Dream Team: How Michael, Magic, Larry, Charles, and the Greatest Team of All Time Conquered the World and Changed the Game of Basketball Forever by Jack McCallum

Dream Team: How Michael, Magic, Larry, Charles, and the Greatest Team of All Time Conquered the World and Changed the Game of Basketball Forever Reviews

• 
  evan

  Without giving away too much, here are my top 5 anecdotes from Jack McCallum's incredible book about the original Dream Team.
  
  1) Michael Jordan stayed up all night before the gold medal game vs. Croatia: playing cards and smoking cigars until dawn, filming a special video for the NBA, and even getting in a round or two of golf -- all before, you know, playing the game of basketball at the highest possible level, and helping the US secure the gold medal. Which admittedly wasn't that hard, but still!
  
  2) Christian Laettner - team douchebag. Pretty much everything you've always thought about his is confirmed. When the rest of the team would show up to events in suits and ties, he'd be all bro'ed out in sweatpants and t-shirts, not givin' a fuck. This is why all normal people hate Duke and everyone who went there, forevermore.
  
  3) Arvydas Sabonis was too drunk to join the rest of team Lithuania for the medal ceremony. Background: Lithuania won the Bronze medal in '92, which is a great story itself - this was a highly charged atmosphere for them (right after the Soviet Union dissolved - they beat the Russian "Unified Team" to secure their medal - a victory that was, rightfully, celebrated worldwide). As an added bonus, the Grateful Dead supported the team and gave them sweeeeet tie-dyed uniforms, which is hilarious and awesome.
  
  Anyway, turns out the team had some time to kill before receiving their medals, and Sabonis got into a vodka chugging contest with himself and had to sleep it off. Classic Arvydas, eh?
  
  4) Ping pong, unsurprisingly, was just one of the fun, competitive activities that the Dream Teamers, their families, and other dignitaries/hangers on would engage in at the Ambassador hotel in Barcelona, in between the beat-downs of all the other countries lucky/unfortunate enough to be in Team USA's path in 1992. Shockingly, here is the hierarchy of the top players in the Dream Team contingent:
  
  1) Laettner
  2) David Stern(!)
  3) MJ.
  
  Yes, David Stern is apparently a bad-ass at ping pong. (Insert joke about rigging the NBA lottery here.)
  
  5) Every detail of "The Greatest Game that Nobody Ever Saw," the infamous team scrimmage that Coach Chuck Daly organized at the team's practice facility in Monte Carlo. The greatest collection of basketball players ever, playing hard, talking trash, the works. McCallum goes play-by-play through this exhibition, and I can't describe the jealousy I experienced when reading it. Oh, to have been there.
  
  Highly recommend this book for any basketball junkies, or fans of longform sports journalism in general.
• 
  Andrew

  It was fine when McCallum wasn't busy inserting the asides about himself and dishing out gossip like an eighth grader. At times, I felt kind of sorry for him because it sounded suspiciously like he was attaching himself to this athletic collective in the hopes that some of their ____ (fill in the blank - awesomeness, prowess, attractiveness) would rub off on him. I definitely got the sense that some players were people he DESPERATELY wanted (wants?) to be personal friends with (Barkley, Bird and Jordan) while some players (Ewing and Laettner) he covered simply because they were on the team and he knew he had to say something about them. His handling of Magic was oddly sterile - almost like he knew he had to juxtapose Magic with Michael but that if he was too honest, his own opinion that heavily favored Michael would show through. His unabashed hostility towards Drexler was amazing: at points, it definitely felt like I was back in George C. Marshall Middle School and half of the class was friends with Clyde and half of the class (the part McCallum was in) was friends with Michael and he was the kid telling the new kids that there's no way you can be friends with both Michael AND Clyde.
  
  Don't get me wrong - it was entertaining and a worthy read but it was WAY more gossipy that I was expecting it to be.
• 
  Chris Gordon

  As a huge fan of '90s basketball players, I can say that this book did not disappoint. This tell-all book follows the Dream Team of the 1992 Olympics led by such NBA superstars as Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Patrick Ewing, and Charles Barkley, among other hall-of-famers. The voice of the book does not come from any of the star players, but rather from a sports writer who tagged along with the Dream Team at the Olympic games, chronicling their time in Barcelona. Jack McCallum thus presents his unique insight into the off-the-court shenanigans of some of the greatest basketball stars to ever grace the sport.
  
