So [in the summer of 1993], we all met in La Jolla, California, and started talking about team needs. WILKINS: Joe and I had to talk to the guys and say, "OK, let's tone it down. Some of the younger guys didn't quite understand etiquette. WILKINS: The change had begun. Although the fans from around the world were interested in every player on the Dream Team, the man everyone was looking… The league was by no means floundering or in peril, but it was definitely in transition. He was an animated guy, a creative guy. Newton said he wanted "with character, not characters" perhaps in backlash to Dream Team II— bum-rushed the competition again. It took the NBA and USA Basketball—led by Colangelo, Coach K and recommitted players—six years to reassert world dominance. I like to use the word "generational" because I know what that implies. Dream Team: Charles Barkley, Larry Bird, Clyde Drexler, Patrick Ewing, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Christian Laettner, Karl Malone, Chris Mullin, Scottie Pippen, David Robinson and John Stockton. Michael Jordan Larry Bird Magic Johnson Dream Team USA One Signed Photo Autograph Reprint Poster PixelPlusStudio. Zo was reared by John Thompson's "Hoya Paranoia"; L.J. Team and Opponent Stats Table; Team G MP FG FGA FG% 3P 3PA 3P% 2P 2PA 2P% FT FTA FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS; Team: 8: 88.1: Opp: 8: 83.5 That was just the way we did it. What exactly does that mean? And there was a generational shift around then. TOOLEY: We certainly looked at other candidates, but Nellie sort of rose to the surface. ", In Ryan's Globe column, Kevin Johnson, who was tasked with staying in front of Bazarevich, the quick Russian guard, was quoted as predicting a possible USA loss by "as early as 2000. Every Team USA player in the Dream Team era, ranked Andrew Lynch @andrewlynch Oct 20, 2016 at 4:40p ET Twenty years ago, the NBA was coming off the first full season without Michael Jordan. 1998 was the summer of the NBA lockout, so it didn't feature any of the league's players. I know that my teammates all felt that way, too. But he didn't have to use all those freaky lineups because now he actually had traditional players at their positions, and it freed him up coach in a more traditional sense. The World Championships, especially to the European teams, have always been considered more important than the Olympics. The next game, Team USA beat China 132-77, and the cakewalk was on. 27, 1992 with result, scoring by period and players' stats. Where the first Dream Team had an aura, the second had mostly attitude. I certainly enjoyed the international competition but may have enjoyed the day-in, day-out battles against my teammates even more. Team and Opponent Stats Table; Team G MP FG FGA FG% 3P 3PA 3P% 2P 2PA 2P% FT FTA FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS; Team: 8: 88.1: Opp: 8: 83.5 There was no international incident. The squad opened the tournament against Spain. They wanted to see what we were gonna do and how we would represent our country. Those guys were bigger than me, so they had an advantage. The 1996 Olympic team—a team then-USA Basketball President C.M. MILLER: The international three was nothing for us. We were drafted together. NELSON: I didn't have any roster input. With that backdrop, the NBA and USA Basketball faced the task of sending a team to Toronto to play in the FIBA World Championships. But it was playful in the right way because when the games started, boy, was he dominant. Because the 1992 dream team was, in my opinion, the best team ever assembled, I believe they would have beaten both the 1996 and 2008 … What follows are their memories, as told to Vincent Thomas. They'd be banging and really going after each other. It was like this in every practice. I didn't really have any conversations with [the league or USA Basketball] in advance of them choosing me. When you follow a team full of legends, no matter what, you probably won't get your just due. Filling out the original 64-team bracket -- with the American League on one side and the National League on the other -- were two entries from each franchise, along with three Negro League teams (the 1931 Homestead Grays, 1942 Kansas City Monarchs and 1935 Pittsburgh Crawfords) and the 1994 Montreal Expos. By 2000, the world had indeed began to catch up, with the U.S. barely beating Lithuania (85-83) in the semifinal and then narrowly (for them) beating France, 85-75. So without the public spectacle that is the Olympics and with international competition still years away from gaining any real significance for the American players, the highlight of the tournament for almost all the Team USA players involved were the practices. Our editors update and regularly refine this enormous body of information to bring you reliable information. It was pretty clear he was the guy. The irony is that heading into international competition, Nellie wouldn't have much use for "Nellie Ball"—no need to trot out a KJ-Price-Miller-Dumars-Wilkins lineup to throw his competition off guard. ALONZO MOURNING (Charlotte