June 15, 2020 • 22 mins
Ever since the book Dream Team was released in 2012, fans have been curious about the intrasquad scrimmage the Dream Teamers played in Monte Carlo, a few days before the Olympics began in Barcelona. “The Greatest Game Nobody Ever Saw” is what McCallum called that chapter in his book … even though he did see it on film. McCallum breaks it down, along with the phenomenon of the world’s most famous team hanging out in the world’s most famous playground. Hint: Money exchanged hands.
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Episode Transcript
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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, known worldwide as the Dream Team. No
(00:26):
section of my book Dream Team got as much attention
as the chapter I called the greatest game Nobody ever saw,
which is exactly what I'm calling this episode six of
the Dream Team Tapes. I'm Jack McCallum, and today I
tell you what happened in Monte Carlo the week before
the Dreamers went on to Barcelona for the Olympics. Some
(00:46):
recap the team had its initial training in San Diego,
went on to play the qualifying tournament in Portland. But
Chuck Daily and the folks at USA Basketball didn't want
to go to Barcelona cold, so they set up a
week of pre Olympic training at a place where everyone
goes when they want to train. Seriously, Monty Carlo. Yeah right,
it was a brilliant move. Really. The players may not
(01:09):
have wanted to practice, but they knew the good times
they could have in Monte Carlo. It wasn't as sybaritic
as you might think. Most of them brought along their families.
The team was going directly for Monte Carlo to Barcelona,
and I remember looking at them when they checked into
the Low's Monte Carlo. It looked like a group family
vacation of millionaires, which is exactly what it was. Strollers, luggage, babysitters,
(01:33):
more luggage, more babysitters, more luggage. Charles Barkley was one
of the few who was batching it, so the mind
cannot begin to grasp what a great time he must
have had in that have been for gamblers, models and
folks with few money. The fact that they were there
at all was a testament to the compromises made for
the Dream Team, because in the early years of his
(01:56):
tenure as Commissioner, the late Great David Stern was fervent
the anti gambling, having grown up following the college basketball
point shaving scandals that wrecked hoops in New York City
for a long time. But he was also the leagu's guardian,
and he recognized that a training camp and say, Fort Wayne, Indiana,
was not the inducement he needed to get the players
(02:17):
to buy in. So he began talking to a tennis buddy,
New York Giants owner Bob Tisch, who also owned the
Lowe's hotel, including a show piece property in Monaco. From there,
Russ Grant, Externs Consigliari at the NBA and Lowe's chairman
Robert Hausman negotiated the deal with the principality. Plus this
(02:39):
was only months removed from the revelations coming to light
about Michael Jordan's off court gambling debts and his association
with a convicted coke dealer slash money launderer with the
Elmore Leonardish name of James slim Boeller. The NBA investigated
and released a statement There appears to be no reason
for the NBA to take action again. Michael subtexts were
(03:02):
embarrassed by this and wish he would stop. But there
was Michael, along with many of the other Dreamers, gambling
the night away in the Lows Casino entirely legally. It
must be at it Magic. Johnson remembers one night watching
Michael play. So I was sitting at his table, but
not playing, just sitting it, and then he comes in.
(03:23):
I said I was one. I'm wanted me a table
up for you. So he says to me, I'm gonna
be your most expensive Chiley that you've ever had in
you a lot. I'm gonna stand behind you, and cheered
gold Jordan go. So he played all what is the
end of five? Five? Five and five? N he was
playing them all. They wrote up this table for him
(03:46):
and he played all night. Now. Before the dream team arrived,
the lows legendary hotel manager Henrie Lorenzi. I was told
he was legendary. I don't really know how to rate
the legendary nous of hotel managers, but anyway, Henri was
complaining about what he perceived as the unnecessary level of
security insisted upon by USA Basketball, which had sent in
(04:10):
an advanced team of people. Lorenza's point was that millionaires
and movie stars, monarchs and models dined and drank and
gambled and gamboled in his hotel. So what was the
big deal about a dozen guys and sneakers? Why tennis
immortal Bjorn Borg is here right now, he told the
NBA's Kim Bihooney. Then when the team bus pulled up,
(04:35):
there was such a rush forward from the hotel guests
where it had gotten around that two unfortunates crashed through
the front doors of the entrance I see your point
on there, said to Bihooni, probably in a marvelous French accent. Now,
the scariest moment occurred a couple of days later, when
the team was boarding a bus to go to practice.
