He was the weak link and everybody went at him." "Anybody who had Laettner on the team lost. Jordan, on Christian Laettner's performance in scrimmages. I'd put a tape player or radio near the floor, put on some Springsteen, really blast it, shoot it, get your own rebound, shoot it, get your own. Or there's Chris Mullin speaking on his early days. This motherfucker right here is the truth." "You know all that shit we were talking back then?" Ewing told them. So he picked up the phone and dialed his friends. "All through high school," says Ewing, "my friends and I hated him and hated his team." But something changed when Ewing entered the league and faced those flinty eyes of the HIck from French Lick. Though Ewing grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and idolized Celtics legend Bill Russell, he was not a fan of Bird or the contemporary Celtics. And even the profound stuff will make you smile.įor instance, you have Patrick Ewing talking about Larry Bird. It's an encyclopedia full of insight into the greatest team ever, yeah, but in practice, it's as much about endless shit talking and ridiculous egos as any profound thoughts about greatness. McCallum was a reporter then, but 20 years later he's looking back almost like a fan, where his book reads like a bunch of notes from a friend, trying to explain what exactly made all this so amazing.īut then, it's probably most important to say that on a basic level, Dream Team is one of the funniest sports books you'll find anywhere.
He CAN testify, and he offers as much shameless awe as details. He was embedded with the team for the entire time, having covered all of its stars for their entire careers leading up to those Olympics. We get it, they were great, they changed everything, etc.īut McCallum's book resonates on a deeper level than the rest. You're almost definitely sick of this stuff by now. This summer's the 20th anniversary of the Dream Team's Barcelona arrival, and it's already provided heaping doses of nostalgia in 100 different ways. But there are plenty of others who will gladly fill in the gaps.
I say "seem" because I was too young in 1992 and never watched the Dream Team play live, so I won't try to testify one way or the other. Toward the end of his book, Dream Team, Jack McCallum is writing about Michael Jordan when he says, "I always considered Jordan's ultimate achievement to be that he was better than his hype, which was not easy when you're hyped the way he was." That seems like it would apply just as well to the Dream Team, too.
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