In the two-plus decades since the 1992 Olympics, the Dream Team has been celebrated and romanticized. References to it are wistful and reverential. The Dream Team represents perfection. In the basketball world, it was the greatest.
How easily we forget that the basketball power structure in the United States thought the idea of having NBA players in the Olympics was repulsive. At the 1989 vote in Munich to allow NBA players in the Olympics, the U.S. organization (later USA Basketball), which was led by college athletic administrators, voted “no.”
How easily we forget the criticism of the Dream Team during the qualifying tournament and the Olympics. The popular view was that having NBA players represent the U.S. was overkill. The games were boring. Columnists were outraged. Let the college kids play.
So the criticism from Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and some writers in the wake of the Paul George injury is nothing new. Only the focus has changed. Now, it’s about the money. Before, it was about some skewed notion of sportsmanship.
Money, of course, is far more powerful.
While Cuban’s points about money and risk are indisputable, his conclusion that NBA players should not be in international events runs counter to Larry Bird’s. And Bird is not only faced with the impossible challenge of being competitive without George, but at best, he will be able to replace only a part of the $15.94 million cap space taken by George’s contract.
Bird, of course, is biased, and one obvious reason is that he was on the Dream Team. Had NBA players not participated in international events — and like Cuban today, there was a vocal minority opposed — Bird would have never had that experience and would also have never won an Olympic gold medal.
And his participation was not exactly a work of art or a statistical highlight of his 13-year career. In eight Olympic games, Bird scored a total of 67 points. In the final victory over Croatia, the man who averaged 24.3 points during his career played 12 minutes, missed his only field goal attempt and did not score.
A few minutes later, he was on the medal stand, exchanging high fives with Patrick Ewing and smiling like he had won a fourth and fifth NBA title.
Some experiences can’t be monetized.
Like Dirk Nowitzki’s, for instance. There is little doubt that he has increased the revenue and franchise value of Cuban’s Mavericks. It also seems safe to say the Mavericks would have never won the 2011 title without him.
But how important for Nowitzki was the experience of watching the old Dream Team, which had five players 30 or older and only one — 22-year-old college token Christian Laettner – under 26? How much did it motivate him to not simply be an NBA player, but to become a great one?
In 1992, he was a 14-year-old kid in Wurzburg, Germany, watching the Olympics on television, fascinated by the Dream Team and admiring his favorite player, Scottie Pippen, who was 26.
Perhaps Nowitzki would have played basketball, anyway. His mother was an accomplished player, and when you are pushing 7-feet as a teenager, you might be inclined to give it a try. But he has said often that the impact of watching the Dream Team was profound.
And that is true for others. Pau Gasol, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and many more have spoken effusively about being influenced by the Dream Team.
The most off-target criticism I have seen about NBA players playing internationally is that patriotism or national pride is not involved in sporting events. I can only assume that anyone who believes that was on another planet last month when soccer — a sport that builds 20,000-seat stadiums in the U.S. because they are the perfect size — had a number of World Cup games that drew more TV viewers in the afternoon than any of the primetime games during the last NBA Finals or World Series.
A reminder: World Cup teams represent their countries, not their club teams.
I would agree that sermonizing about patriotism in sports is shaky territory. I believe it is something important to players, but I was a little uneasy when Team USA coach Mike Krzyzewski had a man who was wounded and lost his eyesight during the war in Iraq speak to the 2008 Olympic team about service to your country.
The difference between competing in a basketball game for your country and fighting a war for your country is too large for words.
Then again, when a man who has lost his eyesight in a war tells a basketball team that he thinks it is important for the team to win, he has made the games a little more meaningful — at least for the players.
The George injury is terrible on many levels — obviously first for him. But I have a problem with the notion that it somehow would have been better had he been injured in an NBA game or offseason pickup game rather than a Team USA scrimmage.
Former NBA commissioner David Stern wanted to impose an age limit of 23 in the Olympics. Cuban has suggested 21. It seems unlikely that FIBA, the federation that governs international play, will go along, but when your arm is being twisted by powerful, wealthy people, who knows?
All I know is this: An age limit would deprive many deserving players of playing in the Olympics because they would have one shot and then would be too old.
An age limit also would have deprived the world of watching a team that did more for not only the global game, but also the NBA, than any other single team in history. Had there been an age limit in 1992, basketball would be poorer for it.
CHECK OUT JAN HUBBARD’S ARCHIVE FROM SHERIDAN HOOPS.COM. TERRIFIC STUFF ON THE NBA, PAST AND PRESENT.
Jan Hubbard has written about basketball since 1976 and worked in the NBA league office for eight years between media stints. Follow him on Twitter at @whyhub.