A driver lost control of his car while gaping at
(04:58):
the Dream Team. And here was a scene described by
Pete Scurich, the Pistons team videographer whom Chuck Daly had
brought over to chronicle practices and Games. Were parked out
front of the hotel, getting ready to go to practice,
and this car that was parked up on the hill
kind of a parking brate went out and it came
(05:19):
down the hill and a crashing of the hotel had
penned us in. And for like a split time, I
thought this could be this could be terrorists. The Dream
Team's arrival gave a whole new dimension to the phrase
gap or delay, and the same thing would happen in Barcelona. Now,
these trips to exotic locales always sound more bacchanalian than
(05:39):
they really are, particularly for journalists, at least for this journalist.
I was married. Nobody wanted to comport with me, though
I did suffer the least sympathetic injury in sports writer history,
a sprain thumb from operating the uncooperative controls of a
jet ski that I had rented from a topless fender
by the Lovely Mediterranean. It really hurts, I said to
(06:01):
my wife, and a phone call shut up, she suggested.
The most fun I had during this entire summer happened
when Newsday writer Jan Hubbard and I joined Barkley and
Drexeler for a round of golf at the Monte Carlo
Country Club, which was not as upscale as the name suggests,
though it did afford beautiful views. A golfing hierarchy had
(06:21):
been established by this time. At the top was Jordan
and Chuck Daily and whomever else was selected to play
with them, and below that was everybody else, especially journalist
Jan and Clyde, both with Texas roots, played against Charles
and I, both with Philly connections. At that point, Charles
had not suffered the bewildering sets of ticks and twitches
(06:43):
that have turned his game into a mind puzzle of
the first order, So I think it was a good match.
I mean, who really cares. But it really got interesting
when David Robinson joined us, thus creating an illegal Fivesome.
I wish somebody had filmed it. David was at that
time just getting comple with his Christian faith and trying
to figure out how it was supposed to work in
(07:04):
a pro sports atmosphere where locker room language was pretty
much everywhere. You know, it was something that was really
emerging in my life, and uh, and I was just
really understanding it for myself. And you know, in locker
room is not the place where everybody they don't want
to hear that stuff. You know that you go in
there and you know guys are like, look, number one,
Christian guys, they're soft. You know, they know they're not
(07:25):
gonna cut your throat out when it's time, and we
want somebody who's going to cut your throat that one
it's time. And so I think that that was part
of the kind of one of the first impressions that
people had. But then the other one that people just
didn't want to be around the guy and talking about faith.
So David joins us, and our original foursome is cussing
up a storm and David says something about toning it
down very nicely, and we go another hole or two.
(07:47):
But then Charles says some form of m effort to somebody,
and David picks up his clubs and says he's going
back to the range. He did it very nicely. He
didn't get mad about it. He just as I wrote
in Dream Team, smiled beatifically, indicated that he would rather
not be around that kind of language, picked up his
clubs and walked away. It was a lesson to me.
(08:11):
He did it, his teammates accepted it, and that's the
way it was. And as soon as David walked away,
we began cussing again. Now on the way home, I
was apparently driving the rental car a bit too, shall
we say, haphazardly through the mountainous terrain of the rivieras
on the same road where in two Princess Grace of
(08:31):
Monico had suffered a stroke while driving, crashed her Rover
Piece six, and died of injuries. The next day, we
began speculating how the newspaper headlines would read if we
died in a crash. Barkley Drexler, two others die and crash.
Hubbard said, they'll just leave us out. Jan I said,
Barkley Drexler die in Monte Carlo crash shit, said Barkley.
(08:56):
They won't even care about Clyde Barkley did. That's all
it would say, Oh, yes, basketball. Now. The Dream Team
did practice, They did play an exhibition game against the
French national team, and it was really, really lousy, except
for the excited fans and the French coach whose name
was Francis Jourdan spelled j O r d a n E,
(09:18):
who figured that his name would give him special access
to Michael Terry Lyons, one of the NBA's great public
relations people, remembers that a group photo was taken and
as Terry says, sure enough, there is your Dan with
his arm around Jordan's. Now. Because the Dream Team's performance
was so lousy, and I say that despite a one
(09:39):
and eleven to seventy one margin of victory, Chuck Daily
again began having thoughts that the Dream Team could possibly
lose and he would be consigned to eternal damnation without
a trial. And so he told the team at practice
the day after the lousy game, We're gonna scrimmage. Stop
screwing around, no matter what time you got in from
(10:00):
drinking at Jimmy z S, a nightclub that opened at midnight.
The most surprised and disappointed. Of the players was one
l Bird remember that day because I came in there
and I was over a stationary bike and that's where
I were going to Steady, and all of a sudden,
they're looking over you gotta played. John Stockton, c was
(10:23):
still battling the injury he had suffered in Portland, and
Clyde Drexeler had a sore nee throughout the Dream Team summer.
