Michael Jordan has already been very clear on saying that there is no comparison between the 1992 Dream Team and the 2012 Olympic Basketball team, but just in case he didn’t speak loud enough, Jordan is saying it again.
“I know Kobe said some things early on,” he told Sports Illustrated, “and I responded to those—where the ’92 Dream Team, I felt, was a more well-rounded basketball team. He felt we were a little bit old, but we only had two players that were over 30 at the time—that was Magic [Johnson] and Larry [Bird]. Everybody else was 29 or below [Clyde Drexler, Patrick Ewing, and John Stockton actually turned 30 shortly before or during the Olympics], so I think that the team itself would have been well-rounded defensively, offensively, inside, outside.”
“In terms of how the game is played from an offensive standpoint and a defense standpoint—from a team standpoint—I feel like we were much more solid defensively,” he continued. “We could definitely guard the perimeter and force them to penetrate to shot-blockers, which I felt like would’ve made a big difference with this team in 2012. They only had one shot-blocker. Granted, I know LeBron [James] and some of those guys can still block shots. It’s not the same defense and it’s not the same intensity.”
There will never truly be a way to tell which team would have won. It’s a completely different era in Basketball and the game has changed tremendously. The discussion will never end though. To give you a reminder of just how great the original dream team was, here is clip.
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OCNN Sports Columnist – Justin Arbogast @NFLGuy_SK
