OT: NBA TV presents "The Dream Team" (Video/HD)
I am watching the hell out of it. I don't get NBATV, I was waiting to see when/how it'd be distributed
EXCELLENT Documentary.
For what it's worth, if anyone wants to see the NBA TV Wilt 100 documentary which is also good...here it is in 6 parts.
Great team, but it would have been even greater with Isiah Thomas on it.
I haven't seen the doc yet, so I can't go off of what they say about Zeke, but he would not have made them a better team. They needed their best 12, not the 12 best. And Zeke would have messed up any and all chemistry that existed on the Dream Team. In 1991 he pulled the bush-league move of walking out on Jordan's Bulls. Combine that with his/Rodman's comments about Larry Bird not being that good, him getting the attention because he was white, and then Zeke's comments about Magic and HIV?
The 3 best players and most alpha guys all had their own individual, legitimate beefs with Zeke based off of things that Zeke initiated. And you're telling me they would have been better off trying to make nice with him? Jordan probably would have killed him in a practice, hidden the body in Barcelona.
They didn't take the best 12. They did some mismash of deserving and politics. Because you're "3 best players" weren't the 3 best players, but the best players and two shells of players. Let's be honest, Bird blew at that point. Could he even watch the games sitting up, or did he spend the whole time on his stomach because of his bad back?
And no one had any problem when Bird walked off the court without congratulating anyone. He wasn't just good because he was white; he was great. But he got away with a lot of shit because he was white. And that's why you had guys like Mullin and Stockton and Laettner on the team. Couldn't have just the one white guy. (And if Jordan wanted the respect back at that point, he had to give it first. Spending the week talking about how the Pistons were bad for basketball, then he gets cranky over them not shaking his hand? Hypocrite).
If they wanted they wanted the BEST team, they would have remade it all over the place. For one, send Shaq instead of Laettner. Because no matter the college accomplishments, it didn't take a genius to figure out Shaq could hang with those guys just out of college and Laettner was dreaming of someday being as good as Bill Laimbeer (never got there). If it was deserving, and bringing together the very best players to ever suit up on one team...then you'd probably still have Shaq (though you could give it to Christian for what he did in college), Thomas, and while we're at it Dominique instead of Pippen or Mullin. I probably would have still left Stockton on, and taken the other of those two guys out. Yeah, it would have been unbalanced, but please...they weren't losing to anyone.
And Jordan, take someone out? Please, the guy fell over if you breathed on him. He couldn't have taken out Reggie Miller's sister.
As of 1992, Isiah had accomplished considerably more in his career than John Stockton. I don't think that's really debatable. Moreover, Stockton was several years younger and would have another shot in 1996.
I'm not sure Stockton was a top 5 point guard of all time. Magic, Isiah, Cousey and Oscar Robertson if you want to consider him a PG (not in that order necessarily) were all better, and I'd probably put Stockton at 5, but I'm sure someone could come up with an argument for someone else I'm forgetting.
Pippen was top five in what? The League at the time? You can't possibly mean all time. He may be the most overrated player in the history of the NBA.
And Mullin may have been fourth in scoring, but you're proving my point that a lot of those guys were over the hill and were rightly put there on their accomplishments, not on who was the best players at that time.
To not shaking hands? That's about as close as you can get to spitting in someone's face. They didn't just leave without shaking hands. They got up, off their bench, with time left in the game and walked out across the other team's bench. Garbage. And you think Jordan wasn't tough enough? Watch a Bulls-Knicks series sometime. He got clobbered constantly and just. kept. scoring.
I'll agree with you that Shaq should have made it, and that Mullin and Laettner had no business being there, but when the 3 players who defined basketball at the time all had beefs that Zeke started... he's not gonna go. And if you don't think Pippen was deserving you need to read your history. Daly has said many times that the eye-opening thing about the Dream Team was that Pippen was the 2nd best player there. He could guard 1-4, play point, didnt need the ball to score, and was the best perimiter defender in the game.
"During the 1992 Olympics, Chuck Daly called Scottie his second-best player, describing him as the ultimate "fill-in-the-blanks guy." "
The game was over, and they left, and instead of the clock starting and running out, it stayed stopped. Whatever. And I equate that with Jordan saying "the Pistons were bad for basketball", they weren't good champs, they deserve no credit for molding the Bulls into a championship team (where the Pistons would always credit the Celtics for being the hump they needed to get over), and things like Pippen that week saying he'd take a Piston's jersey and give it to his dog. I don't need to read my history...I was there, watching it.
The only difference between Jordan and Isiah is 6 inches. Jordan was a much better player (than just about anyone), bu they've both proven to be failures in everything else they do, and dicks off the court as well as on. The difference was Nike and the NBA were making a lot of money off of Jordan. Off the shoulders of what guys like Magic, Bird, Dr. J and Isiah had built for him.
I won't even get into the Jordan comment to much... Dude played in an NBA era of hand checks and where flagret fouls were called just fouls. He was tough and great. Not even worth going off about.
