48 AMERICANWAY
FEBRUARY 15 2009
G L O B A L N B A
Most believe that USA Basketball, the
U.S. representative to the international
basketball governing body, Fédération In-
ternationale de Basketball (FIBA), had pe-
titioned to allowNBA players on the U.S.
Olympic roster after the Soviet Union de-
featedanall-amateurU.S. team in thegold-
medal game at the 1988Olympics inSeoul,
SouthKorea.
The truth is that Boris Stankovic,
secretary-general of FIBA, had lobbied for
manyyears for the inclusionofNBAplayers
on the rosters of all teams in international
competitions.
“I see the ’92 Olympics as the bookend
to the 2008 Olympics,” Stern says. “On
the one hand, it was like Team USA was
a circus. We had the Tournament of the
Americas (in Portland, Oregon), and play
stopsso theBrazilianplayers
[
can
]
get their
pictures taken with the Americans. It was
very funny.
“I remember everyone saying, ‘It’s ri-
diculous. …Why would the United States
do this? … They’re going to humiliate the
world.’ But I said two things at the time.
One: ‘We’re actually honoring the world.’
Borishad said tous, ‘Theonlywaywe’rego-
ing to get better is to play against the best.’
And I said thatweunderstood that.
“Number two: ‘You know what? The
world is going to get better faster than you
think, because this is an easy sport to learn,
andwe’rebeing followed very carefully.’”
Stern was right. The Dream Team won
its eight games inBarcelona by an average
of 43.8 points, but even teams that were
blownoutappeared to regard itasanhonor
tohavebeenhumiliated.
In relatively short order, great athletes
who had never considered any sport but
soccer began playing Dr. Naismith’s game.
Theworldbegan to catchup toTeamUSA.
“Wewerederidedforsomeperiodoftime,”
Stern says, “until, for consecutive times, we
lost badly in the
[
2002
]
WorldChampion-
ships andbadly in the
[
2004
]
Olympics.
“So, we were right, and all of a sudden,
there was a beatification of that Dream
Team. They deserve to be lifted on our
shoulders, because they did a great job.
They competed. They represented. They
were very good. That was important, be-
cause that helpedus get to the point where
we could begin distributing our games in-
ternationally. We’re now in 215 countries
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