My dad can beat up your dad.
What are you looking at? Not much!
Really, gentlemen. You're above this, or should be, at least. The ongoing squabble over who would win an imaginary pickup game between the 1992 Dream Team and the 2012 edition of Team USA has gotten obnoxious. The whole thing, which began with Kobe Bryant's declaration that this year's team could probably beat the greatest basketball team ever assembled in a mythical showdown, is merely a distraction from another boring exhibition and preliminary round as the juggernaut prepares for the medal games in London.
Michael Jordan "laughed" when he heard Bryant's comment. Magic Johnson listed the original (and only) Dream Team's 11 Hall of Famers and 23 collective championship rings. There was a lot of "ooooooohing" from the other tables in the cafeteria and the rest of the kids started chanting, "Fight, fight, fight fight…"
Meanwhile, the 2012 squad wiped the floor with the Dominican Republic 113-59 in an exhibition tune-up Thursday.
This silly debate is only news because, with the Major League Baseball All-Star festivities over for another year and real pennant races more than a month away, the sports world needs something to talk about. There is not a single Olympic event until July 25, and no matter how hard Merril Hoge and Ron Jaworski try, it is tough to get fired up about football in the middle of July.
As a result, life imitates art and we pick up where NBA 2K12 left off in wondering "Who is the greatest?"
While the debate is childish, it is not as absurd as many folks, Jordan included, have made it out to be. Larry Bird drew some chuckles by remarking that the members of the 1992 team "are all old now," but Bird and several others were not exactly spring chickens at the time of the 1992 Olympics, either. Bird battled back problems that brought his NBA career to an end that year, and Johnson was a year removed from his last professional game after contracting HIV. Aside from Jordan, nobody in the Dream Team's backcourt could have kept up with the quickness of Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook or Dwyane Wade. (No offense, John Stockton or 30-year-old Clyde Drexler.)
Stating that the 1992 team had 11 Hall of Famers is also just a bit disingenuous. Scottie Pippen, Chris Mullin and David Robinson (who was only in his third season at the time) were far from surefire Hall of Famers when the Dream Team convened in Barcelona. The 2012 version has no Hall of Famers, of course, because all of the players are still playing. Tyson Chandler and Andre Iguodala are the only members of the 2012 team that most of us can definitively say will never make it to the Hall of Fame. The rest are too young or already well on their way, like Bryant, LeBron James and possibly Chris Paul.
Look, now we have been drawn into the silliness. None of the preceding two paragraphs is meant to argue that the 2012 team would win one game or even four games in a seven game series. Each side of the argument has its evidence for and against, but any debate can only devolve into "Uh-huh! Nah-uh! Uh-huh! Nah-uh!" because the point is moot. All we really know is that both teams can beat up on some Caribbean island team and giggle when they miss a 30-foot 3-pointer or fail to connect on some supernatural alley-oop attempt.
At least they give us something to watch, though, and something to argue about.
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