May 25, 2020 • 26 mins
The public was skeptical of top pros surrendering their summer to play Olympic basketball. That changed with a couple important early sign-ons, Magic Johnson among them. Also: why the selection committee ignored past transgressions of Charles Barkley, Larry Bird’s reluctance to participate because of an aching back, and the never-ending discussion of why Isiah Thomas was not a Dream Teamer.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is The Dream Team Tapes, a Diversion Podcasts original
series in association with I Heart Radio. This is the
story of the United States Olympic basketball team that won
gold in Barcelona in known worldwide as the Dream Team.
(00:22):
Millions of Americans own a personal computer. If you're one
of them, you can now glimpse the future with nothing
more than a modem, a phone line, and a few
dollars a month mark with the A and then the
ring around it. At see, that's what I said, um
Case said she thought it was about yeah, but I've
never heard it. I've never heard it said, but never
(00:44):
heard it said. And then it sounded stupid what I
said at violence at NBC. So why did I choose
to open episode three of The Dream Team Tapes by
making fun of Briant Gumble, Katie Couric, and Elizabeth Fargas,
all of whom are infinitely more famous than I onsode
(01:04):
of the Today Show. Beyond the fact, of course that
it's a lot of fun. Now, let me note that
the first time I had a flip phone, I got
thirty seven calls before I found out you had to
actually flip the phone open to answer them. So maybe
I'm not the guy to be making fun here, But
I have a point. Twenty eight years after the Dream
Team began to be put together, one of my most
(01:27):
vivid memories was how, for want of a better word,
quietly it all came together. That's the only description I
would give to the manner in which the news was
received that pros could now play in the Olympics. Why
was that? Well, we must resort to the obvious here first,
the absence of social media the Bryant Katie Elizabeth video.
(01:48):
Remember was even a few years after the news of
the Dream Team, there was zero social media and only
daily newspapers and magazines like Sports Illustrated. The Olympic news
is not big news. Had something similar happened today, the
Internet would have blown up within an hour. Every hoops
fan in America with a keyboard would have had his
(02:10):
or her dream team selected. So in December, now this
is nine months before the team would be announced, I
had an idea that why don't I pick my starting
five if these guys were to play in the Olympics.
It was all presented as a hypothetical. We could take
a photo at the All Star Game in Charlotte in
February put it on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and
(02:33):
that would save me writing about the All Star Game,
about which there was usually nothing to write except how
bad the defense is and ladies and gentlemen. Honestly, that
was the beginning of the real interest in the Dream Team,
and in fact, i'll tell you later how it got
its name. But something else was going on in relative
secret at that time, the decision about who was going
(02:56):
to coach these guys. Here's Chuck Daily. I thought, you know,
maybe I was a little far along in my career
and I thought, you know, there's so many qualified people
out there that I really didn't give it a lot
of thought. Someone mentioned it to me and I said, oh,
I don't know that I would fit into that category
or not. But I said, nice, you know that people
(03:18):
are mentioning my name and Matt Dobeck part of just
your background of being optimistic. She never really enjoyed the
stuff that the accomptant. You know, even lot with that
because you're so worried about what I said, Joe, I
get a little sad when I hear those voices for
both men are gone now. The first voice belonged to
Chuck Daily, who died of cancer in two thousand nine.
(03:39):
Our interview is from Barcelona, in the middle of the Olympics.
The other voice is Matt Dobek, who was the pistons
long time public relations man. Matt took his own life
a little over a year after Chuck died. I'm not
suggesting the events were connected, but I'm not suggesting they
weren't connected either. See Chuck and Matt were as close
(04:01):
as any coach and PR man could ever be. I'm
not as familiar with those relationships in other sports, but
in pro basketball the relationship between the coach and the
PR person is extremely important to the health of the team.
See the coaches like the CEO of a large corporation,
except that he's responsible to the media and fans on
(04:23):
a daily basis. The PR person is the one charged
with running interference, trying to decide when the coach should talk,
when he should stay quiet, and when he should well,
if not outright, lie then obfuscate. So on Valentine's Day,
Charles Jerome Daily was named coach of the Dream Team.
(04:46):
In keeping with that quiet theme I had talked about,
nobody paid all that much attention and there was very
little ceremony attached to the announcement. I wouldn't say Chuck
was a unanimous choice, but he was certainly a popular one.
Pat Riley and Don Nelson seemed the other possible choices,
but in their own way, they had something against them.
(05:07):
Nelly was a little squirrelly. You never knew what he
was gonna say or what he was gonna do. For
that matter, pat was a great coach, but he was
way way into that my way or the highway thing.
By that time, the powers that be knew that they
needed a diplomat as well as a great coach, somebody
who wouldn't go nuclear with all the extracurricular demands that
(05:30):
would come with coaching the Dream Team. Plus there was
this from Charles Barkley, Chuck coach the bad boy Pistons.
Charles said, on more than one occasion, you coach those assholes,
you can coach anybody. Chuck never seemed to take himself
too seriously. It was a great Boston writer, Bob Ryan,
who hung the sobriquet the Prince of Pessimism on Chuck
(05:53):
because he would always find the gloomy side to anything,
but at the same time a wry smile was never
far from his face. You know me any money, he
used to say as he gripped your hand in a greeting.
