It's amazing what invincibility feels like.
Few sportsman step out on court and feel unbeatable but when it came to Olympics basketball that was exactly how those wearing the stars and stripes of the United States felt.
After taking bronze in Seoul in 1998 there was to be a change in tact. Go pro. Take the NBA's biggest names for Barcelona 1992. Think Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird among what was dubbed the 'Dream Team' roster.
The results went as expected. Pure domination in every sense of the game. They were as much celebrities in Spain as they were athletes. Team USA were the must-see team.
Gary Payton (second from right) posed alongside Muhammad Ali during the 1996 Olympics
Payton was part of the 'Dream Team III' that won gold at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta
Jordan and Co won all eight games played by an average of 43.8 points and they are, to this day, considered the greatest team to play basketball.
Gary Payton, who was drafted by the Seattle Supersonics, watched on like the rest of the nation and was left mesmerised at the level of skill on one roster. This went beyond the annual All-Star Game.
Four years on and there was Payton, nicknamed 'The Glove' in his heyday for his elite defence, on the Olympic roster in Atlanta.
For Oakland-born Payton that Games was as much about winning gold as it was about carrying the torch for the '92 team. He for sure wasn't going to be remembered as the team that ruined a dynasty.
'When we got ready to go to the basketball game we were going to just try and dominate the game and make sure we didn't let down what the '92 team did and how dominant they were,' Payton told Sportsmail.
Payton insisted the mindset of going to the Games (seen here in 2000) was continuing legacy
'That's what we did. Our coach was Lenny Wilkens, he preached that every day and every night. We are not going to let them down. If they won by 30, we are going to have to win by 30. That's what we did. We went in there with that mindset.
'We went in there and dominated. As soon as you stepped on the floor in our mind we were the best athletes, the best team and the best country in the world. That's what we did every night we stepped on the floor.'
A number of the NBA's biggest stars won't be in Tokyo for this latest go-round, the likes of LeBron James, Steph Curry, James Harden and Kawhi Leonard are among the stars who, for myriad reasons including injury, will play no part.
But when asked if the draw to play at an Olympics and to represent Team USA still holds weight among the basketball cognoscenti, Payton takes a moment of reflection.
'I get asked this a lot and I always say, it should be a great honour for me to sit on a pedestal or a podium, bow my head down and they put a gold medal around my neck, because as we look at it, there are a lot of people in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq that are protecting us with US uniforms on,' he said.
'They have the patch on their arm and they are getting shot at and blown up and come back with no arms, no leg or don't come back alive.
'They do all that so we can play basketball in a different country and can be honoured for that. They are not getting honoured for that. They get medals but come back with a lot of problems and I think that we should be more appreciative than that, we should always think that.'
But back
