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Time - Man of the Year
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1993-04-08
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OLYMPICS, Page 601992 SUMMER GAMESBASKETBALL: Are They Kidding?
The Dream Team is everyone else's nightmare. It should be no
contest, unless . . .
By PAUL A. WITTEMAN -- With reporting by Brian Cazeneuve/Portland
The players on the bench saw it coming, edging forward on
their seats in anticipation. Michael Jordan was about to take
the defender from Argentina on a quick and not-so-flattering
trip to the hoop. Five-hundred-pound sneakers: that's what it
appeared the Argentine was wearing as Jordan effortlessly rose
as from a trampoline for one of his trademark, gravity-defying
pirouettes above the rim. The Argentine seemed to shrink to the
size of a circus midget. As Jordan dunked the ball, the players
on the bench leaped up and cheered the best basketball player
the world has ever seen. In Spanish.
That's right. The players cheering Jordan so wildly were
the very Argentines whom he was reducing to the level of kids
playing pickup on the playground. No matter. "I played with
great happiness against the monsters," Argentine center Hernan
Montenegro said later. Added guard Marcelo Milanesio: "When we
met at the center of the court, I was very excited that it was
Magic Johnson shaking my hand."
So it went at the Tournament of the Americas in Portland,
Ore., last month, where the Argentines and everyone else came
to pose for pictures with Michael, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and
their merry band of N.B.A. All-Star troubadours. In between,
they played a little basketball. Very little. Take Cuba: with
3 1/2 min. remaining in the game, the team was behind by 70
points, and only the final horn saved it from losing by 100 or
more. Panama dropped a cliff-hanger by a mere 60.
When the tournament ended, with the Americans barely
breaking a sweat except on the golf course, where they seemed
to spend most of their time, everyone was ready to concede the
gold medal in Barcelona to the assemblage now and forever more
to be known simply as the Dream Team. Nevada bookmakers, who
never miss an opportunity to make a dollar, have fastidiously
refused to post odds or take a bet. The only surer wager than
the Dream Team may be that George Foreman will not try to make
it next as a featherweight.
U.S. coach Chuck Daly has at his disposal the greatest
arsenal of offensive and defensive weapons ever gathered on a
basketball court. There are passers with 360 degrees vision like
Bird (despite his creaky back), John Stockton and Magic. Chris
Mullin and Jordan are excellent three-point shooters. No one in
possession of his faculties and desirous of retaining them would
dare drive down the lane into territory defended by Charles
Barkley, Patrick Ewing and Karl Malone. Jordan and his Chicago
Bulls teammate Scottie Pippen are tenacious open-court
defenders. Then too there are Clyde Drexler and the Admiral,
David Robinson. Twelfth man Christian Laettner will probably get
a great view of all this talent mostly from the bench.
And what of the Olympic opposition? The dissolution of the
Soviet Union and Yugoslavia has eviscerated the teams that won
the gold and silver medals in Seoul in 1988. The best former
Soviet players now wear the uniform of Lithuania. Drazen
Petrovic and Vlade Divac led Yugoslavia to the silver medal at
Seoul. This time, however, Yugoslavia as such has been banned
from Barcelona. Petrovic, a New Jersey Net, will play for
Croatia. Divac, a Los Angeles Laker and a Serb, will not be
allowed to play. The Germans will be competitive; N.B.A. star
Detlef Schrempf will make them so. And in Oscar Schmidt, the
Brazilians have one of the game's best three-point shooters. But
even if you put all these players on one squad, it would make
no difference. The remaining 11 teams in the Olympic tournament
will be scuffling for silver.
Still, American coach Daly is not known as the "prince of
pessimism" for nothing. He is publicly worried that since games
in the Olympics are eight minutes shorter than those in the
N.B.A., his juggernaut might dawdle, fall behind and wait until
it is too late to mount a rally. Hey, chill out, replies Jordan.
"We have too much talent, and we'll turn it on whenever we have
to." Daly frets that the three-point shooting line in
international basketball is closer to the basket than in the
N.B.A. and that the lane is wider, both tending to nullify the
Americans' height advantage. However, after seeing how little
difference these factors made in his team's 136-57 loss to the
Yanks, Cuban coach Miguel Gomez seemed transported to a Zen
mode. "One finger cannot cover the sun," he said.
But the dream that must give Daly the worst night sweats
features a player like Butch Lee. Back in 1976, Lee was not
invited to the U.S. Olympic basketball trials. Instead, he
played for the team from his native Puerto Rico. Spurred by a
desire for revenge over the slight he felt he had suffered at
the hands of the U.S. selection committee, Lee whipsawed the
Americans with the performance of his life. He scored 35 points
and almost single-handedly took the highly favored U.S. team to
within seconds of a humiliating loss.
In Daly's updated nightmare, the Butch Lee role is played
by Lithuanian Sarunas Marciulionis, an N.B.A. star who plays
for the Golden State Warriors. Daly sees Marciulionis sinking
three-pointers like an automaton from 30 ft., with Lithuanian
center Arvidas Sarbonis playing for one night like Bill Russell
in his prime.
Maybe. All sporting contests before they are played
contain an element that Princeton basketball coach Pete Carril
calls "glorious uncertainty." Anything can happen, as Carril's
teams have proved season after remarkable season against
superior opposition. But not this superior. "This is not a great
team," says Carril. "This is the greatest team ever." Don
Nelson, the shrewd and artful coach of the Golden State
Warriors, whose son Donn is helping to coach Marciulionis and
the Lithuanians, agrees. "The once-in-a-lifetime game is not
going to happen," he says. "The Dream Team will not allow any
second shots. Even if the Americans play poorly, there shouldn't
be a close game. They haven't even tried yet."
When they do, is a shutout conceivable? Now there's a
fantasy for the Dream Team to ponder. Sleep on it, Michael. Just
don't forget to set your alarm clock.