And when Chuck would give out a cell phone, he
ended up by saying the first six numbers and then
Rodman Sally. That's because the final four numbers were ten
(06:15):
and twenty two, the jersey numbers of Dennis Rodman and
John Sally. Now, when Chuck's decision was announced on that
Valentine's Day in one, you have to understand what was
going on in the NBA that season. Daly's Pistons, the
bad Boys as everyone called them, or the a holes
as Charles called them, were the two time defending champions,
(06:38):
having disposed of the Lakers in nine and the Trailblazers
in but their meter had clearly expired. They were old
and injured, and almost everyone figured correctly as it turned out,
that Jordan's and Pippin's bulls would overtake them. But Daly
was still the man the committee wanted, and in retrospect,
(07:00):
it's hard to imagine the Dream Team without Chuck. One
of my regrets is that he died in two thousand
nine before I got a chance to interview him. Chuck
was happy to get the job, of course, but right
away he knew he was in a tough position. Matt
Dobek knew it right away too, because he told me.
Though no players had been selected for the team, Chuck
(07:22):
knew in his heart of hearts that selling his captain,
Isaiah Thomas to the committee would be difficult because of
some of the poisonous relationships that Isaiah had built up
over the years. Bill lamb, Or, Isaiah's teammate and best friend,
pointed out correctly that had the Dream Team decisions been
made a year or two earlier, when the Pistons were
(07:44):
the kings of the NBA, it would have been harder
to keep Isaiah off of it. You have to remember
that Isaiah stirred up a lot of this stuff himself,
including the time he agreed with Dennis Rodman after Robin
made that much remembered statement that Larry Bird was overrated.
But let's unpack that a little bit. It occurred right
(08:08):
after Isaiah had made a bone headed pass that led
to a bird steel that led to a bird pass
that led to a Dennis Johnson basket that eventually led
to the Celtics beating the Pistons and making the finals.
In seven, Isaiah was in an overheated Boston Garden visitors
locker room, which is exactly how the Celtics used to
(08:30):
keep the visitor's locker room. And what Isaiah actually said was,
Larry Bird is an exceptional talent, but I have to
agree with Dennis. If he was black, he'd be just
another good guy. Now that's a little different than just
outright dissing Bird. And it was a theme that Isaiah
and other black players as well used to say, and
(08:53):
that was how much more attention great or outstanding white
players got than their black counterparts. Isaiah just happened to
pick the wrong guy to say it about. At any rate,
it's an absolute certainty that in today's Twitter climate, Isaiah
would have gotten a lot more support. At the very least,
it would have been a viral blow up for a
(09:14):
few hours. So no matter what you heard, there was
never much of a chance for Isaiah thomas to make
the Dream Team. For this reason, mainly, Michael Jordan's did
not want him. I wrote that back because a source
close to the situation, no not Jordan himself, told me
(09:37):
that was the case. But Jordan's reaction to the question
did you keep Isaiah off the team was either angry no,
dismissive no Isaiah questions please, or coy hey, I didn't
pick the team. So when I went to interview Jordan
for the Dream Team book in two thousand eleven, I
(09:57):
wondered how I would nudge conversation over to Isaiah Thomas.
But against all odds, Jordan went there himself suddenly and
without warning, and nickols me to ask me the book
Robin calls, who are will to play Isaiah Thomas? Here's here?
He said. You know what chucked asia going to be
(10:19):
if you didn't hear he said, I don't want to
play if Isaiah Thomas is on the team. Now much
has been made is still being made about how one
player should not have had the power to keep another
off the team, and further how USA basketball officials, the
late David Stern, Dave Gavitt, whoever, should not have listened
(10:40):
to one man and they should have said, I you, Michael,
we're taking Isaiah, to which I always say police. In
the year of Our Lord, there was no one who
was going to pick Isaiah Thomas over Michael Jordan's It's
that simple. Plus, the case could be made that John
stocked him by that point, was as good as Isaiah Thomas. Personally,
(11:04):
I would not make that argument. At their best, Isaiah
was better than John. But when you factor in everything,
including the Jordan factor and team chemistry, that doesn't necessarily
add up to Isaiah having a deserving place on the team.
(11:30):
A final note on the Isaiah story. When the team
was finally selected and announced in September, Magic Johnson released
the following statement, I sincerely hope the selection committee awards
one of the final two remaining roster positions to Isaiah.
I say this not because Isaiah as my friend, but
because I believe he will assist the team in winning
(11:52):
the gold medal. Oh my god, what a bunch of crap.
