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PUSHER;4510390 said:that toni kukoc story is hilarious. lol pippen saying he won't make it in the nba. then a few years later he refused to go in the game cause phil jackson call a play for kukoc instead of him
PUSHER;4510390 said:that toni kukoc story is hilarious. lol pippen saying he won't make it in the nba. then a few years later he refused to go in the game cause phil jackson call a play for kukoc instead of him
MR.CJ;4510428 said:PUSHER;4510390 said:that toni kukoc story is hilarious. lol pippen saying he won't make it in the nba. then a few years later he refused to go in the game cause phil jackson call a play for kukoc instead of him
did pippen even celebrate with the team?
It began as a friendly game of pool.
Magic Johnson awaited his turn while Michael Jordan, a premium Cuban stogie
dangling from his mouth, lined up his shot in the game room of the
Ambassador Hotel in Barcelona, Spain, a cordoned-off area on the second
floor designated as a sanctuary for the members of the U.S. Olympic
basketball team.
It was a welcome and needed hideaway. This traveling troupe of basketball
legends, whom coach Chuck Daly likened to a band of rock stars, caused a
near-stampede simply by arriving. Spectators grappled with one another for a
glimpse of Michael and Magic and Larry as they exited the team bus and
checked into the hotel. As fans clamored to photograph this historic sports
moment, the unruly crowd surged forward. Bird, skittish in large gatherings
since he was a child, held his breath. The mob made him anxious.
An arm's length away, Magic surveyed the maze of faces and also held his
breath. He found their energy to be exciting, exhilarating.
"Isn't this amazing?" he said to Bird.
"Are you kidding me? I want to get the hell out of here," Bird answered.
The "Dream Team" needed buffers, for their privacy and their safety. During
their 16 days in Barcelona, the Ambassador's game room served as an
exclusive club where the players could shoot pool, play cards, enjoy a beer,
and invent occasions to compete with one another.
By day the room was littered with books, toys, movies, and video games, a
haven for the players' families. Earvin Johnson III, barely eight weeks old,
sat wide-eyed in his bouncy seat, intently following the movements of the
older children. Conner Bird, a toddler who kept his mother and father awake
half the nights during the Olympic Games, loved to jump on the leather
couches and throw balls from the pool table down the hotel's elegant marble
steps.
On the night of August 7, little Conner and baby E.J. were already asleep.
Their daddies were wide awake, embroiled in an emotional debate over a
simple question posed by Bird: which NBA team was the greatest of all time?
"Obviously one of our Laker teams," answered Magic, leaning on his pool
stick. "We won five championships. More than all of you."
"No, it's the great Celtics teams with my man Bill Russell," said center
Patrick Ewing, who played for the New York Knicks but was raised in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. "He won 11 rings."
"You're forgetting the '86 Celtics, with the best front line in the history
of basketball, including this guy right here," added NBC commentator Ahmad
Rashad, pointing to Bird.
"That Celtics front line was brutal," agreed Charles Barkley.
Jordan, refusing to allow the chatter to disrupt his concentration, knocked
his ball into the corner pocket and puffed on his cigar. He was 29 years old
and had just won his second straight championship and his sixth consecutive
scoring title. His counterparts in the room were decorated NBA veterans, yet
their body of work was nearly complete. The maestro of the Bulls was only
just beginning to add new strokes to his championship canvas.
"You haven't even seen the best NBA team of all time yet," Jordan announced.
"I'm just getting started. I'm going to win more championships than all of
you guys. Tell you what. Let's have this conversation after I'm done
playing."
"You aren't winning five championships," Magic protested.
"Michael, I'm going to steal at least one of them from you," Barkley shot
back.
The flurry of protests continued, with five of the greatest players in NBA
history sparring over their own place in basketball history. Magic was
indignant at the suggestion that the best team could be anyone other than
his 1987 Lakers, the team he had determined was the finest of his title
years.
"Put me with Kareem, James Worthy, Coop, and Byron Scott, and we'd dominate
your Bulls team," Magic claimed.
Barkley was about to chime in again, but Bird, taking a slug of his beer,
shot his hand up.
"Quiet," Bird said. "Charles, you ain't won nothing. You're out of this
discussion. Ahmad, same thing. You're gone. Patrick, you don't have any
championships either, so you need to shut up and sit down right here and
learn some things."
Barkley, subdued by the unfortunate reality of his basketball resume
wandered off. Ewing, who had once considered Bird a bitter adversary but
would develop an unusual kinship with him during their Olympic experience,
dutifully sat on the bench next to his new friend. Rashad lingered also,
fascinated by the banter between these elite basketball stars, each of whom
at some juncture of his career could have argued that he was the best player
in the game.
Jordan insisted that his Chicago teams belonged in the conversation about
the all-time greats; Bird reminded Jordan that he used to torture Scottie
Pippen regularly before his back betrayed him.
"I feel sorry for you," Magic told Jordan. "You will never have what Larry
and I had. We went two weeks without sleep knowing, if we made one mistake,
the other guy was going to take it and use it to beat us. Who do you measure
yourself against?"
The conversation lurched on with no resolution until the topic switched to
the inevitable follow-up: who was the best 1-on-1 player of all time?
"Gentlemen," said Jordan, "give it up. You've got no chance on this one.
Larry, you don't have the speed to stay with me. Magic, I can guard you, but
you could never guard me. Neither one of you guys can play defense the way I
can. And neither one of you can score like me."
"I don't know about that," Magic retorted. "I could have scored more if I
wanted to. It would have been a good one."
Jordan's face darkened. He had been uncommonly conciliatory in Barcelona,
stepping aside as Bird and Magic shared the title of captain and revered
elder statesman. Jordan deferred to Magic, allowed him to become the face of
the Dream Team, even though Jordan was the reigning back-to-back league MVP.
He did so because he understood that Magic's career was at an end and this
was his final basketball indulgence.
"I didn't want to burst his bubble," Jordan said.
But now Jordan expected Magic to acknowledge the obvious: that Michael
Jordan was the best player in the world. He turned to Magic, plucked the
cigar out of his mouth, and approached his fellow future Hall of Famer with
his voice rising.
SleepwalkingInJapan;4512286 said:yall mos def answered my question...i feel zeke shoulda been on the dream team but if he was who wouldnt
have made it?
drexler? - idk...he did alotta of the things jordan did, a great backup
stockton? - he's white...its the USA team in playing Europe so...
mullin? - he's white....its the USA team in playing Europe so....
latener? - he's white/only college rep
pippen? - maybe, but he was fresh off 2 rings so idk
who gets bumped?