In fact, Drexler had at Scope when he got back
from Barcelona, and to his credit, he rarely spoke about it.
That left ten players for the scrimmage, and that meant
Bird had to play, and Daily divided up the teams.
On one squad Jordan's Malone, Pippen, Bird and Ewing, and
(10:47):
on the other Magic Barkley, Mullen, Robinson and Lightner. To
this day, Jordan refers to it as East versus West,
but Carl Malone, a Utah jazz man, is clear only
not an Easterner, dividing up Jordan's Magic to find what
(11:14):
happened next, As Dream Team assistant Mike Shaski put it
to me in a remarkably unappealing metaphor, separating those two
guys is what popped the pimple. But he's right now.
The background, the Dream Team is practicing in the Stade
Louis du and All Purpose Arena in Monte Carlo. There
are a few people inside. Remember, we journalists could not
(11:37):
watch practices, and on this day, Chuck Daly had kicked
out a few USA Basketball reps who were not happy
about it, and a few other assorted people. Chuck, one
of the audience, lean and mean assistant P J. Car Lesimo,
and a referee from Italy who had been hired by
USA Basketball. I'll be damned if I ever could find
(11:58):
out this guy's name, were handed whistles and daily told
his charges to play for real. They did, but we
the journalists, didn't know that until we showed up later
for the post practice quotes, and there seemed to be
tension in the air. Magic was clearly piste off about something.
Jordan was strutting around, being more jordan Esque than usual.
(12:22):
Gradually we found out that Jordan had beaten Magic's team
in a heated scrimmage, and there had been a lot
of trash talking, and over the years it became a
kind of urban legend because not many people had seen it,
and there was apparently no videotape. But when I started
researching the book Dream Team, I figured somebody had it
(12:43):
and I called up Pete Scorage, the Pistons videographer. I
mentioned a couple of minutes ago, Pete, did you film
every basketball minute from San Diego, Monte Carlo and Barcelona.
He said, I think so, and I invited myself to
his house, and after we watched c D after Seed,
we finally stumbled upon it. For me, it was like
(13:04):
the holy Grail. I was now about to see the
greatest game that nobody ever saw. This is me informing
Jordan that I had a tape of that game. We
want to be like that on tape. What comes through
in the tape is not the quality of play, though
a few interesting things happen. It's the quality of the
smack talk. And though it has come down through the
(13:25):
years that it was a mass smack talking jamboree, really
it was almost entirely Michael and Magic. This little bit
will give you a flavor. As the game starts to turn,
can we say inevitably towards Team Jordan's Magic begins complaining
that the refs, well, really the ref because p J.
Car Lesimo never blew his whistle is favoring Jordan's. That
(13:52):
is the only did and moved the bull stadium right here.
That's all they did. In case you didn't get all that,
that was Magic and then me asking Pippen what Magic
was saying him laughing about it, and then Magic clearly
stating his opinion they just moved Chicago Stadium to Monte Carlo.
(14:13):
What Jordan Magic were really doing was playing King of
the Hill. Magic did not want to give up a spot,
and Jordan was telling him exactly what the deal was.
On more than one occasion he said, hey man, this
is the nineties. The eighties are over. It was more
than idle trash talk, and it was a moment in time,
and the subject of whose league it was came up
(14:34):
on several occasions. Now Magic backs off that a little
bit these days, but that was exactly what was going on.
As Larry Bird remembers, the best player in our league
before that started, I had no problem. You know, we
had our run. You know I had my run. My
run was over. My run was over a couple of
years before that. I think Michael really handles something very
(14:58):
well over there. But is up there one night and
we're talking and your mind you're making still repeat at
this time. The conversation Bird is referring to took place
during a night in Barcelona, which we'll get to in
the next episode. But the idea of whose league it
was was the subplot of this scrimmage. What had happened, say,
(15:18):
was that Magic's team got off to an early lead
and Jordan's team came back to win. The final was
forty four to forty, but much of the blame has
to be put on Magic. He got suckered into playing
Jordan's game one on one, and later after it was over,
Pippin told me that Barkley was upset that Magic had
allowed himself to become a one on one player that
(15:40):
was not Magic's m O, and his desire to go
at Jordan's might have cost his blue team to win
over Jordan's White team, which should not have mattered because
what is blue and white? But really, watching Magic and
Jordan's square off against each other, and I watched that
tape dozens of times trying to pick out the best
(16:00):
parts for the book provided an excellent opportunity to reflect
on the arc of their careers. Now, don't get me wrong,
Magic was a star from the first second of his
rookie year. He won a championship, he was the finals
m v P. The instant stardom that had been predicted
for him was exactly what happened. But strangely, he should
(16:24):
have been even bigger. He should have been the first
Jordan's and he was not. Here's David Falk's shoes because
they's a personality. And I thought that Michael had the style,
the electricity, the charisma. Whods how good he was and
he was to be very exciting to sell shoes. But
I think Magic didn't have to Invanair Jordan's. He was
(16:46):
Magic and College when he had the nickname, he was
in the best market in the country. He won a
championship as a rookie, back to back College in the pros.