As it evolved years later, Magic and Isaiah were already
on the outs. Magic didn't want Isaiah on the team either,
and he could have been considered Isaiah's greatest ally. Now,
by the time Chuck Daly was announced as the coach,
several players had already expressed interest in playing in Barcelona,
(12:15):
specifically Malone Barkley, Ewing and Magic. But heartening back to
the beginning of the podcast. There hadn't been much buzz
about it, so many people just did not think it
was going to happen after fifty years of amateur players
representing our country. So I had the idea to do
(12:35):
this story, this kind of hypothetical story about what the
team might look like. And I started with Magic and
he said, no way, I'm doing this if you're not
picking Larry. I said, well, I would pick Larry. I
told Magic, but I don't think he's going to play,
which was the truth. You gotta check with the Magic said,
and I did. And this is Bird years later talking
(12:58):
about it. One thing I didn't want to do is
go over there and not go to at all and
take away the chance with somebody else to have. Bird's
back was hurting, and he was legitimately concerned that he
was too old to go to Barcelona. He was just
trying to get through the season and coax the Celtics
to another finals, which even he knew was not going
(13:22):
to happen. So after I reported back to Magic, he said, okay,
I'm in. I eventually rounded up Jordan's. He took some convincing,
of course, because he was Jordan's and he still hadn't
officially committed to the team, and I also rounded up
Patrick Ewing, Kr Malone and Charles Barkley. They were my
(13:42):
choice for a starting lineup as long as Bird said
he was not playing. Now, why you Ing over David Robinson?
Tell you the truth, I really don't know. To this day,
I'm not sure who I would take in his prime.
Perhaps Robinson for his all around athleticism, but there was
something about Ewing's indomitable spirit. Anyway, this took a lot
(14:05):
of arranging and a lot of secret maneuvering, and when
we tried to move the five guys into a separate
room to take a shot during a break in the
All Star hullabaloo, all hell broke. Loose fans were banging
on the door. After we somehow managed to get the
guys in there. I had arranged for my two sons
to be in the room to hand out the swag
(14:26):
bags to the players, and they were wide eyed astonished
the crush of people trying to get into the room.
My sons, by the way, are both over forty now
and they still have the polaroids. You know the definition
of a swag bag. By the way, it's good he's
given to people who are so rich that they should
be the ones handing out the swag bags. That's certainly
(14:47):
what Christopher thought on The Sopranos when he robs learned Bacall.
That's the Lauren Bacall to grab her swag bag as
Lauren lets loose with a barrage of f bombs. Great
Sopranos omen Anyway, right before we're ready to take the
photo into the room, bursts Russ Grannick, who was the
Deputy Commissioner of the NBA at the time, David Stearn's
(15:09):
right hand man, and I mean he was pissed. We
haven't cleared this. We haven't cleared this. He kept yelling,
which I guess was technically true, meaning that we hadn't
cleared it with the NBA. We finally talked Russ off
the ledge and took the photo. Russ is, by the way,
one of the great guys in NBA history. When the
(15:30):
cover photo came out, it wasn't a way kind of hokey,
but the five stars were holding replicas of the Olympic
rings and the power them together, and it just released
some kind of energy. I wrote the story that weekend
and I began it this way. It's a red, white
and blue dream. The five players who graced this week's
(15:52):
cover playing together determined to restore America's lost basketball dignity
in the Olympic Games in bars Lona. What's the chances
of this dream coming true? Not bad? Not bad at all?
And then there was just the cover line that said
dream Team. From that moment on, everything changed. Dream Teams
(16:16):
started to become a thing. There began to be stories
written about it. Who's going to be on the Dream Team?
Who's not a dream teamer? Okay, Magic's on board, Patrick's excited,
The Mailman's all in. Chris Mullen, I didn't even think
about he said, I'm in. Scottie Pippen surprised at the nod,
but put me down. We had a name. It seemed
(16:38):
like reality. The dream Team. Now, let's consider the inclusion
of one Charles Wade Barkley. At the end of episode two,
I played you a clip of Charles talking about how
he was one of the first five players picked because
he had been on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Uh
not the case. Charles was no lock for a variety
(17:00):
of reasons, this being one of them. But in March,
Barkley did something truly outrageous, even for him. Barkley's Sixers
were playing the New Jersey Nets in a hard fought
regular season game. A Nets fan in the front row
had allegedly been heckling him all night, and eventually Barkley
snapped in the fourth quarter during a stop and play.
Barkley spit in the fans general direction, only it hit
(17:22):
a little girl instead. Now a couple of things here. First,
there was no allegedly about Charles being heckled. He was
being heckled, fat ass and all that. I don't know
if there was a racial component, but of course he
shouldn't have snapped, and of course he didn't mean to
spit on the young girl, whose name was Lauren Rose
and who Charles later spoke to and apologize. But combined
(17:43):
with other incidents a bar room brawler too, and on
court fight or two, a weapon's charge for carrying an
unlicensed handgun, a few dozen on politic comments, and well, Charles,
despite what he said in episode two about being one
of the first five pick was automatic for the Dream Team,
and certainly David Stern, the Commissioner, was ambivalent about his inclusion.
(18:08):
The basketball of people are always metrified you can't get
enough good players. Yeah, if they had the big twenty players, right, Yeah,
it's really reluctant. You know, you never know what he's
gonna say because he doesn't know what because he really
he's really you know, stepped over the line a couple
of times, but you know he's Charles. So why did
(18:30):
Charles make the team? Two reasons? Really. Rod Thorne, who
at that time was an executive with the league, was
the one charge with calling Charles, and he was instantly
impressed by how much Barkley wanted to play. But this
is the key factor. Thorne, a former general manager who
had drafted Jordan's and was very much an important man
(18:51):
in the process of gathering players, wanted his talent. Remember
what David Stern said, while the people more preoccupied with image,
never think you have enough boy scouts basketball people, which
Rod Thorne was, never think you have enough talent. Charles
was clearly not a boy scout, but talent one out
and Charles Barkley was a dream teamer. Now, so far
(19:25):
as need goes, the team probably did not need Larry Bird.
