And he says, "Both of you have to learn to ignore." We said, "What do you mean?" "You college guys-you’re looking for every little thing, and you make big things out of it. and I, "Both of you guys have got to learn one thing." So we’ve got our notebooks, and we’re ready to write this down. Mike Krzyzewski (Team USA assistant coach): The first meeting as a coaching staff, Chuck says to P.J. ![]() In late June, the players gathered for the first time at a luxury hotel in La Jolla, California, outside San Diego, for a few days of scrimmages against some of the nation’s top college stars. "Make sure you get your sleep, because tomorrow I’m gonna bust your ass." When you saw who was on that cover, you were like, "Wow." Part II: Gods vs. I think probably the real turning point was the cover of Sports Illustrated. We just had to sit down and work it out.Ĭraig Miller (USA Basketball director of public relations): You’d see the list of names growing, and then it became apparent that this was going to be a special team. We really had long and difficult negotiations with Michael and with Nike.įalk: It wasn’t anything adversarial. Olympic Committee assumed they were entitled to do with all their athletes. He was in a class by himself, breaking a lot of ground, and a lot of that conflicted with what the U.S. Granik: One of the most difficult things was dealing with some of Michael Jordan’s endorsement issues. I was in awe every moment I was around them. So I never minded being in that position. Because that’s when you’re at the bottom of the ladder and you’re working your way up, and you gotta go one hundred miles an hour all the time. But then he ended up being the leading scorer.Ĭhristian Laettner (Team USA power forward): I tell people all the time, my favorite year at Duke-even though I won championships my junior year and senior year-was my freshman year. And there were some who, frankly, were worried about Barkley. You wanted to make sure that everything went smoothly, that everybody represented the way you wanted them to represent. Rod Thorn (Team USA selection committee): Charles Barkley was one of the last guys put on the team. So Isiah wasn’t even going to be the first substitute. But initially they were going to replace him, and it was going to be Joe Dumars. Jan Hubbard (NBA columnist for Newsday): Stockton broke a bone in his leg, and it healed very quickly. John Stockton was a tough son of a bitch. But who are you going to leave off? Nobody was tougher than John Stockton nobody was a better passer. I don’t know what the final vote was-I never asked-but when they counted, it came out for Clyde.ĭavid DuPree (reporter for USA Today): If they were selecting solely on ability and accomplishments, Isiah Thomas may have deserved it. Granik: The last player, as I recall, was between Clyde Drexler and Isiah Thomas, and you had two pretty great résumés there. That always stuck in the back of my mind. It was one of the first times playing basketball that a coach told me I wasn’t good enough. ![]() Karl Malone (Team USA power forward): I had an opportunity my freshman year at Louisiana Tech to try out for the Olympic team, and I didn’t make it. I knew it was going to be something special. But the cast on this team-it was the best of the best. We played in the ’84 Olympics together, and we had a great team then. Patrick Ewing (Team USA center): That was my second Olympics-mine, Michael, and Chris. For me, it was also about showing the world that I could still play, even living with HIV. And I was already out, dealing with HIV, so we had to make sure that we went out the right way. ![]() Magic Johnson (Team USA point guard): This was our final moment-the curtain was going to come down. He clearly wasn’t anywhere near what his peak had been, but if you were putting together such a historic team, you couldn’t leave him off. Granik: There was a lot of discussion about Larry Bird, because Larry had started having back problems.
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