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To preface, you can't pick your competition. The '92 Dream team did what they did against the teams they were put in front of. It's just that those teams were waaay behind in basketball development to the international teams now.

I've seen people stating that because Team USA aren't blowing out teams by 50 points anymore in their wins, it proves they are inferior to the '92 team. Which I think is ridiculous when you factor how many NBA and NBA caliber players now play for teams outside the US.

Should the competition the 1992 Dream team factor into how good a team they really were at least compared to their modern counterparts?

The Dream Team was the inception point for the takeoff of basketball internationally. You're talking apples and oranges.

I'm thrilled the games are entertaining now.

No. Everything 90s was and will always be better.

Pelon chingon wrote:No. Everything 90s was and will always be better.

Bring back the 90's please, In everything, not just B-ball

No.

Dream Team was the apex.

Not just insane talent level but also peak BBIQ and peak competitiveness IMO.

The Dream Team was obviously amazing... The thing that bothers any rational person about the comparisons is when they say "well the Dream Team would have beat ____ by 50". I just have a hard time believing this. They were not playing against this kind of competition and it's not relatively close

No. That team would have upped their game even further against stronger competition. Their average MOV was 44. Stop and think about that. I daresay they had some room for error if they were hypothetically going to face stronger competition.

No, the 1992 Dream Team was an incredible team and would be in any era.

These international players are a lot more skilled on average, just the lateral defense of that era alone would need a huge adjustment.

The Dream Team lost to a bunch of college kids. Serbia and France would both beat them.

The only thing missing from the Dream Team was Hakeem, and that's because he wasn't a US citizen yet.

Otherwise I thought that the construction of the roster was fantastic and Daly was a great choice as the coach.

Still, Robinson and Ewing were HOF'ers and obviously were enough to get the job done.

Not in the least bit, basketball has grown globally, of course there wasn't as many foreign greats as there are now, but there were still A LOT of good foreign players and it wasn't the end all be all to "play in the NBA" back then. The Dream Team destroyed their competition, didn't toy with them and always played top level, I barely saw that from this years team whatsoever

Obviously the international competition is better now.

I don't see why we need to diminish the Dream Team's accomplishments though. They've paved the way for the international game to grow.

We don't need to compare teams when the environment is so different.

what does it matter? it's not like we'll ever know the difference for real......maybe in NBA2k

HotRocks34 wrote:The only thing missing from the Dream Team was Hakeem, and that's because he wasn't a US citizen yet.

Otherwise I thought that the construction of the roster was fantastic and Daly was a great choice as the coach.

Still, Robinson and Ewing were HOF'ers and obviously were enough to get the job done.

The only other possible addition to the team IMO, or snub, was Isiah Thomas.

Personally I was ok with Stockton there but Thomas could have been there instead or in addition to Stockton.

Stacked squad.

International play is better now in part because the Dream Team was incredibly popular and helped grow the game. It seems kind of strange to penalize them for growing the sport and making it more popular.

But even aside from that, the Dream Team had 5 players who won MVP, 1 who won DPOTY, 1 who is the all time steals and assists leader…

If we go by ESPN’s top 75 player ranking the players on the Dream team ranked 1st, 4th, 7th, 22nd, 23rd, 24th, 25th, 32nd, 40th, and 53rd all time.

You have to see it from 2 different perspectives. The 92 Dream Team was a team that consisted of 1 player that is for almost every basketball fan the best or second best player of all time in his prime, the 2 best players of the 80s that both retired after the tournament, all 5 All NBA 1st team players and 4 of 5 All NBA 2nd team players. Outside of Olajuwon there was not any foreign player at the time that could have been considered for a roster spot over the picked NBA players. This was pretty much the best team you could put together in 1992. But it was also clear that there was no competition for this team. It would have been interesting if they would have faced a still united Yugoslavian team, but they would have still been the clear favorites. It was more a Harlem Globetrotters thing to make Basketball more popular globally and from that perspective it was a total success. Of course they wouldn't blow out today's competition with 50+ points though.

Today it is already impossible to build a team like that, since a big amount of current top players in the NBA are foreigners. Team USA will still be the favorite based on the fact that probably more than 67% of NBA players are still US players. But we also know that a lot of the best current players are foreigners. The first 4 places in MVP voting and the first 2 places in Defensive Player of the year voting were foreign players. So it isn't even possible to create a team like the Dream Team any more, since the game is more global. Team USA currently has the best national team in the World, the Dream Team was literally the All World team in 1992.

Every generation build on each other. They are learning from the past so that they can get better. You have no idea who the Dream Team inspired all throughout the world for basketball to get to where it is now.

It cam be both that the Dream team with context isn't the clear GOAT Olympic team of all time given how much weaker the international scene was.

It can also be true that they are the greatest or equally so collection of talent ever on a team.

People needing to pretend it's a wild swing either way are sad.

Jordan also played incredibly poorly on offense.