He was thirty five and it was an old thirty five.
His back was not just hurting, it was killing him.
As you heard from his voice at the beginning of
the episode, Bird would describe times when he would drive
his car only a mile before he had to stop
(19:46):
and get out stretches back. This resonates with me, as
it does with many others. On a couple of occasions,
I visited Bird's miracle man physiotherapist Dan Direct, and over
long stretches of the season, Direct was Bird's most constant companion.
But Bird, after many haranguing phone calls from Magic and
a couple of conversations with Dave Gabbett, eventually signed on.
(20:10):
Remember that he says it was just to hang out
with Gavitt, but there was more to it than that.
One of the kids. My dad was big on the Olympics,
and uh it adn't matter of his traffic field, you know,
high jug whatever. His big thing was always a national
anthem eternal of TV for o Limpics. The year the
national anthem, he turned and smile saying us one goal.
(20:31):
I always remember that and I always stopped bought that
would be as a kid. I never dreamed I ever
to do it. But the most exciting thing for me
was when we got our medals when he played the Stars,
because I remember back in his mind when he heard
the anthem plan it was a gold medal. He was happy.
I was The Bird was just starting to become a
college player at Indiana State in nineteen seventy six when
(20:53):
the US team won gold in Montreal. He was already
a professional in the nineteen eighties. He had never in
his Olympic chance, and Bird, despite his hesitation about his back,
wanted in on the national team. He remembered those Knights
have watched the Olympics with his dad. He wanted to
hear the national anthem from the podium, and he wanted
(21:14):
to remember his father, that dark soul who took his
own life when Larry was a teenager. So Bird was
in and Magic was in, and together they constituted the
most important ceremonial picks of the Dream Team. That was
one of the great luxuries of the Dream Team by
the way it could afford ceremonial picks. It needed ceremonial picks,
(21:36):
and Magic and Bird are the two best ceremonial players
in history. So it's getting near the time in late
summer to announce the Dream Team and the following are
on board. Magic John stocked in his guards, Barkley, Malone,
Mullen and Bird as forwards, Ewing and David Robinson as centers,
(21:57):
Scottie Pippen as the classic swingman, and finally, Michael Jordan's,
after months of coyness, said he was in. That's ten. Now.
USA Basketball had decided to leave two spots to be
announced a couple of months before the Olympics. It was
a really stupid decision, determined partly because there was still
some discussion about how many college players were to be
(22:20):
added to the team. Increasingly, though, it had become clear
that when players like James Worthy and Dominique Wilkins didn't
even come close to making the team that really no
college players should be on the team. So now we're
gonna jump ahead about eight months for the anticlimactic announcement
that Clyde Drexeler was added to the Dream Team. Any
(22:43):
lingering support for Isaiah Thomas had all but dissipated, and
Clyde deserved the nod. And I've always believed that a
big part of the reason that Clyde made those comments
about Jordan's that you heard in an earlier episode. It
was because he was rightly piste off that he had
been added late. Finally, they decided to add one college kid.
(23:06):
There's the pastor right there, what's it up now? Shaquille
O'Neal would be a better pro than Christian Lightner. Shaquille
O'Neal would be more fun, a foil for the barbs
of Barkley, Jordan's and Bird. But the pick was clearly
Christian Lightner, and Rod Thorne tells why the people were
(23:28):
adamant that it would be lateener because of good things
he had done for USA basketball. He had shocked the
two deaths they came down to UH and he had
played on teams and been very property with them and
had had a great year. So later was added first
body of work, and he probably deserved to be there,
(23:49):
even if he did sometimes act like a dick. So
let's jump back in time again to the fall of
and the televised show that announced the first ten members
of the Dream Team. What had once seemed like a
far off dream just a couple of years earlier, was
now moving toward reality. The Dream Team was no longer
(24:11):
a dream man. We couldn't wait. Preseason started the Los
Angeles Lakers headed for Paris and the fourth Annuel McDonald's Open.
I covered the event, and I remember it was gloomy
in Paris, and Magic Johnson, for one, wasn't real happy. Players,
you see, get far less out of these cultural exchanges
(24:32):
than the league gets out of the pr gains by
sending them to far away places. But gamely, because he
was Magic, he did all the requisite press conferences and
smiled that magic smile. He came back from France, got
a mandatory physical because of a new insurance policy he
had taken out, and one afternoon, as he prepared for
(24:54):
a preseason game in Utah, his doctor called and told
him to fly back to Los Angeles a meet it ly,
and on November Magic Johnson, who by most accounts would
be captaining the Dream Team, held a news conference that
shocked the world. We'll talk about that and the summer
of nine two when the Dream Team came together on
(25:16):
the next episode. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed The
Dream Team Tapes, please follow, rate, and review wherever you
get your podcasts. The Dream Team Tapes is written and
hosted by Jack McCallum. Executive producers Mark Francis and Scott Waxman,
(25:43):
executive producer for I Heart Media, is shown to tone.
