Early scrimmages To help the team prepare for the Olympics, a squad of the best
NCAA college players was formed to scrimmage them. USA Basketball selected players whose style of play, it hoped, would resemble that of the Europeans the Dream Team would face. Members included the penetrating guard
Bobby Hurley, all-around players
Grant Hill and
Penny Hardaway, outside shooter
Allan Houston, and the tough
Chris Webber and
Eric Montross. Hill and Hardaway would play for the
1996 national team, and Houston on the
2000 team. The Dream Team first gathered in
La Jolla, California, in late June, astounding and intimidating the collegians who watched them practice. However, on June 24, the Dream Team lost to the NCAA team, 62–54, after underestimating the opposition. Daly intentionally limited Jordan's playing time and made non-optimal substitutions; assistant coach
Mike Krzyzewski later said that the head coach "threw the game" to teach the NBA players that they could be beaten. The teams played again the following day, with the Olympians winning decisively in the rematch. Some of the college players visited Jordan's hotel room afterward and asked their hero for his personal items as souvenirs.
Tournament of the Americas The Dream Team made its international debut on June 28 at the
Tournament of the Americas, an Olympic qualifying event in
Portland, Oregon. The team defeated
Cuba 136–57, prompting Cuban coach
Miguel Calderón Gómez to say, "You can't cover the sun with your finger."
Marv Albert, who announced the game, recalled that "it was as if [the Americans] were playing a high school team, or grade school team. They were so overwhelming...a blowout after blowout." The Cubans were the first of many opponents who were more interested in taking photos with the Americans than playing them. The next five games were also easy victories for Team USA, which ended the tournament on July 5 with a 127–80 victory over
Venezuela in the championship game to win the tournament and be one of four Americas squads to qualify for the Olympics.
Olympics The team trained for the
Olympics in
Monaco for six days, practicing two hours a day and playing exhibition games against other national teams. During their time away from the court, the squad spent time enjoying the
nude beaches,
Monte Carlo's casinos, and dining with royalty. There was no curfew; as Daly stated, "I'm not putting in a curfew because I'd have to adhere to it, and Jimmy'z [a noted Monte Carlo nightclub] doesn't open until midnight." For one scrimmage, the group divided into two teams: Blue (led by Johnson, with Barkley, Robinson, Mullin, and Laettner) and White (led by Jordan, with Malone, Ewing, Pippen, and Bird). Drexler and Stockton did not play because of injuries. Daly told the teams to play "All you got now. All you got." White won, 40 to 36, in what Jordan recalled as "the best game I was ever in" and
Sports Illustrated later called "the Greatest Game Nobody Ever Saw". Because of security concerns due to the team's celebrity, the Dream Team did not stay in the
Olympic Village. The Olympic Village had only four guards at the gate when the team arrived to pick up their credentials; one of the guards, upon seeing the Dream Team, grabbed his camera and his child while the team members were mobbed by other Olympic athletes. Daly also stated that the beds in the Village were too short to allow his tall players to get proper rest. As a result, the team stayed at Barcelona's Hotel Ambassador, where USA Basketball occupied 80 of the hotel's 98 rooms. Opposing basketball players and athletes from other sports often asked to have photographs taken with the players. In an interview years later, Charles Barkley recounted that "we got death threats". Despite that assertion, Barkley walked around the city alone. When asked where his bodyguards were, he held up his fists and answered, "This is my security." Jordan was the only player who studied the opposition, carefully watching game tapes. He and the other Americans enjoyed the opportunity to get to know each other in a casual setting, often playing cards all night and, for Jordan, playing several rounds of golf daily with little rest. Opposing teams were overwhelmed by the Americans, losing by an average of 43.8 points per game. This was the second-largest Olympic Games point differential, surpassed only by the 53.5 point-per-game margin achieved by the
1956 US Men's Basketball Team. The Dream Team was the first to score more than 100 points in every game. Its 117.3 average was more than 15 points higher than that of the 1960 US team. Johnson later recalled, "I look to my right, there's Michael Jordan...I look to my left, there's Charles Barkley or Larry Bird...I didn't know who to throw the ball to!" In a press conference before the team's first Olympic game against
Angola, Barkley quipped, "I don't know anything about Angola. But Angola's in trouble."
Herlander Coimbra of Angola recalled that "those guys were on another level—a galaxy far, far away". During the game, Barkley elbowed Coimbra in the chest and was unapologetic after the game, claiming he was hit first. Barkley was called for an intentional foul on the play. Coimbra's resulting free throw was the only point scored by Angola during a 46–1 run by the US. The U.S. team won, 116–48, but its global reputation was damaged by Barkley's elbow. After the game, Jordan said, "There just wasn't any place for it. We were dominating the game. It created mixed feelings, it caused a mixed reaction about the U.S. There's already some negative feelings about us." The incident changed the narrative; instead of the Americans being viewed as a highly skilled team beating an underdog, some viewed them as bullies. Daly started Jordan in every game, and Johnson started in five of the six games he played, missing two games because of knee problems. Pippen, Bird, Mullin, Robinson, Ewing, Malone, and Barkley rotated in the other starting spots. Barkley was the Dream Team's leading scorer during the Olympics, averaging 18.0 points per game. The player-selection committee had been unsure about including him, worried that he would not represent the United States well. The closest of the eight matches was Team USA's 117–85 victory over
Croatia in the gold medal game. Croatia, participating as an independent nation in the Olympics for the first time since its separation from the former
Yugoslavia, briefly led the Dream Team by a score of 25–23 in the first half. By the end of the game, Team USA had pulled away and Stockton agreed to a Croatian player's plea not to shoot. Pippen and Jordan aggressively sought the opportunity to guard
Toni Kukoč of Croatia. He had just signed a contract with the Bulls for more money than Pippen, who believed that the team's negotiation with the Croatian had delayed his own contract. Tired of hearing about Kukoč's talent, Pippen and Jordan agreed to, as Jordan later said, "not...let this guy do
anything against us." McCallum described the two Bulls as "rabid dogs" against Kukoč. Croatia had lost to the Dream Team 103–70 in their first game. The only team besides Croatia to hold the margin under 40 points was
Puerto Rico, which lost 115–77 in the quarterfinals. ==Legacy==