Hornets, center, 24): I thought I should have been the college player on the '92 team, truthfully. What is often … Derrick Coleman was a do-it-all big man who could get you with a turnaround from the block or rain lefty three-pointers. Two members of the Fab Five (Jalen Rose and Chris Webber) grew up in Detroit getting a lot of their bravado from players a couple of years their senior like Coleman and Steve Smith. and they do something about it. News on Messi, Coutinho, Suárez and Piqué. PRICE: Reggie, Dan and I did have some epic shooting battles after practice. For most of my career, there was a certain type of celebration that we wouldn't get into, the popping your jerseys after dunks and all that, and I think the younger guys got into a little too much of that. MILLER: If we're being honest, in terms of range, it was Dan. Head Coach: Nicki Collen (Marquette) Assistant Coach: Mike Petersen (Northwest Christian College) Assistant Coach: Darius Taylor (Michigan) Athletic Trainer: Natalie Trotter Video Coordinator and Scouting Director: Sydney Durrah Director of Operations: Kyra Vidas Strength & Conditioning Coach: Jamal Baptiste The 1996 “Dream Team III” – If you’re wondering what happened to “Dream Team II,” they … What was clear is that some of the younger players had approached the tournament less beholden to the ambassador mission of the original Dream Team. He kept everyone committed, but loose, too. It was wrong from very beginning—before the first dribble or shot. PRINT. • Printable Roster (PDF): 2020 USA Basketball Men's National Team Roster || 2019 USA Basketball Men's World Cup Team Roster U.S. Men's Olympic Team Finalists Roster Athletes And another important thing I took away was that it was much easier to have Shaq on your team than as your opponent. He won Rookie of the Year, I was runner-up even though I felt like we should have shared the honor with me getting my team into the playoffs. It was a very special feeling to get that gold medal around your neck. I don't think they liked being compared, to be honest. TOOLEY: We—USA Basketball—were the ones that decided to dub the new team "Dream Team II." A collection of current stars and legends are set to square off in the ultimate competition for baseball supremacy -- the MLB Dream Bracket presented by DraftKing s, a best-of-seven simulation featuring all-time teams for each of the 30 Major League franchises, as well as teams consisting of standouts from the Negro Leagues and 25-and-under stars from today's game. The official site of the National Basketball Association. MILLER: A lot of those European teams played zone. And I'd add Derrick to those battles, too. Let's be respectful." And we kind of put the second team in an unfair position. But when it came to Dream Team II, I was just coming off a dream rookie season where I hit that series-winner against the Celtics, and I knew this team was going to have some younger guys. The biggest difference between the two teams is the fact that the 1996 team’s best pl… Larry Johnson was at the height of his post-UNLV "Grandmama" powers, his generation's Charles Barkley. But, look, no one even knew what the World Championships were. MILLER: Nellie was known for doing a lot of switching and coming out with these bastard lineups. NELSON: Those two were still young, and I mean, they just went at it. Meanwhile, in the timeline of Dream Teams and Redeem Teams and whatnot, the 1994 squad is sometimes overlooked. I had the best guards in the tournament, the best shooters in the tournament—and definitely the best big men. MILLER: Nellie allowed us to be our own individual selves. What resulted was some of the introductory glimpses into a cultural aesthetic that would define the late '90s and early '00s NBA: snarling after rebounds and dunks, hanging on the rims for punctuation (Kemp infamously grabbed his crotch after one dunk, something he had done many times before in NBA games but seemed untoward in the diplomatic context of international play), chest-bumping, trash-talking. FIBA World Championship Basketball 1994 Dream Team II Roster: But the powers that be were so swept up with the success of the original that they tried to push terminology that this was a superteam. But I knew the competition's big men couldn't keep up with our bigs, so I wanted to make the power forward the "runner." Sports Quiz / USA Men's Basketball 'Dream Team 2' Roster Random Sports or Basketball Quiz Can you name the Dream Team Roster? JOHNSON: What I took away from the experience as a whole was how special it is to represent your country on the international stage. The Pacers were entering our stage of being consistent contenders, the All-Star berths were about to pick up for me...I was entering my wheelhouse. First hand information on the Barça football first team. We had kind of identified who we wanted. A year prior to his selection, Nelson had won the 1992 Coach of the Year award. InterBasket > profiles > Dream Team: InterBasket > Player Profiles > The Dream Team, Usa > talk 1992 Dream Team DVDs and Videos Interbasket has the 1992 Dream Team games on