On Pippen... In no shape.. way... or form is Wilkins as good as Pippen. Pippen did it on both ends. He could run the floor and defend like a mother fucker. He shut down Magic in the 91 finals. The year Jordan left he came in 2nd in the MVP voting. The Bulls lost only 4-5 games more with out Jordan. The one dude who might have be able to shut Jordan down.. Played on his team. Pippen gets no love sometimes and it mind boggling.
Also Mullen was avging 25ppg for about four years at that time. He wasn't there because he was white.. He was there because he was damn good. Same with Stockton.
Take of the Piston glasses for a moment.
Pretty much.
I'm a Stones fan, and even I'm sick of all the bullshit crying over Isiah and the Dream Team.
Should he have been on it? Yes.
However, he made his own bed when he was the ringleader behind two of the worst displays of sportsmanship in NBA history up to that point: The freeze out of Jordan in '85 and the staged walkoff in '91 after getting swept by the Bulls.
If I was MJ I'd tell Isiah to go fuck himself too.
This the same Pippen who would get headaches in big games in the 4th quarter, and refuse to go in if the shot wasn't called for him? All that Pippen being 2nd in the MVP votings says is that the NBA sucked balls through most of the Bulls run, with or without Jordan. So they won 4-5 less games...how'd they do in the Playoffs without Jordan? (Against worse competition). Pippen might have been the best 2nd banana of all time, but that's all he was. Put another good player with him, and he was never winning any title as the lead dog. He gets overrated because of riding Jordan's coattails for all those years, and being on his team. Great player? Sure. All time great? Please.
Every year, Jordan, Isiah and Bird played together in the All-Star Game. They got by. There were no incidents in the '92 All-Star Game, which was just months after the the '91 playoff flap. The idea that Isiah would have ruined team chemistry is a stretch. Above all, he was obsessed with winning. He wasn't going to bitch about playing time or shots taken if it'd affect the team. Besides, he had his coach, Chuck Daly, to have his back if necessary. Keep in mind as well that Isiah was on the 1980 Olympic team that got screwed by the boycott, so the USOC arguably owed him one.
The level of competition 20 years ago was considerably lower than it is now. We regularly won gold with teams of college players in that era. Isiah was not snubbed because they were genuinely worried about team chemistry with a team that was head and shoulders above everyone else. He was snubbed because Jordan threw a hissy fit about it, threatening to not participate and the NBA wanted to make sure its most marketable star was happy. Realistically though, he and Isiah almost certainly would have patched things up for the competition.
You mean Zeke's first snub of Jordan? Or did you forget that he froze him out. Zeke made his bed and slept in it. Again, he initiated all the friction with the 3 biggest guys on the dream team.
Come on, that "freeze-out" story was nonsense. Even Chicago beat writers thought it was all in Jordan's head. He had a poor shooting game and rationalized that it was because his teammates didn't let him get into a rhythm.
I don't think this had much to do with Bird or Magic. It was Jordan's issue. MJ would take the slightest insult, real or imagined, and turn it into a source of anger/motivation.
Get over it. The blame for Isaiah Thomas not making that team lies with Isaiah Thomas.
For only being 3 years old at the time.
The blame for Isaiah Thomas not making that team lies with Isaiah Thomas.Isiah said he'd be fine playing with Jordan. It was Jordan who said he wouldn't play with Isiah. So whose fault was it really?
I agree that not shaking hands was poor sportsmanship, but to say it was "one of the more disrespectful things in sports" is going a little far. It was hardly without precedent in the NBA either. When the Pistons ended the Celtics' run a few years earlier, most of the Celtics didn't shake hands, either.
Anyhow, I'd say that telling the committee "I won't play if he's playing" was pretty small of Jordan.
BTW, did you really vote my comment as "Flamebait"? Come on. If you disagree that's fine, but I find this whole "downvote the guy I disagree with" line of reasoning to be immature.
They could have chosen quite a few guys that would have made them greater. It wasn't the best collection of players in the world. It was guys with the biggest name power that got along.
JMO, but I've never thought the Dream Team was that cool. It was like an all-star game to me. Games didn't mean much because there was no chance the US wasn't going to win gold.
was removed. This one exists
Gonna have to watch it when I get back. SHould watch it quickly, as NBATV is keen and tries to take them down YT as fast as possible.
NBA TV was faster than my commute. If anyone finds another link please post it.
http://www.hiphopaddict.net/2012/06/video-nba-tvs-dream-team-documentary.html
Watched the whole thing. Awesome.
What is the moral of this story? Don't cross Jordan. This is what makes him great. He forgets nothing! He wants to destory you off court and on it. Thomas put the target on himself. Jordan is a killer... Point blank.
A golfer. Or a gambler. Or an NBA GM. Or an NBA owner. Or his ex-wife. Then take him for everything he's got because he sucks at everything that doesn't involve dribbling a basketball.
Yes we get it. You don't like Michael Jordan. If I was the best ever at basketball... I could care less about sucking at everything else.