The Dream Team Tapes is a Diversion Podcasts original series
in association with I heart Radio. For more podcasts from
my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H
This is The Dream Team Tapes, a Diversion Podcasts original
series in association with I Heart Radio. This is the
story of the United States Olympic basketball team that won
gold in Barcelona in known worldwide as the Dream Team.
(00:22):
Millions of Americans own a personal computer. If you're one
of them, you can now glimpse the future with nothing
more than a modem, a phone line, and a few
dollars a month mark with the A and then the
ring around it. At see, that's what I said, um
Case said she thought it was about yeah, but I've
never heard it. I've never heard it said, but never
(00:44):
heard it said. And then it sounded stupid what I
said at violence at NBC. So why did I choose
to open episode three of The Dream Team Tapes by
making fun of Briant Gumble, Katie Couric, and Elizabeth Fargas,
all of whom are infinitely more famous than I onsode
(01:04):
of the Today Show. Beyond the fact, of course that
it's a lot of fun. Now, let me note that
the first time I had a flip phone, I got
thirty seven calls before I found out you had to
actually flip the phone open to answer them. So maybe
I'm not the guy to be making fun here, But
I have a point. Twenty eight years after the Dream
Team began to be put together, one of my most
(01:27):
vivid memories was how, for want of a better word,
quietly it all came together. That's the only description I
would give to the manner in which the news was
received that pros could now play in the Olympics. Why
was that? Well, we must resort to the obvious here first,
the absence of social media the Bryant Katie Elizabeth video.
(01:48):
Remember was even a few years after the news of
the Dream Team, there was zero social media and only
daily newspapers and magazines like Sports Illustrated. The Olympic news
is not big news. Had something similar happened today, the
Internet would have blown up within an hour. Every hoops
fan in America with a keyboard would have had his
(02:10):
or her dream team selected. So in December, now this
is nine months before the team would be announced, I
had an idea that why don't I pick my starting
five if these guys were to play in the Olympics.
It was all presented as a hypothetical. We could take
a photo at the All Star Game in Charlotte in
February put it on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and
(02:33):
that would save me writing about the All Star Game,
about which there was usually nothing to write except how
bad the defense is and ladies and gentlemen. Honestly, that
was the beginning of the real interest in the Dream Team,
and in fact, i'll tell you later how it got
its name. But something else was going on in relative
secret at that time, the decision about who was going
(02:56):
to coach these guys. Here's Chuck Daily. I thought, you know,
maybe I was a little far along in my career
and I thought, you know, there's so many qualified people
out there that I really didn't give it a lot
of thought. Someone mentioned it to me and I said, oh,
I don't know that I would fit into that category
or not. But I said, nice, you know that people
(03:18):
are mentioning my name and Matt Dobeck part of just
your background of being optimistic. She never really enjoyed the
stuff that the accomptant. You know, even lot with that
because you're so worried about what I said, Joe, I
get a little sad when I hear those voices for
both men are gone now. The first voice belonged to
Chuck Daily, who died of cancer in two thousand nine.
(03:39):
Our interview is from Barcelona, in the middle of the Olympics.
The other voice is Matt Dobek, who was the pistons
long time public relations man. Matt took his own life
a little over a year after Chuck died. I'm not
suggesting the events were connected, but I'm not suggesting they
weren't connected either. See Chuck and Matt were as close
(04:01):
as any coach and PR man could ever be. I'm
not as familiar with those relationships in other sports, but
in pro basketball the relationship between the coach and the
PR person is extremely important to the health of the team.
See the coaches like the CEO of a large corporation,
except that he's responsible to the media and fans on
(04:23):
a daily basis. The PR person is the one charged
with running interference, trying to decide when the coach should talk,
when he should stay quiet, and when he should well,
if not outright, lie then obfuscate. So on Valentine's Day,
Charles Jerome Daily was named coach of the Dream Team.
(04:46):
In keeping with that quiet theme I had talked about,
nobody paid all that much attention and there was very
little ceremony attached to the announcement. I wouldn't say Chuck
was a unanimous choice, but he was certainly a popular one.
Pat Riley and Don Nelson seemed the other possible choices,
but in their own way, they had something against them.
(05:07):
Nelly was a little squirrelly. You never knew what he
was gonna say or what he was gonna do. For
that matter, pat was a great coach, but he was
way way into that my way or the highway thing.
By that time, the powers that be knew that they
needed a diplomat as well as a great coach, somebody
who wouldn't go nuclear with all the extracurricular demands that
(05:30):
would come with coaching the Dream Team. Plus there was
this from Charles Barkley, Chuck coach the bad boy Pistons.
Charles said, on more than one occasion, you coach those assholes,
you can coach anybody. Chuck never seemed to take himself
too seriously. It was a great Boston writer, Bob Ryan,
who hung the sobriquet the Prince of Pessimism on Chuck
(05:53):
because he would always find the gloomy side to anything,
but at the same time a wry smile was never
far from his face. You know me any money, he
used to say as he gripped your hand in a greeting.
