Dream Team Vs. Redeem Team

[ronnymac2]

Put it this way. The 1996 team is still better than the 2008 team

This was the 1996 Team.


John Stockton
Mitch Richmond
David Robinson
Gary Payton
Scottie Pippen
Shaquille O'Neal
Reggie Miller
Hakeem Olajuwon
Karl Malone
Anfernee Hardaway
Grant Hill
Charles Barkley

they won by an average of 33 ppg.

That team is **** sick.

Shaq nearing his prime, dream and admiral in their primes. Payton in his prime (won dpoy that year). Pippen in his prime. Prime Miller. And the rest in very, very productive stages of their careers.

Imagine the defense...

Hakeem
D-rob
Pippen
Hill (just somebody athletic who was a good defender is all thats needed here)
payton

That team puts everyone on lockdown.

Put shaq, malone, and barkley in there if you want to just simply overpower a team. Damn.

For the thread, yeah, magic and to a lesser extent bird were still dominant players when they played for the dream team. I remember a clip where Bird just took a rebound, acted like a guard and dribbled down the court, and found somebody for a score. Magic was basically in his prime.

The dream team does have a decisive edge in the frontcourt with drob, ewing, barkley, and malone vs. just howard, bosh, and boozer. Thing is, the 4 position for this team is always played by either lebron or melo. Neither one really act like a traditional 4 on offense....I haven't even seen Melo post up as much as I thought he would. Melo could take Barkley out on the perimeter, and I'm not sure how comfortable Malone would be out there either. Lebron is unstoppable no matter what. Dwight and bosh are there to finish off plays, rebound and defend. If left to do that (not even defend ewing and d-rob individually....I mean if they can just contain the pick-n-roll and play good team defense), I think they will play better than what they are being creditied for.

And no, Pippen can't stop lebron, even with all-time great centers. Like I said, Howard and Bosh are great finishers, Lebron reads defenses very well and is unselfish, so if they go and help, look out. And what about Wade? Sure you have Jordan there to defend him, but then what about kobe?

Of course, conversely, nobody could stop prime jordan, malone, barkley, drexler, etc. And especially with Bird and Magic setting them up? With Mullin spreading the floor?

I'd really like to see what happens. I'm going to give the edge to the 1992 dream team because they do have a better overall frontcourt, a more traditional build for a team, and big physical mismatch with Magic (though paul and williams would torch him, too...and if you say you put jordan or pipen on them...well how many people are they covering if you got wade and kobe on the floor, too?), and prime jordan.

[INKtastic]

a few comments on some recent posts.

Magic was still quite good, but I'm not sure you can say he was still at his prime. He just sat out an entire season. Against quality competition there would be signs of rust, just as there were when Jordan came back from baseball.

Bird was literally on his last legs as a player - he didn't play again after the olympics. sure he did okay with no competition in the olympics, but just how long would his back have held out trying to defend LeBron?

as for the 96 team - looking back at it, that roster was quite impressive. But doesn't that also show that this year's roster is being underrated? That team won by 32.3 ppg, this year's team, against better international competition, is winning by 32.0 ppg.

[tsherkin]

a few comments on some recent posts.

Magic was still quite good, but I'm not sure you can say he was still at his prime. He just sat out an entire season. Against quality competition there would be signs of rust, just as there were when Jordan came back from baseball.

Signs of rust, MAYBE, but the vision was still there, the fitness was still there and he was practicing against the best in the world every day. I don't really think it'd be a big deal, especially with so much help around him.

Bird was literally on his last legs as a player - he didn't play again after the olympics. sure he did okay with no competition in the olympics, but just how long would his back have held out trying to defend LeBron?

Mind that he'd be a reserve and that Pippen and Mullin would be primaries. Daly'd probably sub Bird in when Lebron was out... or just swap a 2-guard onto him. Put Jordan on him, or example, or run Pippen at the 2 and put Pippen on him, whatever. Tons of options.

[Warspite]

Mullin is being talked about as an afterthought. he was the 2nd leading scorer on the team. My memory is fuzzy but I believe He avged 12ppg on 7 FGA. With my dish and the Red, White and Blue package (who remembers that?) I was able to watch every game. This team tried not to run up the score and MJ almost never broke a sweat. You cant compare there margin of victory. They could have won by 50 every game had they wanted to.

The biggest differance between today and that time period was the frontcourt play and its magnified when you compare these 2 teams.

[Jordan23Forever]

I'll take this years version of Spain over 1992 Croatia rather easily personally.

Uhh, no.

You forgot that Robinson is weaker than Dwight.
And Dwight is more athletic than Robinson. Look at footage of their elevation when jumping and overall speed.

No. How is Howard stronger than DRob? Have you ever SEEN Robinson? DRob used to be doing 360 two-handed dunks in games, and could run the floor like a gazelle. Howard isn't quicker or faster than him in any way, and any edge in leaping is marginal; ditto for strength. And Drob has like 3-4" on Howard.

I'll take Argentina, Greece, Spain, or Lithuania over that Croatia team.

Wow.

[tha_rock220]

Also Dream Team never called a timeout ever in that tourney and never trailed in any game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5acn4hHwiHY

You were almost right.

Argentina in 2004 is certainly better than that Croatian team. Spain is about as good.

