Dream or Redeem?

Alright folks, you knew it would happen, but now let the debate officially begin. Dream or Redeem, who you got? Ok on the surface everyone says right away, Dream Team no doubt. Well the debate really can’t be complete until the careers of all the member or Redeem team are complete. I guess the best way to do it is to say if you took the teams in the years they played (1992 and 2008) and try and compare them that way. However there is no way you can’t let your evaluations of the Dream Teams overall careers sway your thought process.

Remember in 1992 Bird and Magic were retiring and old and basically crippled, and David Robinson was only in his third year not yet peaked to his MVP form. Also, players like Karl Malone, Patrick Ewing, Charles Barkley and Scottie Pippen still had most of their better years ahead of them. Not much different than this years team, while some of the players are established like LeBron, Kobe, Wade, Melo, and Tayshaun Prince, clearly guys like Chris Bosh, Dwight Howard, Chris Paul and Deron Williams still have bright careers in front of them with multiple MVP’s and Championships possible.

The biggest variable in comparing what the teams accomplished is evaluating the competition. I guess you could make some debate because international players had not yet truly begun to migrate to USA basketball in 1992, but part of that reason was they weren’t good enough. There are the rare exceptions like Arvydas Sabonis who was an All World player over in Europe at the time, but cases like his are few and far between. In 1992 there were only 11 foreign born players total in the league.

In 2008 Argentina has 4 NBA players including All-Star Manu Ginobili, Australia has 1 present, 1 past (Chris Anstey) and two soon to be in St. Mary’s sophomore Patrick Mills and Matt Nielsen who plays for perhaps the best team in all of Europe Lietuvos Rytas, Croatia has one current and one past, Lithuania has 2 current and one past, Russia has one, China has 3 including a multiple time All-Star in Yao Ming, Germany has 2 including former league MVP Dirk Nowitzki, Spain has 6 guys already in the league and Marc Gasol, Rudy Fernandez and Ricky Rubio all on their way, and Greece has 2 or 3 that have been drafted by NBA teams but they prefer to stay home and play because of money.

Now again the old school people are going to tell me how the Dream Team was a collection of some of the greatest talent in NBA history and they were not even challenged. Well I would argue that when it was all said and done Jordan, Bird, Magic and Barkley are the four that would be in the top echelon of great players. And when this group is all said and done with their careers the chances are pretty high that Kobe, LeBron and perhaps one other like Chris Paul or Dwayne Wade could be in those discussions. Also we tend to look back more fondly on some guys like Clyde Drexler and Chris Mullin because they were our childhood heroes. But look at the numbers and guys like Carmelo Anthony and Michael Redd are statistically better players than them.

The Redeem team appeared well on its way to steamrolling everyone until the medal round games. In the semi’s they had a tough match-up with defending Olympic champion Argentina but pulled away to win by 20 in the end. The gold medal game turned out to be one of the truly special games in Olympic and plain basketball history. I like a freak stayed up and watched the whole thing live. Some may also use this against the Redeem team, the fact that they had a tough gold medal game whereas the Dream team dominated Croatia by 32 points. However, I think it shows how this team was constructed as just that, a team. When things got tight it didn’t turn into a who’s who of NBA All-Stars, they continued their high intensity defense and it was clear on offense that when a big play needed to be made the ball would be in the hands of Kobe.

I am not totally sure that if the Dream team would have played tougher competition that thing’s may not have been so rosy with them. They had some big time ego’s on that team with guys like Jordan, Barkley, Malone and Bird to name the 4 most prominent. While the team oozed greatness I think we saw as Americans that we cant just slop together an all star team and run the other countries off of the floor. If Redeem team and Dream team matched up one thing is for sure, the game would be a close contest. I have seen with my own eyes how Redeem team reacts, but interested to know how the Dream team would have reacted.

I am not sure what all I am saying here, but I think the main point is don’t just sell short the Redeem team. Like I said some of the reasons for doing so is we already know the final accomplishments of the careers of the Dream team and have yet to find that out with the Redeem team. Also, we have fond memories of watching Bob Costas and Matt Goukas announce the games of our childhood heroes’ on NBC on Sunday afternoons, and now maybe we are a little more jaded fans of the game who scrutinize a little more. I for one would take the Redeem team, but maybe I am living in the now too much.

P.S.
Quick question, who the fuck guard LeBron and stops him on Dream Team?

P.P.S.
I don’t know everything in the world, but I know class and people can think whatever they want about Coach K but he is class all the way. After the game was over all the players immediately went over to the announcers table and shook hands and embraced an emotional Doug Collins who was on the 1972 Olympic team that got jobbed out of a Gold Medal against the USSR. I have no doubt that Coach K was the one who orchestrated that, because Collins early talked about how Coach K had him address the team before the Medal Round.