker 1: up to drinking the way of absolutely immediately upon the
Speaker 1: body language of him cutting to the slot, the other
Speaker 1: guys were making reciprocal moves or coordinating news and it was.
Speaker 1: He was a no nonsense, straight ahead thinker who never
Speaker 1: got dewy eyed about anything anything I saw at least,
Speaker 1: But this is what playing on his team meant to him.
Speaker 1: These guys, you see, formed their basketball character before the
Speaker 1: age of height. They were hooped children of the sixties
Speaker 1: and seventies, not the nineties and the aughts, when you
Speaker 1: could make a king's ransom for being mediocre, largely because
Speaker 1: of what the Dream Team created. Sure, richest endorsements, fame
Speaker 1: glory followed the Dream Team, but that is not what
Speaker 1: was in their DNA. I'm not saying they were the
Speaker 1: last generation to come up that way, though Barkley says it,
Speaker 1: and they weren't the last players to play for the
Speaker 1: love of the game, but basketball basketball only playing the
Speaker 1: game the right way, that was what made them. The
Speaker 1: final bite is from Bird, and you heard it much
Speaker 1: earlier in the podcast, but it's worth repeating Larry Bird,
Speaker 1: Grandpa Larry, the oldest player on the Dream Team, whose
Speaker 1: hoop chops were formed in a kind of darkness on
Speaker 1: the edge of town atmosphere. As a lower class kid
Speaker 1: from a berg that quite literally sounds like it conjures
Speaker 1: up hard times French lique. Bird's last regular season game
Speaker 1: was at Richfield Coliseum in suburban Cleveland. Bird describes why
Speaker 1: he loved to play there. The second game I played
Speaker 1: an NBA, we played Ritchfield. We pulled up there and
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe See It's what I always dreamed, freaking
Speaker 1: basketball building into color Field. Bird would have been happy
Speaker 1: playing anywhere. It just turned out that his final game
Speaker 1: was in Barcelona, Spain, on the biggest stage in the world,
Speaker 1: on the best team ever put together. This has been
Speaker 1: great for me and I hope you've enjoyed it too.
Speaker 1: Dream Team the book is still available. I'm Jack McCallum,
Speaker 1: and thanks for listening. If you enjoyed The Dream Team Tapes,
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Speaker 1: The Dream Team Tapes is written and hosted by Jack McCallum.
Speaker 1: Executive producers Mark Francis and Scott Waxman. Executive producer for
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Speaker 1: Tapes is a Diversion Podcasts original series in association with
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