1) Nike asked Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley to cover up the Adidas logos on their jackets during the medal ceremony 

It was no secret before the Olympics even began that Reebok was providing jackets for the medal stand to the U.S. team in every sport, including basketball. This was a conflict of interest for most of the players, especially Jordan and Barkley, who were engaged at the time in large-scale campaign ads with Nike. Barkley famously quipped that he had “two million reasons” not to wear something emblazoned with an Adidas logo, while Jordan’s contract with Phil Knight’s shoe magnate was surely even larger. The U.S. Olympic Committee was incessant in the players sticking to the provided jacket and Nike was actually mum on the subject. It was simply Jordan’s intense sense of loyalty to the only shoe company that offered him a sponsorship deal early in his career that led to the famous image of the stars coming out to accept their gold medals with American flags covering up their respective Adidas logos.

2) Chris Mullin, John Stockton, or Charles Barkley must have been the 11th and final pro player added to the team 

Though he was a four-time All-Star by 1992 and had just finished sixth in MVP voting, it’s always been axiomatic that Mullin was the least renowned pro player on the Dream Team roster. The selection committee had little doubt about him however, as his long range shooting and positional versatility were considered crucial assets. Barkley, who would earn league MVP in the ensuing ’92-’93 NBA season, seems like a no-brainer in retrospect. But his reputation as a malcontent seemed more dangerous than endearing back then and the non-NBA selection committee members fought against his inclusion, in an ultimately fruitless endeavor. As for Stockton, it’s often misconstrued that the final pro spot came down to him or Isiah Thomas as the backup point guard, with Michael Jordan’s inflexibility on playing with Thomas forcing the committee’s hand. However, when the first 10 Dream Team members were announced live on television by Bob Costas in September of 1991, Stockton was on the list with Barkley and Mullin. It was Clyde Drexler who didn’t make the initial cut, even as he was about to enjoy a career year in ’91-’92, finishing second in MVP voting and leading the Trail Blazers to the NBA Finals. He initially seemed redundant to the indefatigable Jordan but eventually did have his roster spot announced in May of 1992.

3) Some regulatory body stated that the team had to include at least one collegiate athlete

This is a rumor that has gained mainstream acceptance as much as any but the Dream Team could have been comprised of 12 pro players if they so chose to go that way and still stayed within the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and International Basketball Federation (FIBA) rules. The initial plan from the U.S. Olympic Committee was to have six pro players and six collegiate players, but once the big name NBA stars started to volunteer, the self-imposed collegiate quota was reduced to one. Even just that one spot was a concession from the NBA committee members to the NCAA ones, a nod to the previous Olympic teams that featured only amateur participants.

4) Christian Laettner vs. Shaquille O’Neal as the token NCAA player was a huge debate amongst the people making the decision

Picking a player to represent the old amateur ideal was easier than most people remember and Laettner was arguably the surest bet overall on the roster behind Michael Jordan. He had just finished his senior season at Duke with a second consecutive national championship and a compilation of every major individual award possible. It also helped that coach Mike Krzyzewski was on the selection committee. O’Neal was undeniably the more NBA ready talent and would eventually get drafted #1 overall that summer. But when the final selections were announced in May of 1992, it was Laettner, the eventual #3 overall pick, whom the committee felt best represented the U.S.

5) Michael Jordan led the team in scoring and Magic Johnson led the team in assists

Jordan’s 14.9 points per game were actually second. With the Bulls superstar willing to take on more ball handling and defensive stopper roles, the highest rate of scoring came from Barkley, with 18.0 points per game, as he was essentially unstoppable down low against weaker opponents. And though Johnson started more than half the games at point guard, he was well short of ideal playing shape and his 5.5 assists per game were second on the team behind Scottie Pippen’s 5.9.

6) The Dream Team were the first athletes ever to lodge outside the Olympic village

Anyone who saw footage (and especially anyone who was there) of the hoopla surrounding the Dream Team’s stay in Barcelona at the Ambassador Hotel can attest to the need for the team to lodge away from the Olympic village. The frenzy of fans, media, and general onlookers evoked images of the Beatles first coming to America in 1964, and easily necessitated increased security detail and privacy. There was some consternation over the decision before the games, most of it coming from the same traditionalists who were none too pleased about pro athletes in the Olympics in the first place. Not only was it obviously needed in retrospect, but it was also not unprecedented. American track and field stars such as Carl Lewis and Jackie Joyner-Kersee had already made decisions in the ’80s to board at off-site hotels. Additionally, tennis pros were participating in the Olympics for the first time in 1992, and many of the top players like Pete Sampras made the same accommodation decision as the NBA stars.

