Since the dawn of basketball, Team USA has had the most dominating squad in the world. Filled with NBA players, there have been just a handful of teams throughout history that have stood a chance against the US.
However, that trend was even more obvious during the 1992 Olympics, where Team USA put together the very first ‘Dream Team‘, a squad full of future Hall of Famers – most of them in their prime – and some of the greatest basketball players to have set foot on a hardwood.
We’re talking about Michael Jordan, John Stockton, Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Clyde Drexler, Scottie Pippen, Larry Bird, Chris Mullin, David Robinson, and Patrick Ewing (plus Christian Laettner) teaming up to bring home the gold.
Needless to say, they crushed their opposition by an average winning margin of 43.75 points, so every single one of their rivals knew what was coming right when they saw them enter the arena. Every single one of them but Drazen Petrovic, according to John Stockton:
“You could see it in their eyes they had no chance to beat us. That was the approach of every NBA guy except for one, and that was Drazen Petrovic. He was the one unique person that felt he had a chance and played like it. He was the one guy that stood out,” Stockton claimed in an interview.
Back in 1992, Petrovic was one of basketball’s rising stars, a guy that looked poised for stardom and that could’ve ended up being the greatest three-point shooter of all time.
Croatia lost both of its matchups vs. the United States, including the Final. However, Petrovic wasn’t to blame for it. He led his team with 24.6 points per game including 19 and 24 points vs. the Dream Team.
Still, it’s pretty safe to say that there wouldn’t be a force on earth that could’ve stopped this squad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-Vbu5KR1tg