I mean, Magic should have been enormous. The market, had
a great style. You know, he was flashy and and
anyone at you could have owned the world at Margarine,
and he had somebody, you know, confident representing him. There
(17:06):
was no doubt about how good Magic was going to be.
He was exactly as advertised. A six ft eight inch
point guard with over the top leadership skills. But there
were some doubts about Jordan's and let's remember that he
was the third pick of the draft, not the first.
Like Magic was a key. Malajawa went first in Kentucky
center Sam Bowie went second to the Trailblazers who passed
(17:28):
over Jordan because they already you know, had their Michael
Jordan's in Clyde Drexeler. People thought he'd be like Clyde
Dresher type, like a guy the uncle free flash. I mean, truthfully, Jackie,
if I went back out of my archives and took
out my notes in draft, people questioned whether Michael had
a good enough jump shot to shoot, whether he could
(17:49):
really handle ball enough. And they knew he could jump,
you know, they knew it could dunk. They had a
lot of questions about his skills. That was David Falk. Again, Look,
let's not shed any tears for Magic. He has turned
himself into quite possibly the most successful athlete turn businessman ever.
But as an endorser, he never got close to Jordan's
(18:12):
and he should have been the first superstar endorser, the
first true basketball crossover sensation. I also watched the tape
again and again to compare Barkley and Karl Malone to
an even greater degree than Michael Magic, who didn't play
the same position. The matchup of the Dream Team was
Barkley Malone both power forwards, so Charles was more the
(18:35):
height of a small forward or even a guard. Malone
didn't really want to get into the specifics of who
was better, but Charles did. We talked about it here
during my interview with Barkley for the Dream Team book
would have been called Malone, Hey, We'll more places and
quite more seasons. Wasn't a rebounder? You had more rebounding,
(18:55):
wasn't a path But I don't think he did better
score And that come down to farm. The law comes
across as cocky, of course, but that's Charles. He respected
the hell out of Malone, still does and they are
good friends. What it always comes down to with Malone
and Barkley is, Wow, what if Charles kept himself in
the same kind of shape and worked as hard as
(19:17):
the mailman did? How good would he have been? Then?
One of the most interesting aspects of the greatest game
nobody ever saw happened late, with the issue still in doubt,
Bird who looks a hundred years old throughout most of
(19:39):
the game, makes a steal and begins dribbling full speed. Okay,
full speed for Bird at thirty five and bad back
speed toward the basket with Barkley in hot pursuit. Okay,
Barkley in hot pursuit after a night of carousing speed.
When he gets near the basket, Bird fakes a behind
the back past. He always had this knack of these
(20:00):
exaggerated fakes that were really deceptive, and Bartley bites and
Bird goes in for the layup. When I showed the
clip to Chris Mullen, he calls to his wife, Hey, Liz,
come here, watch Larry on this play. And when I
asked Jordan if he remembered the play, he said, hell, yeah,
I've referred to this before among his own Dream Team teammates.
(20:21):
There was this kind of reverence for Bird. Now, when
the scrimmage was over and we the press were allowed in,
we caught the sight of Jordan's singing be like Mike
from the Gatorade commercial and Magic moping, and we knew
something had gone on. And some of the better reporters,
like Jan Hubbard, pieced together bits and pieces of the scrimmage,
(20:42):
but we never thought would be able to see it
in detail. So when I found the videotape and thank
God for Pete Scurage, I was ecstatic because it was
an archaeological discovery as much as anything, and what it
demonstrated was not a boy's to men moment, but rather
a men to boys moment. Just a bunch of superstar
athletes playing like kids and reacting like kids. Winners act
(21:06):
like Jerk's, losers act like spoil sports. So the greatest
game nobody ever saw capt off Monte Carlo. It was
on to Barcelona, where the world at large waited to
see these guys. The attention and adulation can't get any bigger,
I thought to myself, and boy was I wrong. See
you next time for episode seven, Viva Barcelona. I'm Jack
(21:28):
McCallum and 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,
(21:52):
executive producer for I Heart Media. Is shown to tone.