And when Chuck would give out a cell phone, he
ended up by saying the first six numbers and then
Rodman Sally. That's because the final four numbers were ten
(06:15):
and twenty two, the jersey numbers of Dennis Rodman and
John Sally. Now, when Chuck's decision was announced on that
Valentine's Day in one, you have to understand what was
going on in the NBA that season. Daly's Pistons, the
bad Boys as everyone called them, or the a holes
as Charles called them, were the two time defending champions,
(06:38):
having disposed of the Lakers in nine and the Trailblazers
in but their meter had clearly expired. They were old
and injured, and almost everyone figured correctly as it turned out,
that Jordan's and Pippin's bulls would overtake them. But Daly
was still the man the committee wanted, and in retrospect,
(07:00):
it's hard to imagine the Dream Team without Chuck. One
of my regrets is that he died in two thousand
nine before I got a chance to interview him. Chuck
was happy to get the job, of course, but right
away he knew he was in a tough position. Matt
Dobek knew it right away too, because he told me.
Though no players had been selected for the team, Chuck
(07:22):
knew in his heart of hearts that selling his captain,
Isaiah Thomas to the committee would be difficult because of
some of the poisonous relationships that Isaiah had built up
over the years. Bill lamb, Or, Isaiah's teammate and best friend,
pointed out correctly that had the Dream Team decisions been
made a year or two earlier, when the Pistons were
(07:44):
the kings of the NBA, it would have been harder
to keep Isaiah off of it. You have to remember
that Isaiah stirred up a lot of this stuff himself,
including the time he agreed with Dennis Rodman after Robin
made that much remembered statement that Larry Bird was overrated.
But let's unpack that a little bit. It occurred right
(08:08):
after Isaiah had made a bone headed pass that led
to a bird steel that led to a bird pass
that led to a Dennis Johnson basket that eventually led
to the Celtics beating the Pistons and making the finals.
In seven, Isaiah was in an overheated Boston Garden visitors
locker room, which is exactly how the Celtics used to
(08:30):
keep the visitor's locker room. And what Isaiah actually said was,
Larry Bird is an exceptional talent, but I have to
agree with Dennis. If he was black, he'd be just
another good guy. Now that's a little different than just
outright dissing Bird. And it was a theme that Isaiah
and other black players as well used to say, and
(08:53):
that was how much more attention great or outstanding white
players got than their black counterparts. Isaiah just happened to
pick the wrong guy to say it about. At any rate,
it's an absolute certainty that in today's Twitter climate, Isaiah
would have gotten a lot more support. At the very least,
it would have been a viral blow up for a
(09:14):
few hours. So no matter what you heard, there was
never much of a chance for Isaiah thomas to make
the Dream Team. For this reason, mainly, Michael Jordan's did
not want him. I wrote that back because a source
close to the situation, no not Jordan himself, told me
(09:37):
that was the case. But Jordan's reaction to the question
did you keep Isaiah off the team was either angry no,
dismissive no Isaiah questions please, or coy hey, I didn't
pick the team. So when I went to interview Jordan
for the Dream Team book in two thousand eleven, I
(09:57):
wondered how I would nudge conversation over to Isaiah Thomas.
But against all odds, Jordan went there himself suddenly and
without warning, and nickols me to ask me the book
Robin calls, who are will to play Isaiah Thomas? Here's here?
He said. You know what chucked asia going to be
(10:19):
if you didn't hear he said, I don't want to
play if Isaiah Thomas is on the team. Now much
has been made is still being made about how one
player should not have had the power to keep another
off the team, and further how USA basketball officials, the
late David Stern, Dave Gavitt, whoever, should not have listened
(10:40):
to one man and they should have said, I you, Michael,
we're taking Isaiah, to which I always say police. In
the year of Our Lord, there was no one who
was going to pick Isaiah Thomas over Michael Jordan's It's
that simple. Plus, the case could be made that John
stocked him by that point, was as good as Isaiah Thomas. Personally,
(11:04):
I would not make that argument. At their best, Isaiah
was better than John. But when you factor in everything,
including the Jordan factor and team chemistry, that doesn't necessarily
add up to Isaiah having a deserving place on the team.
(11:30):
A final note on the Isaiah story. When the team
was finally selected and announced in September, Magic Johnson released
the following statement, I sincerely hope the selection committee awards
one of the final two remaining roster positions to Isaiah.
I say this not because Isaiah as my friend, but
because I believe he will assist the team in winning
(11:52):
the gold medal. Oh my god, what a bunch of crap.
As it evolved years later, Magic and Isaiah were already
on the outs. Magic didn't want Isaiah on the team either,
and he could have been considered Isaiah's greatest ally. Now,
by the time Chuck Daly was announced as the coach,
several players had already expressed interest in playing in Barcelona,
(12:15):
specifically Malone Barkley, Ewing and Magic. But heartening back to
the beginning of the podcast. There hadn't been much buzz
about it, so many people just did not think it
was going to happen after fifty years of amateur players
representing our country. So I had the idea to do
(12:35):
this story, this kind of hypothetical story about what the
team might look like. And I started with Magic and
he said, no way, I'm doing this if you're not
picking Larry. I said, well, I would pick Larry. I
told Magic, but I don't think he's going to play,
which was the truth. You gotta check with the Magic said,
and I did. And this is Bird years later talking
(12:58):
about it. One thing I didn't want to do is
go over there and not go to at all and
take away the chance with somebody else to have. Bird's
back was hurting, and he was legitimately concerned that he
was too old to go to Barcelona. He was just
trying to get through the season and coax the Celtics
to another finals, which even he knew was not going
(13:22):
to happen. So after I reported back to Magic, he said, okay,
I'm in. I eventually rounded up Jordan's. He took some convincing,
of course, because he was Jordan's and he still hadn't
officially committed to the team, and I also rounded up
Patrick Ewing, Kr Malone and Charles Barkley. They were my
(13:42):
choice for a starting lineup as long as Bird said
he was not playing. Now, why you Ing over David Robinson?
