The greatest basketball team and its only (sniffing) loss

.

NBA teams are arguably the best on the planet. Put even the weakest team in the "alien league" against top teams from different continents and the difference will be obvious. Basketball in the USA is just on another level. Now imagine the best players from the best teams coming together in one super team - sounds unfair, doesn't it?

However, this is exactly what happened in 1992 for the first time in the history of the United States. After the defeat in the 1988 Olympic Games, the team from across the ocean were so determined to get back the gold that they scrapped the rule of not using NBA players and put together the most monstrous team in basketball history. Led by Michael Jordan, the USA made a splash, winning gold in '92 in Barcelona, and the team went down in history as the original Dream Team. A team full of stars, undefeated and total dominance on the floor. But even this team has its weak point - a loss, albeit in an unofficial match, that was hidden from the media, sources and the general public in the USA.

In June 1992, the newly formed selection of Jordan, Magic Johnson, Scottie Pippen, Charles Barkley and a bunch of other stars played a practice match against a combined team of students in San Diego - part of the team's preparation for the Barcelona Games. In a 20-minute match, Chuck Daly's boys are run over by future stars such as Grant Hill, Chris Webber and many others, but at the time they are just students drafted to prepare the Dream Team for the Olympics.

“I was on the college team that crushed the Dream Team. We trained in La Jolla with them, our goal being to prepare them for the Games, but that didn't mean giving up on them. Houston couldn't miss from the three. NOBODY could stop Chris (Webber) in the basket. Bobby Hurley developed them. We killed them,” Grand Hill said in a 2015 podcast.

The truth about exactly what happened is unlikely to ever fully emerge. However, what we already know today is that the "college boys" won 62:54 against the NBA megastars. Chuck Daly, the coach chosen to lead the Olympic team, orders the score to be reset before the media enter the interview room, all forbidden to talk about what happened. The megastars appear disappointed, according to reporters' memos from the period in 1992, but no one says a word about the defeat that turned into a "fire" that inspired basketball's superstars to erase their egos and unite in a common goal - to prove , that US basketball is light years away from the rest of the sport's powerhouses.