  Dream Team recounts many entertaining behind-the-scenes stories of the Dream Team members when they weren't defeating their opponents by embarrassingly large margins. If you're a fan of some of these basketball legends, you'll love reading about their interactions with one another. Being an Ewing-era Knicks fan, I found the excerpt detailing Patrick Ewing's and Larry Bird's blossoming friendship to be quite interesting. Here you have two of the seemingly most opposite kinds of people coming together to form an unlikely bond, proving that there is much more to to these sports stars than meets the eye. I also got a kick out of the rivalry between Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson over who would be the team leader. Their private pick-up game against each other must have been quite a sight to behold!
  
  If I had one complaint about this book, it would be that McCallum goes a bit overboard telling these stories as they relate to his personal experience whilst being an observer. Rather than flesh out what Jordan might have been thinking at any given moment or exploring in any true depth the uncanny relationships that spawned between some of the players, McCallum writes a lot about what he thought or how he felt as a journalist and sports fan in those moments. Although that approach isn't necessarily unheard of in a book such as this, I wish more time and attention was devoted to the players, as I picked up Dream Team to read about players like Jordan and Ewing, not journalists McCallum.
  
  Though any seasoned fan of basketball and the NBA might already know most of these anecdotes and stories, Dream Team is, nonetheless, a great choice of read that will give a much broader account of the legendary basketball ensemble. In lieu of having full game footage of the Olympic basketball games themselves, I'd say that this book is as complete an account of the Dream Team's historic outing as you can find. At the very least, it provides a lot of insider information that you'd be hard pressed to find anywhere else.
• 
  Stephen

  This book was difficult for me to score. First off, the subject matter is near and dear to my heart. I love the basketball that was played in the 1980's and 1990's. I was a huge fan of Magic, Clyde Drexler, Charles Barkley and others of the era. I also love hearing about how these guys came together and gave up their summer to be the first group of NBA players to compete in the Olympics.
  
  So, most of the content was interesting, especially the 'behind the scenes' stories of the closed practices, and the background of Chuck Daly and other players. There's a lot of interesting and enlightening commentary that supposedly came from the players as filtered through the author.
  
  Unfortunately, the author is, in my opinion, the weak link in this project. While being grammatically correct and without typos, I found that he writes in a style similar to an adolescent boy, too often focusing on the petty sniping and whiny resentments that I would expect more from a Cosmopolitan magazine article than a former Sports Illustrated author. He also would add filler to beef up the book which would be monotonous and annoying. For example, while talking about what a cultural icon Michael Jordan is and how he is a "frame of reference", McCallum spent almost an entire page listing people:
  
  

  Patricia Zhou from the Royal Ballet of London will be the Michael Jordan of Ballet...Itzhak Perlman is the Michael Jordan of the violin. A character on ABC's Happy Endings is the Michael Jordan of ruining relationships

  etc.
  
  For the actual content regarding the basketball related information, I'd give the book four stars, but for the authors digressions, I'd give the book a one and a half.
• 
  Dan

  Written in 2012 this was a trip down memory lane from the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. A very well written book in which the author had unparalleled access to the players - particularly Michael Jordan and Larry Bird. These are the two superstars who we wanted to know the most about anyway.
  
  It turns out that they were the most competitive minded players on the team - although by this time Bird was nowhere near Jordan's level athletically and was only months from retirement due to his chronic back problem. Both players had a sixth sense for how to win games and were ruthless on the court. Neither did they shoot their mouths off (other than to razz and tease players). They also knew immediately who the weak links on the court were - ahem Laettner.
  
  4.5 stars
• 
  Mario

  La historia detrás de el mejor equipo de la NBA, un experimento que se cuaja desde las tierras lejanas de la Europa Oriental en la búsqueda del perfeccionamiento de un juego metódico y falto de experiencia. Una mirada profunda y personal a los iconos de la década de los noventas que marcaron el final de la era Magic/Bird y fraguaron la consolidación de la época brillante de Jordan. Cómo satélites del astro del basquetbol, entrevistas con Ewing, Barkley, Malone, Drexler, Pippen, Mullin, Robinson y compañía. El fenómeno mundial visto desde adentro con una muy buena escritura de Jack McCallum, periodista de Sports Illustrated
• 
  Matt

  What a fun read. McCallum really knows how to tell stories.
• 
  Anthony

  1992 seems like a lifetime away, and I guess it was if you are 20 years old. For those of us who can actually remember 1992 and were basketball fans even then, “Dream Team” is a treat.
  
