Olympics: Is the Team USA Still Our Dream Team?

It's 12:37 PM on Monday, June 30, and I’m spending my lunch break packed in Rockefeller with hundreds of others waiting to see the touring Team USA and the jerseys they would be supporting in Beijing. Nike representatives boast the jerseys have 18% less material and are 11% lighter.

But, as I look around at the faces in the crowd, I’m positive that the only reassurance we attended the media day for is that Team USA will be THE DREAM TEAM, and not the All-NBA fourth Team that casually showed up in '02 and '04.

"Coach K didn't select enough big-men. What are they going to do if Dwight Howard's hockey-style sternum injury doesn't heal? Was Tayshaun really the best pick? Is Jason Kidd too old? How will their best performer of the Olympic trials produce with so many legal situations? Europeans are much more fundamentally sound. Kobe's torn ligament...They are in trouble."

They-they-they are in trouble. 

It's no secret there are plenty of concerns surrounding the team, and I'll admit that many of them are valid.

I would really like to see Tyson Chandler AND Tayshaun Prince on the team. Their speed, length, and ability to produce without the ball would turn the crowded European lane into a deserted early morning Piggly Wiggly produce isle. I think that an injured Dwight Howard changes the game plan immensely considering his back-up Chris Bosh plays a drastically different style game. And yes, I would be a lot more comfortable if the starting point guard wasn't one of the main reasons the Mav’s tanked in the playoffs.  

All of that was before I witnessed The Team walk out, one by one, and everything fell in place in front of my eyes. I've been to countless sporting events, NBA Playoff Games, Majors Conference Tournaments, and even a Final Four, but I have never witnessed an atmosphere like the one produced by the 16 players and coaches who stood in front of me.

Jerry Colangelo was motionless, arms locked across his chest like Tony Soprano as the players were introduced.  He was nodding his head in assertion, and I swear I almost heard him quote one of his Suns' players rap lyrics, "Rest of the world, how does my a** taste?"

Beside Colangelo, Coach K, and Jim Boeheim shared an embrace that looked powerful enough to need its own postal code. I’m not easily shaken, but I was completely in awe of these two coaching legends standing hand in hand, in complete agreement of the future. 

They wasted no time introducing the artillery, bringing out Carlos Boozer, Deron Williams, and then Lebron James...One, two, three. The only word that could describe the aura these guys displayed was "tenacious."

Lebron threw up the "Roc" sign and under his normal charisma I could feel it. The people around me could feel it. And smell it. It was raw determination.

It wasn't about Brooklyn Nets vs. New York Knicks in 2010, and it wasn't about getting support for his next playoff run. It was about respect. It was about the soul of the game. It was about standing up for James Naismith, and for the people of Springfield, MA.

It wasn't until Kobe Bryant and Chris Paul were introduced almost back to back that I came out of my Lebron induced coma to understand a drastic realization—our entire team is stacked.

Our back-up point guard was almost the NBA MVP. Our back-up back-up point guard was also considered for the MVP. Our team has more than enough qualified three point shooters. Our leading scorer from the Olympic trials will be playing with college coach, and they won an NCAA Championship last time they were together.

Our twelfth man was a crucial, irreplaceable part of the 2004 World Champions.  Our starting big man could average a double-double with a fractured sternum AND two plastic hips.  Our starting wings are Lebron James and Kobe Bryant.

We are Team USA. We are the Dream Team. We play poker and drink until five in the morning, and still beat people by thirty points. We leave the Olympic Village without body guards because we know who we are (and, normally we have Charles Oakley).

Our-our-our Dream Team is back.

While walking back to work, I was in a haze. My palms were sweaty and I couldn't stop grinning. I felt like the head coach of Big State after Jesus Shuttlesworth signed his letter of intent.

Better yet, I felt like Pete Bell the first time he peered into the Louisiana Bayou gym to find teenage Neon BaDoe completely dominating full grown adults . Dumb analogies aside, I found myself repeating the same sentence I was thinking on my walk over.

They-they-they are in trouble!

Our Dream Team is back!