7) With the starting lineups shifted regularly by Chuck Daly, every player except Laettner started at least one game

It’s true that Daly shifted the lineups game to game, both due to injuries and fatigue, and just to keep players on their toes and engaged. Michael Jordan is the only player who started in every game. Magic Johnson started in five. David Robinson and Patrick Ewing split duties at center, starting four games each. Charles Barkley and Karl Malone did the same at power forward. Scottie Pippen, Clyde Drexler, Larry Bird, and Chris Mullin all started at least two games at small forward. But John Stockton, in addition to Laettner, came off the bench in every game he played.

8) Professionals were not previously allowed to participate in Olympic basketball

When the U.S. sent its top college athletes every four years to play hoops in the Olympics, they weren’t always battling fellow amateurs. Many other countries, especially the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, were sending rosters full of players old enough, and in many cases talented enough, to play in the NBA. While those immigration flood gates didn’t really open until after the 1992 Olympics, many star European and South American players would play as pseudo-professionals for their national teams. These countries circumvented FIBA rules by either just not calling their top players pros (even though they were receiving a salary to play basketball) or by handing out cushy, no-show government jobs to their best athletes, essentially placing them on the state payroll to play basketball. In the ’70s and ’80s, the Soviets and Yugoslavs had amassed enough talent through that process to challenge the American teams full of actual amateur status stars.

9) The team made little use of the reduced range of the international three-point line, but were deadly accurate when they did

With a closer three-point line and teams allowed to play pure zone defenses, outside shooting has always been a crucial part of the international game. It was why the U.S. was so desperate to add Chris Mullin and a creaky Larry Bird. Though the Dream Team didn’t take as many three-point shots as later editions of Team U.S.A. would in the Olympics, they still attempted a fair share, hitting 54-of-135 as a team, good for 40% from the field. Bird is considered by many to be the greatest three-point shooter of all time but he hit just 9-of-27 (33%) during the tournament, while Michael Jordan was just 4-of-19 (21%). Mullin did his job, leading the team in three-pointers made with 14-of-26 (54%), but the best three-point shooter on the team in terms of accuracy was a shocker. Charles Barkley had never shot better than 28% from three-point range in his career up to that point, but he hit 7-of-8 (88%) from downtown during the Olympics.

10) The USA’s semifinals loss to the Soviet Union in the 1988 Olympics was the original catalyst for the idea to allow professional players to start participating

Yes, a disappointing result at the 1988 Olympics loomed large in the decision to include NBA players in the Olympics, but not in the way you’d think. Also, it started years earlier with Boris Stanković, a Yugoslavian basketball legend at the playing, coaching, and executive ranks. In the mid ’70s, he was tapped by FIBA to embark on a fact finding mission in the United States and became enamored with the NBA and its awe-inspiring level of skills and athleticism on display. He quickly endeavored to improve the FIBA product (both the Olympics and the World Championships) by inviting that talent to participate. An official vote to allow professional players in FIBA events was shot down in 1986 much to Stanković’s dismay but the arithmetic changed completely after the 1988 Olympics. Due in part to the U.S. failing to qualify for the gold medal game, the games were a financial loss for FIBA, after ticket sales and television ratings had cratered in the boycotted 1980 and 1984 editions. A special convention of FIBA was called in 1989, where the measure to allow professionals in competitions passed by a vote of 56-13 (a Soviet petition to limit it to two pros per roster was subsequently defeated). As opposed to being jingoistically inspired to dominate the 1992 Olympics with an NBA-laden roster, the U.S. actually voted against the measure, over concerns of the NBA’s lack of control over the competitions and process.

