Decades before LeBron James, Kevin Durant and company terrorized their international hoops competition, the one and only original Dream Team changed the course of basketball forever. Yes, it has already been 20 years since the Michael Jordan-Magic Johnson led U.S. Olympic team ran roughshod over the world at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, and to mark the occasion veteran basketball writer Jack McCallum has published his latest book, Dream Team.
McCallum is the perfect voice to narrate the Dream Team’s on and off the court exploits – he was there in person covering the team two decades ago. The author’s firsthand account is what really makes this book a must read – McCallum doesn’t waste much ink on detailing the team’s blowout victories in Barcelona, instead spending the bulk of the book on behind the scenes info. And this is where the book really shines. We don’t need to have the Dream Team’s games rehashed for us – we already know the outcome. But we don’t know all the dirt behind Isiah Thomas being left off the team. We don’t know all about the intersquad scrimmages and practices. We don’t know about Magic and Michael’s friendly, unspoken battle for leadership of the squad. We don’t know about Jordan playing cards all night, then filming a video all day, then going to play golf, then dropping 20 points in an Olympic game, all on no sleep. McCallum tells all these tales – plus many, many more – relying on what he witnessed live back in 1992 along with current interviews with all the key participants.
Dream Team is truly a dream read for basketball fans and McCallum is the dream writer for it.
Grab it here:
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