Anyway, I'll pick the dream team. Nothing will ever come close to that. How well would 12 of the 15 best basketball players in the world do playing together???? A fact lost among those guys, is that as good as they were, none of them needed the ball all the time to be effective. That was the biggest problem in 04. Iverson, Stephon(sigh), 'Melo, etc all couldn't work without the ball. In order for the current crop to be effective, guys like Prince, Mike Miller, Battier, and Redd have been added over the past few years, and all of them would be demolished by the Dream Teamers.

[deNIEd]

Because a team will beat a group of allstars.

[RonaldArtest]

This is like comparing Megan Fox to Star Jones....

[CoolD]

The competition Dream team played was laughable. Close to some of the most horrible teams you could ever watch. So margin of victory is useless in this arguements.

I favor Dream team because they had more size and rebounders.

But to think Redeem team wouldn't stand a shot is laugable, when is all said and done, people seriously overrate this players. Is hard a match up Magic would be do his size, CP3 will create the same problems a guy like Issiah Thomas gave to Magic in the NBA, people don't take into account Magic and Bird were considered poor defenders.

Barkley and Malone were Bruisers, but defending a guy like Melo would be extremelly hard for this guys, do to his versatality from the outside.

Jordan had the worst field goal percentage in the Dream team, he wasn't as used to international rules.

Dwight Howard might be undersized but is a phenomenal rebounder, to keep up with the big guys from the dream..

Overall dream team wins do to rebounding advantage, but not as easy as people make it out to be.

I think Redeem's teams advantage is fastbreak.

Also a guy like LeBron might be the key to victory for Redeem team.

Close 5 point win for Dream team, but on any given day, I think Redeem has a shot.

[Hallstar]

It's closer than most people want to think

Often, it's talked of like Bird and Magic were in their prime, when they were on their last legs and were never great defenders to begin with.

Yes Jordan> Kobe,Wade, Lebron but Kobe+Wade+Lebron>>Jordan.

The inside is the advantage for the Dream team.

close game, this isn't a blow out.

Also, consider the intensity and chemistry with which the 2 teams played

Dream team dropped a scrimmage to Grant Hill, Chris Webber, Allan Houston and a couple other guys in college.

[SpeedyG]

Dream team dropped a scrimmage to Grant Hill, Chris Webber, Allan Houston and a couple other guys in college.

It's called a scrimmage for a reason. Redeem team lost games against the Select team led by Kevin Durant, Rose, and Mayo (guys who would be college players age wise much like Hill, Webber, Houston then).

On a side note, people do forget how good that 96 team was. I think the 94 WC team is a good matchup as well for this year's Redeem Team. In fact, you can make a case that they have somewhat of a similar make up in that it consists mostly of young guys with a few veteran players thrown in the mix.

Looking back on the previous teams though, I think it's pretty clear why the US has become less dominant in international competitions. When the Dream Team was formed we dominated at every position. However, while International teams started developing players who can keep up with the US at the guards and SF positions, the US team also started losing their advantage in the front line.

We went from David Robinson, Ewing, Malone, and Barkley in 92, to Shaq, Zo, Kemp, Coleman, and LJ in 94, to Shaq, Dream, Robinson, Malone, and Barkley in 96, to Baker, KG, McDyess, Zo, and Rahim in 2000, to Duncan, Odom, Okafor, Amare, and Boozer in 2004, and Bosh/Howard/Boozer in 2008.

[HKapM82]

The Dream Team was simply put, the Greatest Team Every Assembled, EVER. The end. I know people like to compare, but if anyone has video of that team, they should watch it, because they were not even challenged, but they continued to play together as the GREATEST TEAM IN HISTORY. Please end this, because even if the Redeem Team had a shot to win the game, the Dream Team had Michael Jordan, your telling me anyone can argue with Jordan taking the last shot to win back in 1992 also known as his prime? Really? Did not think so. The DREAM TEAM IS THE GREATEST TEAM EVER. END OF STORY.

[Typhoon20]

Jordan had the worst field goal percentage in the Dream team, he wasn't as used to international rules..

MJ's FG% in the 1984 Olympics was .545 % .

[nesta]

the name of the teams give it away.

[tkb]

Jordan had the worst field goal percentage in the Dream team, he wasn't as used to international rules..

MJ's FG% in the 1984 Olympics was .545 % .

He still wasn't all that efficient on the Dream Team though. For all the crap Kobe gets for his shooting percentage compared to usage of field goal attempts these Olympics, he still shot better than Jordan did in 1992. Jordan shot 50% on 2 point shots compared to Kobe's 61%, and 21% on 3s compared to Kobe's 32%. Jordan's TS% was 49%, Kobe's was 55%. If you look at eFG%, Jordan was at 47% while Kobe was at 54%. If you look at field goal attempts, Kobe took 21 more than anyone else on the Redeem Team. Jordan took 30 more than anyone on the Dream Team (which would be 9 more than anyone, including Kobe on the Redeem Team).

Having said that, Jordan's impact in steals was just terrific during the 92 Olympics. He dominated with his tenacity in the passing lanes and by picking off dribblers, so I'm not saying he had a bad showing overall. He was still a beast, especially on defense (did very well at play making too).

I still maintain my view that the Dream Team would probably win (mostly because of the front line they had), but that it would be a lot closer than what it looks like on paper due to the Redeem Team having played together a lot more.

[kooldude]

^haha, now I know why none of the Jordan fans didn't burn Kobe for his low (relatively) FG%. Bc they're smart enough to know that someone will bring up Jordan' 92 numbers. Instead they say Kobe's not playing up to his usual standard. When have you ever hear them say that?! haha very clever guys....