  Sports journalist Jack McCallum doesn’t chronicle everything about the ’92 Olympic basketball team and their games and victories. This is not a transcript of the play by play. What he does is give us is insight into how the Dream Team came to be, from getting the go ahead to allow professional athletes to play in the Olympics to the attainment of gold. In addition we get a glimpse of the past and present of those stars and we learn a little about what they are up to now. Jack kind of gives us a little basketball version of VH1’s behind the music. He provides us with the backstage access to one of history’s greatest basketball teams which included Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley, Scottie Pippen, John Stockton, Chris Mullin, Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone, David Robinson, Clyde Drexler, Christian Laettner, and Coach Chuck Daly
  
  Now, there has been a recent claim by one Kobe Bryant that the 2012 incantation of the U.S. Basketball team could defeat the 1992 Dream Team. My only response to that is a gut busting laugh, because he must have been joking. Michael Jordan laughed as I did, and while admitting that the new guard may have a physical edge, they aren’t as smart. I would also venture to guess that there are few players today who are as competitive as the ’92 squad. Jordan, Bird, and Magic took competitive to a whole other level. Today’s players only care about personal stats and money; winning is secondary to the other two goals. I’ve read quite a bit about Bird (one of my favorite athletes of all time) and Magic, and through their words and this book I have come to a grudging acceptance of Jordan’s greatness. These three together just had a head for the game and they learned how to work as a team, they had a killer instinct, and they never shrunk from the big moment.
  
  Basketball experienced a complete renaissance in the 80’s early 90’s and it culminated with the Dream Team. The Dream Team proved to be a boon for international competition, bringing the game to a worldwide audience and creating new basketball fans and players in far off lands. No matter how good players get, I find it highly improbable that any proceeding team could ever be as good as that one. This is a great read for the Basketball fan and historian.
  
• 
  Steven Mandeville

  Sports journalism at it's best.
• 
  Charlie Grozier

  9.5/10
• 
  Brian Jones

  First, let me say that I thoroughly enjoyed this book; much more than many I have rated higher. I guess that I am rating this on a curve because I am a basketball junkie of that era. Said another way: I am the target demographic for this book. This is a good behind the scenes look at how these Greats interacted with each other and generally showed a their reverence for the game. Dream Team may not be the best basketball book that I have read (either "Playing their Hearts Out" or "Art of the Beautiful Game"), but it's definitely worth a read if you have fond memories of the Dream Team (and there is only one) or any of it's players. Something I believe we would agree about: Jack McCallum had one hell of of job/life for at least that period of his career!
• 
  Ashley

  Some of my fondest memories include sitting in funky Chicago Stadium and watching Jordan and Pippen play with my dad.
  
  I don't remember the Dream Team very well (I was 8 in 1992), but there's no denying their cultural impact. This book did a good job of talking about the interplay between players. It reinforced some things I knew well (Michael Jordan is a jerk) and other things I didn't know at all. (Bird does not seem like he would be a trash talker, but he was one of the greats)
  
  I wish the author talked more about the games. I know there's probably not much to say about them, but I felt like there wasn't very much basketball. But it was cool to see the personalities and the trash talking. I have to admit that the image of Ewing and Bird hanging out and being BFFs makes me smile.
• 
  Barnabas Piper

  Loved this account of the greatest team ever assembled. They were so iconic in my childhood and McCallum writes it wonderfully. He has sort of an old-fashioned sports reporter style that suits an easy 90s team just fine. It is a great behind-the-scenes look without being tabloid or exploitative. You get a sense of the team dynamic and interpersonal reactions without it being psychobabbly. He writes the games and basketball portions without being overly-detailed. Over all a fantastic read for ball fans.
• 
  TheBookWarren

  3.5 Stars - The greatest SPORTS team ever assembled, by a stupidly large distance!!!
  
  This has some great insights, especially the training camp stuff around MJ/Magic - One all Hoops fans hardcore & Casual can enjoy on equal footing.
• 
  Caleb Smith