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By the numbers: 1992 U.S. Olympic men’s basketball team statistical leaders

Statistic	Leader
Points per game	Charles Barkley (18.0)
Rebounds per game	Patrick Ewing and Karl Malone (5.3)
Assists per game	Scottie Pippen (5.9)
Steals per game	Michael Jordan (4.1)
Blocks per game	Patrick Ewing (1.9)
Minutes per game	Michael Jordan (23.1)
Three-point field goals	Chris Mullin (14)
Free throws	Karl Malone (24)
Field goal percentage	Charles Barkley (71.7%)
Personal fouls	Charles Barkley and Patrick Ewing (22)
Turnovers	Michael Jordan (10)
Points in a single game Rebounds in a single game Assists in a single game	Charles Barkley (30 vs Brazil) Patrick Ewing (10 vs Spain) Michael Jordan (12 vs Germany)

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11) Larry Bird came out of retirement to play in Barcelona

Bird was named to the Olympic team before the ’91-’92 season, and was certainly considering retirement at the time. It must have seemed even more tempting after his quintessential rival and friend Magic Johnson stepped away in November of 1991 due to contracting HIV. But Bird played 45 games during the ’91-’92 season, struggling through a back injury, and chose to neither confirm nor deny retirement rumors in the weeks leading up to the Olympics. He finally did announce his official retirement on August 18, 1992, 10 days after the Dream Team’s gold medal ceremony.

12) The Dream Team played its only meaningful games at the Olympics tournament

Only one team automatically qualified for the Olympics in 1992, and that was the host country Spain. For a long time FIBA had a rule where the defending world champions were automatic qualifiers for the ensuing Olympics, but this regulation didn’t exist in 1992 (it wouldn’t have helped the U.S. anyway, as they lost in the 1990 FIBA World Championship semifinals to Yugoslavia). This left the Dream Team having to first assemble for the Tournament of the Americas, now known as the FIBA Americas Championship, and reach at least the semifinals just to qualify for the Olympics. The Tournament of Americas was originally scheduled to be hosted by Brazil in March of 1992, but with the NBA players now participating the U.S. Olympic Committee was able to convince their fellow continental nations to move the tournament to Portland in late June. The Americans were famously greeted in their first matchup against Cuba by opponents more interested in pregame autographs and photo ops than the game itself. The U.S. won that game 136-57, then cruised to victories over Canada, Panama, Argentina, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela to clinch an Olympics spot (though it didn’t come without a price, as they lost Stockton to injury in the game against Canada). Brazil, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela also qualified for the Olympics, though the U.S. was the only team from the region to reach the Olympic semifinals.

13) David Stern and the NBA league office came up with the idea of utilizing pro players in the Olympics

Before he brought the idea to the FIBA Congress in 1986, Boris Stanković met in New York with NBA Commissioner David Stern expecting to amass support. Instead, he was met with indifference, as Stern had no interest in dealing with the headaches of FIBA, the IOC, and the U.S. Olympic Committee, and didn’t expect his top players to be interested in participating anyway. The U.S. officially voted nay at the 1989 FIBA Congress meeting where professionals were deemed allowable in the Olympics. After the measure passed, Stern attempted to essentially buy out the USA Basketball committee, but instead had to enter into an uneasy alliance with them. Even after the team assembled its stars and the tournament was a resounding success, Stern was still obstinate in his refusal of officially condoning the idea. Eventually he was forced to relent and in retrospect he happily admitted that the Dream Team was a momentous step in the international growth of basketball and the NBA.

14) The Dream Team was the first, and only, U.S. squad to completely dominate all their opponents

Before the Dream Team came along the debate over the greatest U.S. Olympic basketball team was a fierce one. You had the 1956 team, featuring Bill Russell, that won all eight of its games by 30+ points, including a 101-38 victory over Uruguay in the semifinals. There was the 1960 team, featuring Oscar Robertson and Jerry West, which won its nine games by an average of 35.1 points. And the 1984 team, with Michael Jordan and Patrick Ewing, cruised to a 31-point victory in the gold medal game against Spain. None of them quite reached the dominance of the Dream Team, and no team has been able to match it since, due mostly to other countries slowly catching up in terms of talent. The last team to win all its games by 20+ points was the Dream Team follow-up, in 1996. Featuring 1992 holdovers Charles Barkley, Scottie Pippen, John Stockton, David Robinson, and Karl Malone, plus Shaquille O’Neal and Hakeem Olajuwon, they swept through the field and beat Yugoslavia 95-69 in the gold medal game.

15) When John Stockton was injured during a qualifying tournament, the team considered adding Isiah Thomas as a replacement for the Olympics

In their second game of the Tournament of the Americas qualifying, the Dream Team lost Stockton for at least six weeks with a leg fracture, meaning he would miss at least some of the Olympics and possibly all of it. Coach Chuck Daly could either keep Stockton and risk a brevity of depth at point guard, or call upon a new player to replace him. There were plenty of dynamic point guard options in the NBA at the time, from Phoenix’s Kevin Johnson to Golden State’s Tim Hardaway to, of course, Daly’s own point guard in Detroit, Isiah Thomas. Daly knew Thomas was an obvious choice, but didn’t want to risk alienating his star players by adding him. Instead he strongly considered Thomas’ backcourt mate, Joe Dumars. Ultimately, knowing that spurning Thomas one more time wasn’t worth extra depth on a team that didn’t really need it, Daly stuck with Stockton.

