"THE DREAM TEAM STARTED IT" - MICHAEL JORDAN EXPLAINS WHY 1992 OLYMPICS LARGELY INFLUENCED THE RISE OF INTERNATIONAL TALENT
The 2004 Athens Olympics was a wake-up call for Team USA. After dominating the basketball world for over a decade, the Americans were forced to settle for bronze. It was a humbling moment.
Years back, in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, the Dream Team, led by Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and a roster of NBA legends, took the court and put on a basketball masterclass. They dominated, winning by an average margin of 44 points. The next two editions in 1996 and 2000 also delivered gold. But it made every other team realize that they had to step up or be trampled by the Americans.
Jordan's thoughts
The world had never seen anything like the Dream Team. Basketball was primarily an American sport at the time, and that team's dominance showed just how wide the gap was between the NBA and the rest of the world — as such, they sought to catch up to an extent.
"I think it's grown tremendously since then," Mike said of the global rise of the sport. "I think the Dream Team started it and it just led right to us playing here… the game is expanding all over the globe. I'm glad that I was a part of it, but I think it will continue to get bigger because of the passion for the game of basketball."
MJ was right. The Dream Team planted the seed for a global basketball revolution. International players who had grown up watching Jordan and co. dismantle their national teams and start refining their skills, modeling their games after basketball's hottest stars.
It wasn't long before the impact became visible in the NBA. By the early 2000s, players like Dirk Nowitzki from Germany, Pau Gasol from Spain and Tony Parker from France were becoming global superstars. The league was transforming into a universal product. But Team USA was about to learn the hard way that international talent was no longer just catching up — it was competing at the highest level.
The 2004 Athens Olympics was that moment of reckoning. Unlike the Dream Team or even the 1996 and 2000 squads, the 2004 team struggled from the start. A mix of young stars like LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade were thrown into the deep end alongside veterans like Allen Iverson and Tim Duncan. The chemistry just wasn't there.
They were stunned in the opener by Puerto Rico, losing by 19 points — the worst defeat in Team USA's Olympic history. They also fell to Lithuania in the group stage and were ultimately knocked out of gold medal contention by Argentina in the semifinals. It was a shocking collapse — the Olympic gold medal was Team USA's birthright, they had won 12 of the 15 gold medals up to that point.
Waking up
The fallout from 2004 led to a major overhaul in how USA Basketball was structured. The result was the formation of the 2008 Redeem Team, featuring Kobe Bryant, James, Wade and Chris Paul. They stormed through Beijing, reclaiming the gold medal with a hard-fought win over Spain in the final. Team USA has not lost an Olympic gold medal since then — but the competition has only gotten tougher.
In the 2024 Paris Olympics, Team USA faced its stiffest challenge in years. The squad, stacked with future Hall of Famers like James, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant, was pushed to the brink by a Serbian team led by Nikola Jokic.
The semifinal matchup came down to the final minute, with Team USA needing clutch plays from Durant and Curry to secure the win. The Americans eventually won gold, but the message was shown that the gap between Team USA and the rest of the world had almost disappeared.
The 2004 loss forced the Stars and Stripes to adapt, and while they remain the standard in Olympic basketball, the days of 40-point blowouts are likely gone for good.
2025-03-23T19:13:00Z