Tell you the truth, I really don't know. To this day,
I'm not sure who I would take in his prime.
Perhaps Robinson for his all around athleticism, but there was
something about Ewing's indomitable spirit. Anyway, this took a lot
(14:05):
of arranging and a lot of secret maneuvering, and when
we tried to move the five guys into a separate
room to take a shot during a break in the
All Star hullabaloo, all hell broke. Loose fans were banging
on the door. After we somehow managed to get the
guys in there. I had arranged for my two sons
to be in the room to hand out the swag
(14:26):
bags to the players, and they were wide eyed astonished
the crush of people trying to get into the room.
My sons, by the way, are both over forty now
and they still have the polaroids. You know the definition
of a swag bag. By the way, it's good he's
given to people who are so rich that they should
be the ones handing out the swag bags. That's certainly
(14:47):
what Christopher thought on The Sopranos when he robs learned Bacall.
That's the Lauren Bacall to grab her swag bag as
Lauren lets loose with a barrage of f bombs. Great
Sopranos omen Anyway, right before we're ready to take the
photo into the room, bursts Russ Grannick, who was the
Deputy Commissioner of the NBA at the time, David Stearn's
(15:09):
right hand man, and I mean he was pissed. We
haven't cleared this. We haven't cleared this. He kept yelling,
which I guess was technically true, meaning that we hadn't
cleared it with the NBA. We finally talked Russ off
the ledge and took the photo. Russ is, by the way,
one of the great guys in NBA history. When the
(15:30):
cover photo came out, it wasn't a way kind of hokey,
but the five stars were holding replicas of the Olympic
rings and the power them together, and it just released
some kind of energy. I wrote the story that weekend
and I began it this way. It's a red, white
and blue dream. The five players who graced this week's
(15:52):
cover playing together determined to restore America's lost basketball dignity
in the Olympic Games in bars Lona. What's the chances
of this dream coming true? Not bad? Not bad at all?
And then there was just the cover line that said
dream Team. From that moment on, everything changed. Dream Teams
(16:16):
started to become a thing. There began to be stories
written about it. Who's going to be on the Dream Team?
Who's not a dream teamer? Okay, Magic's on board, Patrick's excited,
The Mailman's all in. Chris Mullen, I didn't even think
about he said, I'm in. Scottie Pippen surprised at the nod,
but put me down. We had a name. It seemed
(16:38):
like reality. The dream Team. Now, let's consider the inclusion
of one Charles Wade Barkley. At the end of episode two,
I played you a clip of Charles talking about how
he was one of the first five players picked because
he had been on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Uh
not the case. Charles was no lock for a variety
(17:00):
of reasons, this being one of them. But in March,
Barkley did something truly outrageous, even for him. Barkley's Sixers
were playing the New Jersey Nets in a hard fought
regular season game. A Nets fan in the front row
had allegedly been heckling him all night, and eventually Barkley
snapped in the fourth quarter during a stop and play.
Barkley spit in the fans general direction, only it hit
(17:22):
a little girl instead. Now a couple of things here. First,
there was no allegedly about Charles being heckled. He was
being heckled, fat ass and all that. I don't know
if there was a racial component, but of course he
shouldn't have snapped, and of course he didn't mean to
spit on the young girl, whose name was Lauren Rose
and who Charles later spoke to and apologize. But combined
(17:43):
with other incidents a bar room brawler too, and on
court fight or two, a weapon's charge for carrying an
unlicensed handgun, a few dozen on politic comments, and well, Charles,
despite what he said in episode two about being one
of the first five pick was automatic for the Dream Team,
and certainly David Stern, the Commissioner, was ambivalent about his inclusion.
(18:08):
The basketball of people are always metrified you can't get
enough good players. Yeah, if they had the big twenty players, right, Yeah,
it's really reluctant. You know, you never know what he's
gonna say because he doesn't know what because he really
he's really you know, stepped over the line a couple
of times, but you know he's Charles. So why did
(18:30):
Charles make the team? Two reasons? Really. Rod Thorne, who
at that time was an executive with the league, was
the one charge with calling Charles, and he was instantly
impressed by how much Barkley wanted to play. But this
is the key factor. Thorne, a former general manager who
had drafted Jordan's and was very much an important man
(18:51):
in the process of gathering players, wanted his talent. Remember
what David Stern said, while the people more preoccupied with image,
never think you have enough boy scouts basketball people, which
Rod Thorne was, never think you have enough talent. Charles
was clearly not a boy scout, but talent one out
and Charles Barkley was a dream teamer. Now, so far
(19:25):
as need goes, the team probably did not need Larry Bird.