16) Other than John Stockton, the team was fully healthy for the entire Olympics

The U.S. team played five preliminary games at the Olympics, the most notable being the first two. There was the infamous “I Don’t Know Nothin’ ‘Bout No Angola” game and the “let’s torture Toni Kukoc” game. The Dream Team won those first two matchups by a combined 99 points, but would have to play their third and fourth games without a true point guard after a Magic Johnson injury compounded with Stockton still being unavailable. The team didn’t exactly miss a beat, with Michael Jordan, Clyde Drexler, and Scottie Pippen splitting the ball handling responsibilities. Larry Bird had his best game against Germany, leading the team with 19 points, and Jordan added 12 assists in a 111-68 win. Barkley paced the team with 30 points and eight rebounds against Brazil, and Drexler added 10 assists in a 127-83 victory. Johnson and Stockton both returned for the final preliminary game against Spain, another easy win, 122-81.

17) The Australian team threatened to boycott a potential match-up with the U.S. to avoid coming into contact with Magic Johnson

Shock waves were sent across the sports world in January of 1992, when an Australian Olympic Federation doctor stated that their basketball team should boycott any games against the Dream Team to avoid contact with HIV-infected star Magic Johnson. Senior Australian officials immediately stepped in and denounced the statement, attempting to dispel rumors that a boycott was being considered but by then Pandora’s Box had already been opened and the innuendo persisted. Not only was a boycott never a serious consideration, it became a moot point anyway because the U.S. and Australia never faced off. The U.S. was slated in Group A and Australia in Group B, so they avoided each other in the preliminary round. The Aussies finished third in their group and fell to Croatia in the quarterfinals.

18) There were no European players in the NBA before 1992, and few ready at the time to make the leap

Though it’s true that the 1992 Olympics were the start of the real opening of the floodgates of international players pouring into the NBA, there was already a handful of solid European players in the league, many of whom also played in those Olympics. They included Detlef Schrempf of Germany, Jose Ortiz of Puerto Rico, Alexander Volkov of Russia, Šarūnas Marčiulionis of Lithuania, and Drazen Petrovic of Croatia. Two notable players who played in the 1992 Olympics but were not yet in the NBA were Arvydas Sabonis of Lithuania, who eventually signed with the Blazers in 1995, and Oscar Schmidt of Brazil, who never made the NBA and is widely considered the greatest pro player never to reach America. Many later foreign-born NBA stars such as Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, and Dirk Nowitzki have specifically cited the Dream Team as a major influence on their basketball playing development and interest in reaching the NBA.

19) In the famed Monaco intra-squad scrimmage game, Christian Laettner and Larry Bird didn’t participate

After the Tournament of Americas cake walk, the Dream Team reconvened in Monaco in late July for a training camp that ended up including maybe the most famous basketball game of all-time that didn’t count for anything and wasn’t broadcast on television. The Dream Teamers were unsurprisingly adept at enjoying the extracurricular activities in Monte Carlo, especially the golf, gambling, and night clubs. Mixed in amongst the de facto Mediterranean vacation the team had already played in several heated intra-squad scrimmages. But after a sluggish and sloppy performance in an exhibition matchup against France, Chuck Daly decided to up the stakes in practice the next day. He pinned the team’s two alpha males, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan, as respective “blue” and “red” team captains. On the Blue Team with Magic were Chris Mullin, Christian Laettner, Charles Barkley, and David Robinson; on the Red Team with Jordan were Larry Bird, Scottie Pippen, Karl Malone, and Patrick Ewing. It would be easy to assume that this famed scrimmage was missing the over-matched Laettner and the back injury-nursing Bird, but it was two other banged-up players that had to sit out: Clyde Drexler and John Stockton. Daly typically split the scrimmage games across conference lines, but with two Western Conference players unavailable he improvised with the Magic vs. Michael format. It would prove to be volatile and induce a game that was arguably the greatest piece of Dream Team lore. Magic’s Blue Team jumped out to an early 11-2 lead, but Jordan’s Red Team came roaring back to win 40-36.