The Dream Team Tapes is a Diversion podcast 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.
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, known worldwide as the Dream Team. No
(00:26):
section of my book Dream Team got as much attention
as the chapter I called the greatest game Nobody ever saw,
which is exactly what I'm calling this episode six of
the Dream Team Tapes. I'm Jack McCallum, and today I
tell you what happened in Monte Carlo the week before
the Dreamers went on to Barcelona for the Olympics. Some
(00:46):
recap the team had its initial training in San Diego,
went on to play the qualifying tournament in Portland. But
Chuck Daily and the folks at USA Basketball didn't want
to go to Barcelona cold, so they set up a
week of pre Olympic training at a place where everyone
goes when they want to train. Seriously, Monty Carlo. Yeah right,
it was a brilliant move. Really. The players may not
(01:09):
have wanted to practice, but they knew the good times
they could have in Monte Carlo. It wasn't as sybaritic
as you might think. Most of them brought along their families.
The team was going directly for Monte Carlo to Barcelona,
and I remember looking at them when they checked into
the Low's Monte Carlo. It looked like a group family
vacation of millionaires, which is exactly what it was. Strollers, luggage, babysitters,
(01:33):
more luggage, more babysitters, more luggage. Charles Barkley was one
of the few who was batching it, so the mind
cannot begin to grasp what a great time he must
have had in that have been for gamblers, models and
folks with few money. The fact that they were there
at all was a testament to the compromises made for
the Dream Team, because in the early years of his
(01:56):
tenure as Commissioner, the late Great David Stern was fervent
the anti gambling, having grown up following the college basketball
point shaving scandals that wrecked hoops in New York City
for a long time. But he was also the leagu's guardian,
and he recognized that a training camp and say, Fort Wayne, Indiana,
was not the inducement he needed to get the players
(02:17):
to buy in. So he began talking to a tennis buddy,
New York Giants owner Bob Tisch, who also owned the
Lowe's hotel, including a show piece property in Monaco. From there,
Russ Grant, Externs Consigliari at the NBA and Lowe's chairman
Robert Hausman negotiated the deal with the principality. Plus this
(02:39):
was only months removed from the revelations coming to light
about Michael Jordan's off court gambling debts and his association
with a convicted coke dealer slash money launderer with the
Elmore Leonardish name of James slim Boeller. The NBA investigated
and released a statement There appears to be no reason
for the NBA to take action again. Michael subtexts were
(03:02):
embarrassed by this and wish he would stop. But there
was Michael, along with many of the other Dreamers, gambling
the night away in the Lows Casino entirely legally. It
must be at it Magic. Johnson remembers one night watching
Michael play. So I was sitting at his table, but
not playing, just sitting it, and then he comes in.
(03:23):
I said I was one. I'm wanted me a table
up for you. So he says to me, I'm gonna
be your most expensive Chiley that you've ever had in
you a lot. I'm gonna stand behind you, and cheered
gold Jordan go. So he played all what is the
end of five? Five? Five and five? N he was
playing them all. They wrote up this table for him
(03:46):
and he played all night. Now. Before the dream team arrived,
the lows legendary hotel manager Henrie Lorenzi. I was told
he was legendary. I don't really know how to rate
the legendary nous of hotel managers, but anyway, Henri was
complaining about what he perceived as the unnecessary level of
security insisted upon by USA Basketball, which had sent in
(04:10):
an advanced team of people. Lorenza's point was that millionaires
and movie stars, monarchs and models dined and drank and
gambled and gamboled in his hotel. So what was the
big deal about a dozen guys and sneakers? Why tennis
immortal Bjorn Borg is here right now, he told the
NBA's Kim Bihooney. Then when the team bus pulled up,
(04:35):
there was such a rush forward from the hotel guests
where it had gotten around that two unfortunates crashed through
the front doors of the entrance I see your point
on there, said to Bihooni, probably in a marvelous French accent. Now,
the scariest moment occurred a couple of days later, when
the team was boarding a bus to go to practice.
A driver lost control of his car while gaping at
(04:58):
the Dream Team. And here was a scene described by
Pete Scurich, the Pistons team videographer whom Chuck Daly had
brought over to chronicle practices and Games. Were parked out
front of the hotel, getting ready to go to practice,
and this car that was parked up on the hill
kind of a parking brate went out and it came
(05:19):
down the hill and a crashing of the hotel had
penned us in. And for like a split time, I
thought this could be this could be terrorists. The Dream
Team's arrival gave a whole new dimension to the phrase
gap or delay, and the same thing would happen in Barcelona. Now,
these trips to exotic locales always sound more bacchanalian than
(05:39):
they really are, particularly for journalists, at least for this journalist.