  My fav book of all time possibly
• 
  Thomas

  Have you ever had that experience, where you learned about something so interesting you could go to the time it happened and watch it. I had that experience after reading this book. The book has allowed me to view one of the greatest times in sports in history. I have only ever heard of the legend of the Dream Team. Since being born 12 years after the team was assembled, I was unable to see these all-stars conquer the 1992 olympic games. We don't really hear much of these players because they are old news compared to what is new and fresh. The Dream Team, novel, has allowed me to get a chance to know about what took place. The book contains portions of interviews between the players which has allowed for insight into what took place in Barcelona,1992. This biography allows for people to relive, or get an experience for the first time while reading The Dream Team.
  Jack McCallum's work with piecing together information and perspectives has allowed for amazing insight into the story of The Dream Team. The novel begins with the faint idea of The Dream Team. As the book progresses, you dive deeper into all the details of the relationships, the battles, and the experiences of the dream team. We learn that these men were sworn enemies in the NBA, but they had to come together in order to dominate the 1992 Olympic Games. The players of the very old, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, had a rough time giving the reins of the league to the younger players, aka Michael Jordan. Charles Barkley was very exuberant when presenting himself to the bustling city of Barcelona. John Stockton felt very unnoticed while he walked the city streets and not a single person knew who he was. Along with these events, there were key interactions which changed the NBA for the better, but the true emotions of these situations were held in the interviews with the players.
  There wasn't much figurative language that was used in this book, because it was mostly interviews and perspectives from people involved with the dream team. There was one way that the reader could view some images of what happened because there were pictures that showed key events. Though the author couldn't use imagery in this book, the player's perspectives allowed the reader to imagine what it could have been like to be in Barcelona in 1992. When Michael Jordan describes how it was so chaotic on the Barcelona streets, they were traffic jams for hours. Larry Bird describes how his reign on the NBA had reached its end, and Magic Johnson and emotions towards leaving the NBA due to HIV.
  Jack McCallum's work truly is astonishing in this book. It makes the book come to life as you're reading it, and you just can't stop reading because you just get trapped in a world of fascination and amazement. I was very pleased with the structure of the novel as well. I have noticed that some biographies jump around so the information is all over the place. The Dream Team was consistent with the information from the start to finish, it started with the idea of an all NBA olympic basketball roster and ended with the amazing final product of the changed NBA. This book captures how this team changed the NBA. The NBA was mainly just in the USA, but after The Dream Team, the NBA was now a global enterprise. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did.
  
  
  
• 
  Doug Thorsen

  So much more interesting than Larry Bird's autobiography. McCallum gives a fair portrayal. He isn't overly critical or obsequious. What is unique is that he's able to observe all these players interacting with each other which makes for a much more natural setting. They are generally far more likely to be themselves amongst each other. You are able to see locker room Larry Bird. He is shit talking self confident jock with a penchant for lewd humor. You get why he doesn't want to portray that in say an autobiography. You get to see the Michael Jordan that is hardly the lovable warm and fuzzy hero of Haines underwear, Looney tune cartoons, and breakfast cereal. You get to see the Magic Johnson that makes many of his peers roll their eyes. All that said, this is not a gossip piece. It is not hater journalism. McCallum toward the end of the book comes close to coming off as a get off my lawn nostalgia leaning dweeb, but he balances it out
  
• 
  Andrew Gibney

  I was just turning 11 when the Dream Team arrived in Barcelona. These are the guys who made me want to play basketball. Which is not normal in a small Scottish town. Charles Barkley was and will always be my favourite player and it was so nice to hear the thoughts of a writer who knows them better them most.
  
  Great insights, lovely stories, just an all-round excellent read. Loved it
• 
  Timothy Smallwood

  What a team!
  
  I thoroughly enjoyed this trip down memory lane.
  