He was thirty five and it was an old thirty five.
His back was not just hurting, it was killing him.
As you heard from his voice at the beginning of
the episode, Bird would describe times when he would drive
his car only a mile before he had to stop
(19:46):
and get out stretches back. This resonates with me, as
it does with many others. On a couple of occasions,
I visited Bird's miracle man physiotherapist Dan Direct, and over
long stretches of the season, Direct was Bird's most constant companion.
But Bird, after many haranguing phone calls from Magic and
a couple of conversations with Dave Gabbett, eventually signed on.
(20:10):
Remember that he says it was just to hang out
with Gavitt, but there was more to it than that.
One of the kids. My dad was big on the Olympics,
and uh it adn't matter of his traffic field, you know,
high jug whatever. His big thing was always a national
anthem eternal of TV for o Limpics. The year the
national anthem, he turned and smile saying us one goal.
(20:31):
I always remember that and I always stopped bought that
would be as a kid. I never dreamed I ever
to do it. But the most exciting thing for me
was when we got our medals when he played the Stars,
because I remember back in his mind when he heard
the anthem plan it was a gold medal. He was happy.
I was The Bird was just starting to become a
college player at Indiana State in nineteen seventy six when
(20:53):
the US team won gold in Montreal. He was already
a professional in the nineteen eighties. He had never in
his Olympic chance, and Bird, despite his hesitation about his back,
wanted in on the national team. He remembered those Knights
have watched the Olympics with his dad. He wanted to
hear the national anthem from the podium, and he wanted
(21:14):
to remember his father, that dark soul who took his
own life when Larry was a teenager. So Bird was
in and Magic was in, and together they constituted the
most important ceremonial picks of the Dream Team. That was
one of the great luxuries of the Dream Team by
the way it could afford ceremonial picks. It needed ceremonial picks,
(21:36):
and Magic and Bird are the two best ceremonial players
in history. So it's getting near the time in late
summer to announce the Dream Team and the following are
on board. Magic John stocked in his guards, Barkley, Malone,
Mullen and Bird as forwards, Ewing and David Robinson as centers,
(21:57):
Scottie Pippen as the classic swingman, and finally, Michael Jordan's,
after months of coyness, said he was in. That's ten. Now.
USA Basketball had decided to leave two spots to be
announced a couple of months before the Olympics. It was
a really stupid decision, determined partly because there was still
some discussion about how many college players were to be
(22:20):
added to the team. Increasingly, though, it had become clear
that when players like James Worthy and Dominique Wilkins didn't
even come close to making the team that really no
college players should be on the team. So now we're
gonna jump ahead about eight months for the anticlimactic announcement
that Clyde Drexeler was added to the Dream Team. Any
(22:43):
lingering support for Isaiah Thomas had all but dissipated, and
Clyde deserved the nod. And I've always believed that a
big part of the reason that Clyde made those comments
about Jordan's that you heard in an earlier episode. It
was because he was rightly piste off that he had
been added late. Finally, they decided to add one college kid.
(23:06):
There's the pastor right there, what's it up now? Shaquille
O'Neal would be a better pro than Christian Lightner. Shaquille
O'Neal would be more fun, a foil for the barbs
of Barkley, Jordan's and Bird. But the pick was clearly
Christian Lightner, and Rod Thorne tells why the people were
(23:28):
adamant that it would be lateener because of good things
he had done for USA basketball. He had shocked the
two deaths they came down to UH and he had
played on teams and been very property with them and
had had a great year. So later was added first
body of work, and he probably deserved to be there,
(23:49):
even if he did sometimes act like a dick. So
let's jump back in time again to the fall of
and the televised show that announced the first ten members
of the Dream Team. What had once seemed like a
far off dream just a couple of years earlier, was
now moving toward reality. The Dream Team was no longer
(24:11):
a dream man. We couldn't wait. Preseason started the Los
Angeles Lakers headed for Paris and the fourth Annuel McDonald's Open.
I covered the event, and I remember it was gloomy
in Paris, and Magic Johnson, for one, wasn't real happy. Players,
you see, get far less out of these cultural exchanges
(24:32):
than the league gets out of the pr gains by
sending them to far away places. But gamely, because he
was Magic, he did all the requisite press conferences and
smiled that magic smile. He came back from France, got
a mandatory physical because of a new insurance policy he
had taken out, and one afternoon, as he prepared for
(24:54):
a preseason game in Utah, his doctor called and told
him to fly back to Los Angeles a meet it ly,
and on November Magic Johnson, who by most accounts would
be captaining the Dream Team, held a news conference that
shocked the world. We'll talk about that and the summer
of nine two when the Dream Team came together on
(25:16):
the next episode. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed The
Dream Team Tapes, please follow, rate, and review wherever you
get your podcasts. The Dream Team Tapes is written and
hosted by Jack McCallum. Executive producers Mark Francis and Scott Waxman,
(25:43):
executive producer for I Heart Media, is shown to tone.
The Dream Team Tapes is a Diversion Podcasts original series
in association with I heart Radio. For more podcasts from
my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H
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