I was married. Nobody wanted to comport with me, though
I did suffer the least sympathetic injury in sports writer history,
a sprain thumb from operating the uncooperative controls of a
jet ski that I had rented from a topless fender
by the Lovely Mediterranean. It really hurts, I said to
(06:01):
my wife, and a phone call shut up, she suggested.
The most fun I had during this entire summer happened
when Newsday writer Jan Hubbard and I joined Barkley and
Drexeler for a round of golf at the Monte Carlo
Country Club, which was not as upscale as the name suggests,
though it did afford beautiful views. A golfing hierarchy had
(06:21):
been established by this time. At the top was Jordan
and Chuck Daily and whomever else was selected to play
with them, and below that was everybody else, especially journalist
Jan and Clyde, both with Texas roots, played against Charles
and I, both with Philly connections. At that point, Charles
had not suffered the bewildering sets of ticks and twitches
(06:43):
that have turned his game into a mind puzzle of
the first order, So I think it was a good match.
I mean, who really cares. But it really got interesting
when David Robinson joined us, thus creating an illegal Fivesome.
I wish somebody had filmed it. David was at that
time just getting comple with his Christian faith and trying
to figure out how it was supposed to work in
(07:04):
a pro sports atmosphere where locker room language was pretty
much everywhere. You know, it was something that was really
emerging in my life, and uh, and I was just
really understanding it for myself. And you know, in locker
room is not the place where everybody they don't want
to hear that stuff. You know that you go in
there and you know guys are like, look, number one,
Christian guys, they're soft. You know, they know they're not
(07:25):
gonna cut your throat out when it's time, and we
want somebody who's going to cut your throat that one
it's time. And so I think that that was part
of the kind of one of the first impressions that
people had. But then the other one that people just
didn't want to be around the guy and talking about faith.
So David joins us, and our original foursome is cussing
up a storm and David says something about toning it
down very nicely, and we go another hole or two.
(07:47):
But then Charles says some form of m effort to somebody,
and David picks up his clubs and says he's going
back to the range. He did it very nicely. He
didn't get mad about it. He just as I wrote
in Dream Team, smiled beatifically, indicated that he would rather
not be around that kind of language, picked up his
clubs and walked away. It was a lesson to me.
(08:11):
He did it, his teammates accepted it, and that's the
way it was. And as soon as David walked away,
we began cussing again. Now on the way home, I
was apparently driving the rental car a bit too, shall
we say, haphazardly through the mountainous terrain of the rivieras
on the same road where in two Princess Grace of
(08:31):
Monico had suffered a stroke while driving, crashed her Rover
Piece six, and died of injuries. The next day, we
began speculating how the newspaper headlines would read if we
died in a crash. Barkley Drexler, two others die and crash.
Hubbard said, they'll just leave us out. Jan I said,
Barkley Drexler die in Monte Carlo crash shit, said Barkley.
(08:56):
They won't even care about Clyde Barkley did. That's all
it would say, Oh, yes, basketball. Now. The Dream Team
did practice, They did play an exhibition game against the
French national team, and it was really, really lousy, except
for the excited fans and the French coach whose name
was Francis Jourdan spelled j O r d a n E,
(09:18):
who figured that his name would give him special access
to Michael Terry Lyons, one of the NBA's great public
relations people, remembers that a group photo was taken and
as Terry says, sure enough, there is your Dan with
his arm around Jordan's. Now. Because the Dream Team's performance
was so lousy, and I say that despite a one
(09:39):
and eleven to seventy one margin of victory, Chuck Daily
again began having thoughts that the Dream Team could possibly
lose and he would be consigned to eternal damnation without
a trial. And so he told the team at practice
the day after the lousy game, We're gonna scrimmage. Stop
screwing around, no matter what time you got in from
(10:00):
drinking at Jimmy z S, a nightclub that opened at midnight.
The most surprised and disappointed. Of the players was one
l Bird remember that day because I came in there
and I was over a stationary bike and that's where
I were going to Steady, and all of a sudden,
they're looking over you gotta played. John Stockton, c was
(10:23):
still battling the injury he had suffered in Portland, and
Clyde Drexeler had a sore nee throughout the Dream Team summer.
In fact, Drexler had at Scope when he got back
from Barcelona, and to his credit, he rarely spoke about it.
