Michael Jordan was among the headline acts when the Dream Team swept away the competition at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. While Jordan has earned praise for his role in the team winning the gold on that big stage, Gilbert Arenas claims on The Gilbert Arenas Show that he wasn’t actually all that good.
“Imagine the USA, the ’92 team, taking that team today and going there, and we look at the box scores and Michael Jordan’s box scores are talked about today from how he performed,” Arenas said. “In ’92, nobody knew MJ was struggling in the Olympics, and he was shooting that bad in the Olympics against guys who were wearing AAU uniforms.
“Park League jerseys,” Arenas continued. “They got the Cuban team. Half the s*** was discolored. They look like they took three different years. They took like a ’84 team and then a ’88 team and then a ’92 team, and then they just put them n***as together, and that was the jerseys. That’s what those groups look like, and [he was] struggling. We didn’t hear struggling.
“So when you say give me your five best Olympian players who performed in the Olympics, and you have people who select Michael Jordan as the shooting guard, that’s how great the media was,” Arenas added. “That you believe he performed that well as a shooting guard in the history of Olympics because we wasn’t told nothing bad.”
Jordan averaged 14.9 points, 2.4 rebounds, 4.8 assists, 4.1 steals, and 0.5 blocks per game at the 1992 Olympics while shooting 45.1% from the field and 21.1% from beyond the arc. He didn’t play as well as you’d have imagined he did.
Only Christian Laettner had a lower field goal percentage than Jordan on the team at 45.0%. They were actually the only players under 50%, which gives some context on just how poorly they were shooting from the field. Arenas says all of this is not known because the media only focused on the positives back then, as opposed to now, when they search for the negatives.
“If you talk about the media in that time, the media was fanboys,” Arenas said. “To be media then, you had to kiss the ring. There was no negativity in the early-80s, mid-80s, and the ’90s. The game was glorified, and it was pushed positive.”
“The media now who is telling you how great these players are is the same media who’s telling you how horrible these players are because they love those players,” Arenas stated. “They’re players that made them feel good. So because those guys made you feel good, I don’t need these guys overshadowing those guys.”
That’s an interesting line of thought.
Arenas had previously excluded Jordan from his all-time Team USA starting five. He stated then as well that Jordan wasn’t Jordan at the Olympics. It should be pointed out, though, that he did play at that stage twice.
Jordan averaged 17.1 points, 3.0 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 1.5 steals, and 0.9 blocks per game at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, while shooting 54.5% from the field. So, it wasn’t all bad on that stage.
Arenas sure has made some interesting comments when it comes to Jordan. He was very complimentary when he first got into the media business, but his tune has changed a bit over time.
Arenas has said that Jordan was the only elite athlete of his era, suggesting the competition wasn’t all that great. He also pointed out that the Chicago Bulls icon didn’t have to play against any of the top five shooting guards of all time at their best.
As for the GOAT debate, Arenas thinks there is nothing LeBron James can do to get that titlein the eyes of the media at present because they are basically Jordan fanboys. He sure doesn’t seem to be all too fond of these talking heads.
