The Dream Team was the unofficial title of the United States men's basketball team that won the gold medal at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. New rules allowing professional athletes to play at the Olympics made it possible for the millionaires of professional basketball to compete.
The team featured Michael Jordan, one of the best basketballers in history, amongst a team who featuring many players regarded as amongst the best of all time:
The team won all of its games by huge margins, beating Croatia in the gold medal game by 32 points. Whilst the opportunity to see the game's greats playing together was appreciated, the team's occasionally belittling attitude to opponents was not.
Interestingly, Stockton was the only Dream Team member to wear his normal number in the Olympics (12). In fact, he was the only Dream Team member who could wear his normal number. In international tournaments, player numbers are restricted to those between 1 and 15; all other Dream Team members normally wore numbers outside the allowable range.
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2 Results at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona 3 Final Standings |
Coaching Staff
Results at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona
Final Standings
Subsequent United States teams have had the "Dream Team" moniker attached, but with their increasingly less extraordinary performances (nearly losing to Lithuania at the 2000 Sydney Games, and being embarrassed into sixth place at the 2002 World Championships) many regard such a moniker as no longer appropriate.
Dream Team is also the title of a British drama series about a soccer team, commissioned and broadcast by Sky One from the late 1990s.