That left ten players for the scrimmage, and that meant
Bird had to play, and Daily divided up the teams.
On one squad Jordan's Malone, Pippen, Bird and Ewing, and
(10:47):
on the other Magic Barkley, Mullen, Robinson and Lightner. To
this day, Jordan refers to it as East versus West,
but Carl Malone, a Utah jazz man, is clear only
not an Easterner, dividing up Jordan's Magic to find what
(11:14):
happened next, As Dream Team assistant Mike Shaski put it
to me in a remarkably unappealing metaphor, separating those two
guys is what popped the pimple. But he's right now.
The background, the Dream Team is practicing in the Stade
Louis du and All Purpose Arena in Monte Carlo. There
are a few people inside. Remember, we journalists could not
(11:37):
watch practices, and on this day, Chuck Daly had kicked
out a few USA Basketball reps who were not happy
about it, and a few other assorted people. Chuck, one
of the audience, lean and mean assistant P J. Car Lesimo,
and a referee from Italy who had been hired by
USA Basketball. I'll be damned if I ever could find
(11:58):
out this guy's name, were handed whistles and daily told
his charges to play for real. They did, but we
the journalists, didn't know that until we showed up later
for the post practice quotes, and there seemed to be
tension in the air. Magic was clearly piste off about something.
Jordan was strutting around, being more jordan Esque than usual.
(12:22):
Gradually we found out that Jordan had beaten Magic's team
in a heated scrimmage, and there had been a lot
of trash talking, and over the years it became a
kind of urban legend because not many people had seen it,
and there was apparently no videotape. But when I started
researching the book Dream Team, I figured somebody had it
(12:43):
and I called up Pete Scorage, the Pistons videographer. I
mentioned a couple of minutes ago, Pete, did you film
every basketball minute from San Diego, Monte Carlo and Barcelona.
He said, I think so, and I invited myself to
his house, and after we watched c D after Seed,
we finally stumbled upon it. For me, it was like
(13:04):
the holy Grail. I was now about to see the
greatest game that nobody ever saw. This is me informing
Jordan that I had a tape of that game. We
want to be like that on tape. What comes through
in the tape is not the quality of play, though
a few interesting things happen. It's the quality of the
smack talk. And though it has come down through the
(13:25):
years that it was a mass smack talking jamboree, really
it was almost entirely Michael and Magic. This little bit
will give you a flavor. As the game starts to turn,
can we say inevitably towards Team Jordan's Magic begins complaining
that the refs, well, really the ref because p J.
Car Lesimo never blew his whistle is favoring Jordan's. That
(13:52):
is the only did and moved the bull stadium right here.
That's all they did. In case you didn't get all that,
that was Magic and then me asking Pippen what Magic
was saying him laughing about it, and then Magic clearly
stating his opinion they just moved Chicago Stadium to Monte Carlo.
(14:13):
What Jordan Magic were really doing was playing King of
the Hill. Magic did not want to give up a spot,
and Jordan was telling him exactly what the deal was.
On more than one occasion he said, hey man, this
is the nineties. The eighties are over. It was more
than idle trash talk, and it was a moment in time,
and the subject of whose league it was came up
(14:34):
on several occasions. Now Magic backs off that a little
bit these days, but that was exactly what was going on.
As Larry Bird remembers, the best player in our league
before that started, I had no problem. You know, we
had our run. You know I had my run. My
run was over. My run was over a couple of
years before that. I think Michael really handles something very
(14:58):
well over there. But is up there one night and
we're talking and your mind you're making still repeat at
this time. The conversation Bird is referring to took place
during a night in Barcelona, which we'll get to in
the next episode. But the idea of whose league it
was was the subplot of this scrimmage. What had happened, say,
(15:18):
was that Magic's team got off to an early lead
and Jordan's team came back to win. The final was
forty four to forty, but much of the blame has
to be put on Magic. He got suckered into playing
Jordan's game one on one, and later after it was over,
Pippin told me that Barkley was upset that Magic had
allowed himself to become a one on one player that
(15:40):
was not Magic's m O, and his desire to go
at Jordan's might have cost his blue team to win
over Jordan's White team, which should not have mattered because
what is blue and white? But really, watching Magic and
Jordan's square off against each other, and I watched that
tape dozens of times trying to pick out the best
(16:00):
parts for the book provided an excellent opportunity to reflect
on the arc of their careers. Now, don't get me wrong,
Magic was a star from the first second of his
rookie year. He won a championship, he was the finals
m v P. The instant stardom that had been predicted
for him was exactly what happened. But strangely, he should
(16:24):
have been even bigger. He should have been the first
Jordan's and he was not. Here's David Falk's shoes because
they's a personality. And I thought that Michael had the style,
the electricity, the charisma. Whods how good he was and
he was to be very exciting to sell shoes. But
I think Magic didn't have to Invanair Jordan's. He was
(16:46):
Magic and College when he had the nickname, he was
in the best market in the country. He won a
championship as a rookie, back to back College in the pros.
