The Dream Team
July to August 1992. NBA stars go to the Olympics and the whole world tunes in
For most of basketball history, the Olympics were for amateurs, so NBA players could not take part. The United States sent college players instead. At Seoul 1988 they lost to the Soviet Union and settled for bronze, their worst finish at the Games. On 7 April 1989 in Munich, FIBA voted 56 to 13 to let professionals play.
For Barcelona 1992, the United States picked Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, John Stockton, Scottie Pippen, Patrick Ewing, David Robinson, Clyde Drexler, Chris Mullin and one college player, Christian Laettner of Duke. Chuck Daly was the head coach. They became known as the Dream Team.
They won all eight of their Olympic games by an average of 43.8 points and beat Croatia 117 to 85 in the final. Opponents often asked to have their photos taken with them. On opening day of the 1991 to 1992 season, NBA rosters had 23 international players from 18 countries. By the start of 2011 to 2012, there were 74 from 35 countries.
What changed
Players all over the world saw the best basketball up close and set out to reach that level. Barcelona was the spark for the global game: the NBA began scouting every continent, and within about a decade other national teams were good enough to beat the United States.