NBA: Is 2012 USA Basketball Team Better Than 1992 Dream Team?
Andre Iguodala takes on LeBron James in practice. Photo Credit: Joseph Glorioso Photography, Flickr.com
The 2012 USA Basketball team had their first exhibition last night and crushed the Dominican Republic team 113-59. The usual suspects had light duty as LeBron James and Kobe Bryant both played under 20 minutes. Kevin Durant led the team with 24 points and 10 rebounds.
This leads us to the debate of the day – Is the 2012 team better than the famed 1992 team?
Debates between eras are very difficult because supporters of the 1992 team will point to the amount of Hall of Fame players and NBA titles that they’ve won.
Who says the 2012 team won’t have that kind of resume at the end of their careers?
As of right now, the 2012 team can’t hold a candle to the accomplishments of the 1992 team.
If there’s one thing I truly believe in, it’s that the 2012 team and players in this era are much more athletic, bigger, stronger and faster than the players in the previous era.
With that said, the 1992 team had their share of top players like Michael Jordan, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley and Magic Johnson.
They also had better reserve players and with the very notable exception of Christian Laettner, they had no player that wouldn’t be considered a real star. Is James Harden a star?
Another reason to give the 1992 team a nod as the “better” team is that they were heads and shoulders above the rest of the competition in the NBA. There weren’t a bunch of players to draw from that had an argument about whether they should be on the team. We have this for the 2012 team.
If we could enter some kind of time warp where the 1992 team could actually play against the 2012 team it would be close. The 1992 team would have a huge size advantage at the center spot but would get run up and down the court by the much more athletic 2012 squad.
Michael Dunlap
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Today’s players may be more athletic, bigger and stronger on average, but the Dream Team had Jordan, Malone and Barkley — those guys were plenty strong and athletic. If you want to compare big guys, the Dream Team had Ewing and Robinson, who were both elite defensive stoppers like Chandler, but who were also elite scorers and more-than-capable outside shooters.