92 Olympic "Dream Team" Best Ever? Not Necessarily

Most NBA fans will tell you the greatest basketball team of all time was the 1992 Men's Olympic team, affectionately known as the"Dream Team".  In those Olympics the Dream Team won all eight of its games by an average of 44 points.  Ten of twelve players on the team are on the NBA's list of the "Fifty Greatest Players."

The only two not to make the fifty greatest player list are Chris Mullen, a five-time NBA all-star and Christian Laettner, the only college player on the team and a thirteen-year NBA veteran.

This was the team of Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Majic Johnson.  Except for the two centers, Patrick Ewing and David Robinson and forward Karl Malone, everyone was inter-changeable and could play both forward or guard.   John Stockton was the only point guard on the team.

The other players were Charles Barkley, Clyde Drexler and Scottie Pippen.

This team could play small when it wanted to press or play big when it wanted to dominate the boards.  The Dream Team was amazing -- an incredible collection of NBA legends.

LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT ANOTHER TEAM, in case you never heard of them or just forgot about them:  The 1968 NBA Eastern Conference All-Star team. They didn't have a name like "Dream Team" or "Redeem Team"-- they were simply the greatest basketball team I've ever seen.                                                                                                                      As the Dream Team has ten of twelve on the "Greatest PLayer List", the '68 team has evelen of twelve on the list.  Only Dick Barnett, shooting guard for the Knicks, didn't make it.

There was one problem with the '68 All-Star team.....not knowing who to start at center.  You could start Bill Russell who won eleven championships, five MVP's and was a twelve time all-star or Wilt Chamberlain who went to thirteen all-star games, won four MVP's, was the only player to ever score 100 points in a game, and the only player to average better than fifty points in a season.

If you didn't like Russell or Chamberlain you could start Willis Reed.  Reed was the guy who came out of the locker room with a torn leg muscle and led the Knicks to a championship in 1970.

The forwards on the '68' team were Dave Debusshere, John Havlicek, Gus Johnson and Jerry Lucas.  The guards were Dave Bing, Hal Greer, Sam Jones, Barnett and Oscar Robertson.                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Robertson was known by fans as the "Big O" and is regarded by current Orlando Majic coach Stan Van Gundy as "the greatest player I ever saw."  Van Gundy's been around a long time.