  Reduced a star for the excessive use of language (in my humble opinion).
• 
  Alberto

  Magic claramente celoso de la popularidad y juego de Jordan.
  Un libro de Charles Barkley paseando por las ramblas, por favor.
• 
  Rosenkavalier

  Angola is in trouble
  
  Il Dream Team e' uno dei più efficaci argomenti mai proposti a favore del politeismo.
  Fare l'elenco dei nomi di questo Pantheon cestistico sarebbe superfluo, quindi farò un elenco di soprannomi (nella mitologia sono anche più importanti):
  
  - Magic
  - The Hick from French Lick
  - Air
  - The Glide
  - The Stock
  - The Round Mound of Rebound
  - The Admiral
  - The Mailman
  - The Hoya-Destroya
  
  Dei tre giocatori mancanti, due non dispongono di un soprannome (Chris Mullin e Scottie Pippen), mentre il terzo salì sull'aereo per sbaglio e non sarà qui nominato*.
  
  Nota per chi avesse trascorso gli ultimi 20 anni presso la sede distaccata di Plutone: il Dream Team è la squadra di basket che gli USA allestirono per le Olimpiadi di Barcellona 92, riunendo alcuni dei più grandi giocatori mai esistiti (e che probabilmente mai esisteranno) nella prima occasione in cui ai pro dell’NBA era stato permesso di partecipare ai Giochi. Fino ad allora, per rispettare la regola dilettantistica olimpica, la nazionale americana era stata composta di giocatori selezionati dal campionato universitario. Questo non aveva impedito agli eredi spirituali del Rev. Naismith di vincere tutti gli ori disponibili (al netto dei boicottaggi), fino alla disfatta di Seul 1988 in semifinale contro l’URSS (la cui ossatura era peraltro lituana, a cominciare dallo Zar di Kaunas, il Principe del Baltico Arvydas Sabonis).
  
  Il libro non racconta clamorosi retroscena. La cosa più interessante è probabilmente il “play-by-play” della celeberrima partitella di allenamento giocata a Montecarlo tra i due quintetti capitanati, rispettivamente da Magic Johnson e Michael Jordan.
  
  McCallum rende il giusto omaggio al visionario Boris Stankovic, vero ideatore dell’apertura dei cinque cerchi ai pro e lungimirante sostenitore dell’idea – non popolarissima all’epoca nell’ambiente dei comitati olimpici - che per migliorare bisogna competere coi migliori. La mia
  storia preferita rimane quella della neonata nazionale lituana, “sponsorizzata” dai Grateful Dead.
  Poi ci sono le parti con Larry Bird, di cui ogni cosa che leggo me lo rende più simpatico (il che testimonia della mia onestà datosi che, come si suol dire dalle parti di Orange County, il sottoscritto sanguina giallo-viola).
  
  Insomma, è aneddottica curiosa, a volte gustosa, ben raccontata, gli appassionati più o meno sanno cosa leggeranno.
  Chi c’era, del resto, si ricorda bene l’avvento della squadra più forte di ogni epoca in ogni sport, gli avversari che facevano a gara per farsi fotografare con i giocatori USA, gli scarti oratoriali, le polemiche sull’atteggiamento – si presumeva spocchioso e superficiale – che le superstars americane avrebbero tenuto (mica vero, l’operazione fu anche un capolavoro diplomatico).
  
  Sull’atteggiamento, onestamente avevo qualche dubbio anch’io. Poi finalmente arrivò la partita di apertura, con l’Angola nel comodo (o scomodo) ruolo di vittima sacrificale. In teoria, l’avversario perfetto da affrontare in ciabatte e con la testa altrove. A tenere “alta“ l’attenzione ci avrebbe pensato quel genio dadaista di Charles Barkley, rifilando una gomitata a un angolano che lo aveva abbracciato troppo stretto. Il suddetto Barkley aveva rilasciato, il giorno prima, l’
  intervista pre-partita più famosa di quelle Olimpiadi (e probabilmente tuttora nella top ten ogni epoca, di sicuro è nella mia). The basketball world was about to be in trouble.
  
  
  * Trattasi di Christian Laettner, stella di Duke University, unico giocatore del Dream Team proveniente dal College Basket.
• 
  Nico Pascual

  A dream read for every NBA fan. Brimming with details, quotes, and history. Especially about the three pillars of the NBA's reemergence - MJ, Magic, and Bird. The book is thoughtful and funny, and I found myself smiling a lot, grateful that I'm able to learn more about the best league in the world. The global influence of the best team ever assembled since the 1992 Olympics is just astonishing. All the people involved in the 1992 Dream Team are made full-bodied characters by the author. As a reader, that makes me care more about who and what I'm reading about.