DVD, click here to see how you can get your hands on them or you may send an email to dream (at) interbasket.net Ibn Notes: I loved the Dream Team concept when it first came out.Most … I was just coming off that playoff run against the Knicks. Russian point guard Sergei Bazarevich told Newsday after the gold-medal loss that he could see a team dethroning the USA in 10 years. A few guys still wanted to show off a little bit. What do the players remember? The roster featured perennial All-Stars, young cats at the beginning of Hall of Fame careers and vets nearing the end of theirs. Mourning and Shaquille O'Neal were the young interior beasts. It was headed by C.M. Speaking of the coaching staff, despite higher profile candidates with championship pedigrees (like Pat Riley or Phil Jackson), Golden State Warriors coach Don Nelson got the call. Continuing the dominance displayed in Barcelona by the 1992 USA Olympic Team (Dream Team I), USA Basketball's 1994 Men's World Championship of Basketball Team dominated its opponents by an average of 37.7 points a game and rolled to the 1994 FIBA World Championship gold medal. Team Home Page. Not sure about the geography of the middle east? Dream Team II. We didn't have a pool of players back then like we do now—not much continuity, which we know now is big. After riding a decade-plus Michael-Magic-Larry ascension, the league was suddenly depicted by some as having lost its positive momentum, as captured by this memorable Sports Illustrated cover with the headline, "Why the NHL's Hot and the NBA's Not.". 43.8: The Dream Team won eight games at the 1992 Summer Olympics by an average of 43.8 points per game. A hallmark of those Warriors squads was that they played what would become known as "Nellie Ball," a blitzkrieg version of basketball that eschewed true centers and big men in favor of highly skilled perimeter players (Hardaway, Chris Mullin, Sarunas Marciulionis, Latrell Sprewell, Billy Owens, etc. Shawn and I had a talk after that one celebration of his. There weren't many heated discussions at all. Dream Team II: Derrick Coleman, Joe Dumars, Kevin Johnson, Larry Johnson, Shawn Kemp, Dan Majerle, Reggie Miller, Alonzo Mourning, Shaquille O'Neal, Mark Price, Steve Smith and Dominique Wilkins. MORE: Did Michael Jordan really block Isiah Thomas from making 'Dream Team' roster? Favorite Add to Dream Team Print InfantiCustoms. His Shaq Fu stuff was out then, and he always had jokes. Dream Team II. Battles you could only dream of seeing. Well, we learned our lesson with the expectations; we better win by 25. [Dream Team II] was probably Nellie coaching as his truest self. Kemp was the best at doing that—running the lane and making plays. REGGIE MILLER (Indiana Pacers, zone buster, 28): I definitely felt like I belonged. Some of people said some of the antics were classless, that we should have held back. To stand up there and see your flag raised is a special thing. Group A. Roster Accumulated Statistics History. So USA Basketball formed a committee and a two-year process to choose the 12 players for the first Dream Team. MARK PRICE (Cleveland Cavaliers, point guard, 30): Yeah, I mean, without a tryout process, there wasn't the option of beating someone out on the court like we have now. USA Men's Basketball 'Dream Team 2' Roster Quiz Stats. USA. It was a new breed, and the public and media perception of the squad fell along cultural, but more specifically, generational, lines. It was marketed completely wrong by NBA and USA Basketball. Bleacher Report reached out to the principal members of that team and others who spent time around it to get their recollections of that experience. Infoplease is a reference and learning site, combining the contents of an encyclopedia, a dictionary, an atlas and several almanacs loaded with facts. MORE: Did Michael Jordan really block Isiah Thomas from making 'Dream Team' roster? But I was dealing with Achilles problems around then. Please see the Men's Olympic Basketball section for complete Olympic coverage, including team rosters, stats, results, and much more. Yeah, we could have held back. Even though Dream Team II dominated competition as expected, it couldn't escape the shadow of the original squad. It's no disrespect. Head coach Don Nelson's 12-man NBA All-Star squad that cruised to gold medal at 1994 World Basketball Championships in Toronto— Derrick Coleman, Joe Dumars, Kevin Johnson, Larry Johnson, Shawn Kemp, Dan Majerle, Reggie Miller, Alonzo Mourning, Shaquille O'Neal, Mark Price, Steve Smith and Dominique Wilkins. His '93 Golden State squad didn't fare too well, dealing with injuries to four of its five best players. With it being handpicked, I definitely felt like I deserved to be on the team. The campaign for King James' fifth NBA MVP is well underway ➡️. The men's national basketball team of the United States won the gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. An amazing team. DOMINIQUE WILKINS (Boston Celtics, forward, 34): I would have been on the original Dream Team, I'm sure of it. 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