I mean, Magic should have been enormous. The market, had
a great style. You know, he was flashy and and
anyone at you could have owned the world at Margarine,
and he had somebody, you know, confident representing him. There
(17:06):
was no doubt about how good Magic was going to be.
He was exactly as advertised. A six ft eight inch
point guard with over the top leadership skills. But there
were some doubts about Jordan's and let's remember that he
was the third pick of the draft, not the first.
Like Magic was a key. Malajawa went first in Kentucky
center Sam Bowie went second to the Trailblazers who passed
(17:28):
over Jordan because they already you know, had their Michael
Jordan's in Clyde Drexeler. People thought he'd be like Clyde
Dresher type, like a guy the uncle free flash. I mean, truthfully, Jackie,
if I went back out of my archives and took
out my notes in draft, people questioned whether Michael had
a good enough jump shot to shoot, whether he could
(17:49):
really handle ball enough. And they knew he could jump,
you know, they knew it could dunk. They had a
lot of questions about his skills. That was David Falk. Again, Look,
let's not shed any tears for Magic. He has turned
himself into quite possibly the most successful athlete turn businessman ever.
But as an endorser, he never got close to Jordan's
(18:12):
and he should have been the first superstar endorser, the
first true basketball crossover sensation. I also watched the tape
again and again to compare Barkley and Karl Malone to
an even greater degree than Michael Magic, who didn't play
the same position. The matchup of the Dream Team was
Barkley Malone both power forwards, so Charles was more the
(18:35):
height of a small forward or even a guard. Malone
didn't really want to get into the specifics of who
was better, but Charles did. We talked about it here
during my interview with Barkley for the Dream Team book
would have been called Malone, Hey, We'll more places and
quite more seasons. Wasn't a rebounder? You had more rebounding,
(18:55):
wasn't a path But I don't think he did better
score And that come down to farm. The law comes
across as cocky, of course, but that's Charles. He respected
the hell out of Malone, still does and they are
good friends. What it always comes down to with Malone
and Barkley is, Wow, what if Charles kept himself in
the same kind of shape and worked as hard as
(19:17):
the mailman did? How good would he have been? Then?
One of the most interesting aspects of the greatest game
nobody ever saw happened late, with the issue still in doubt,
Bird who looks a hundred years old throughout most of
(19:39):
the game, makes a steal and begins dribbling full speed. Okay,
full speed for Bird at thirty five and bad back
speed toward the basket with Barkley in hot pursuit. Okay,
Barkley in hot pursuit after a night of carousing speed.
When he gets near the basket, Bird fakes a behind
the back past. He always had this knack of these
(20:00):
exaggerated fakes that were really deceptive, and Bartley bites and
Bird goes in for the layup. When I showed the
clip to Chris Mullen, he calls to his wife, Hey, Liz,
come here, watch Larry on this play. And when I
asked Jordan if he remembered the play, he said, hell, yeah,
I've referred to this before among his own Dream Team teammates.
(20:21):
There was this kind of reverence for Bird. Now, when
the scrimmage was over and we the press were allowed in,
we caught the sight of Jordan's singing be like Mike
from the Gatorade commercial and Magic moping, and we knew
something had gone on. And some of the better reporters,
like Jan Hubbard, pieced together bits and pieces of the scrimmage,
(20:42):
but we never thought would be able to see it
in detail. So when I found the videotape and thank
God for Pete Scurage, I was ecstatic because it was
an archaeological discovery as much as anything, and what it
demonstrated was not a boy's to men moment, but rather
a men to boys moment. Just a bunch of superstar
athletes playing like kids and reacting like kids. Winners act
(21:06):
like Jerk's, losers act like spoil sports. So the greatest
game nobody ever saw capt off Monte Carlo. It was
on to Barcelona, where the world at large waited to
see these guys. The attention and adulation can't get any bigger,
I thought to myself, and boy was I wrong. See
you next time for episode seven, Viva Barcelona. I'm Jack
(21:28):
McCallum and 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,
(21:52):
executive producer for I Heart Media. Is shown to tone.
The Dream Team Tapes is a Diversion podcast 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.
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