When I heard an Australian TV reporter this week refer to the USA men's basketball outfit currently preparing for their first game of the Tokyo Olympics as 'The Dream Team' I nearly fell off my chair.
I covered the original Dream Team at the Barcelona and Atlanta Olympics, and to put this current side in their league is, quite frankly, an insult.
The 1992 Dream Team featured the likes of Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Scottie Pippen and Charles Barkley. It was unquestionably the greatest side ever assembled.
Four years later Jordan, Magic and Bird were gone, but with the addition of such players as Shaquille O'Neal, Reggie Miller, Penny Hardaway, Hakeem Olajuwon and Gary Payton, the side was still very much deserving of the Dream Team label.
The 1992 Dream Team featured the likes of Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Scottie Pippen and Charles Barkley. It was unquestionably the greatest side ever assembled
Zach LaVine #5, Bradley Beal #4, Damian Lillard #6, Kevin Durant #7, and Jayson Tatum #10 look dejected as they lose to Nigeria in a warmup game earlier this month
But the 2021 version? Not on their best day.
In their four practice games in Las Vegas in the last two weeks, they lost to Australia and Nigeria – an experience described by their two-time gold medallist Kevin Durant as 'a punch in the mouth' - before scratching out unconvincing wins over Argentina and Spain.
To make things worse, two key players in Bradley Beal and Kevin Love have pulled out due to Covid and injury concerns.
Add in the fact that their preparation overlapped the NBA finals, meaning some players only joined the squad a few days ago, plus the overall strangeness of the Covid-affected Games placing all competing athletes into unknown territory mentally, and you have a side ripe for the picking.
Former Australian captain Shane Heal played at the Barcelona, Atlanta, Sydney and Athens Olympics and has seen first-hand the gradual disintegration of the perception of Team USA invincibility.
Heal made a name for himself on the international stage by engaging in a running battle with Dream Team enforcer Charles Barkley during a warm-up match before the Atlanta Olympics and was signed by the Minnesota Timberwolves in the NBA largely on the strength of it soon after the Games.
The 1992 players were so sure of claiming the gold medal that they spent more time on the golf course than the practice court. They won gold anyway
Greatest of all time Michael Jordan played in the all-conquering, best ever 1992 team (left) and four years later Jordan, Magic and Bird were gone, but the side was still very much deserving of the Dream Team label (pictured destroying Australia right)
By the time he played for Australia against Team USA in Athens eight years later, the Americans were a shadow of that Atlanta gold-medal winning team.
'We led them until the final quarter and that was the weakest Australian team I played in,' he said yesterday from his Sydney home.
'You'd have to say they started losing their aura after Atlanta. Up until then they looked down their noses at everyone else. When I went over to the NBA they figured if you weren't American you couldn't play.
'Now it's different because there are so many international players over there and there is not that mystique about the US players anymore. The overseas players play with and against them every day.
'It's not the same now, but the aura they had in 1992 and 1996 was unbelievable.'
He's got that right. I'll never forget the media conference the Dream Team held in Barcelona on the morning of the Opening Ceremony.
As coach Chuck Daly led Jordan, Johnson, Bird, Barkley and co onto the stage at the jam-packed auditorium, supposedly professional journalists from all over the world began to applaud. Some even rose to their feet in a standing ovation.
It is something I have never experienced before or since.
Former Australian captain Shane Heal thinks the Boomers have a shot to win gold after they beat Team USA in a warmup in Las Vegas
