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'92 Dream Team vs. '12 Olympic Team

  • Devils0720 said...

    FWIW, I think 2012 has the edge at spots 1-3, but Barkley, Robinson, Malone, Ewing just trounces anything 2012 has at the 4/5.

    Jordan is playing the 4 or 5???

    charmcity3131

  • Dream team would most certainly win, probably in 5 or 6 games. They are so much better in the low post, Jordan would not allow them to lose and as someone already mentioned, Barkley was a beast back then.

    charmcity3131

  • Enough with the Jordan hero worship. If he's the best wing scorer ever (he is) the Lebron, Durant, Kobe trio is likely (barring injury) some combination of 2,3,4. Their playoff statistics as a whole aren't too dissimilar from Jordan's, with the only difference being Jordan doing it for longer.

    Jordan is the greatest, but he's not so far and above those guys that it makes it some kind of Dream Team rout. Jordan would get his and those guys would get theirs. Give Jordan the edge over whichever of the three you want to put against him, the matchup at the 1 and at the other wing spot goes to 2012.

    I said 92 wins in my original post, but it's not because of Jordan. The gap in the matchups at the 4 and 5 are FAR greater than whoever you match Jordan with.

    Devils0720

  • GhostOfEaston said...

    '92 would own the paint. The lack of a true big man hurts '12s chances.

    And of course '92 has the greatest player of all-time. Never hurts.

    this is the correct answer

    rufreshterps

  • This topic exists entirely because current sports media needs shit to talk about.

    This year's team is obviously great, but anyone who actually thinks the Dream Team would lose to them in a seven-game series is probably too young to know just how good those players were.

    gocaps1

  • Prayers to Kevin Love and/or Blake Griffin and/or Carmelo trying to guard Charles Barkley.

    "And I try to har-mo-nize with songs the lonesome sparrow sings... There are no kings inside the Gates of Eden."

    dixonownsyou

  • This is such a espn driven argument. Who cares.

    This post was edited by blindgaryhomer on 7/12/2012 at 11:04 AM

    blindgaryhomer

  • Devils0720 said...

    Their playoff statistics as a whole aren't too dissimilar from Jordan's, with the only difference being Jordan doing it for longer.

    False. Nobody currently playing has done anything like what Jordan did in the 92 and 93 finals, which is the Jordan you're getting when you compare these two teams. You can't just say the new team has the advantage at the 1-3 just because they have more guys when Jordan is playing one of those positions, especially if it's against 34-year-old Kobe.

    goheels1117

  • Dream Team easily....because, this whining sh!t they do today would be laughed at by the Dream Team...

    Hell, Laettner is tougher than half the babies on this team...

    These guys were going down the lanes against the Lambieers, Oakleys, Mahorns of the world....no chance these guys would be able to handle it

    HumphreyBogart said... Jackie Robinson isn't dirty. This isn't Pack Pride.

    tcc_dc

  • This thread is over. Devils has hit it on the head. Both teams would get theirs. Jordan beats whoever he's matched up with, but the other two spots up top will be tougher. It's the 4/5 like Devils said that gives the Dream Team the big edge.

    But anyway, Dream Team in 5.

    terp325423

  • goheels1117 said...

    False. Nobody currently playing has done anything like what Jordan did in the 92 and 93 finals, which is the Jordan you're getting when you compare these two teams. You can't just say the new team has the advantage at the 1-3 just because they have more guys when Jordan is playing one of those positions, especially if it's against 34-year-old Kobe.

    Well clearly they wouldn't pick a 34 year old Kobe to defend Jordan. Lebron would defend Jordan and would be far and away the best defender he ever faced aside from Pippen in practice.

    Like I said, the numbers aren't too dissimilar. Jordan may have averaged 4-5 more ppg, but Lebron gave you 3 more boards and an extra assist.

    Devils0720

  • "For him to make that comparison, it's one of those things where it creates conversation," Jordan said. "I guess we'll never know. I'd like to think that we had 11 Hall of Famers on that team, and whenever they get 11 Hall of Famers, you call and ask me who had the better Dream Team. Remember now, they learned from us. We didn't learn from them."

    2012 Olympics -- Michael Jordan 'laughed' at Kobe Bryant's Dream Team boast - ESPN

    Michael Jordan says there's no way Kobe Bryant and this year's USA Olympic basketball team could've beaten the 1992 Dream Team.

    espn.go.com

    TerpsLegend27

  • 2008 was a better comparison honestly, this team is a combination of injured (Howard, Rose, Wade, Bosh), older (Kobe, Wade), and inexperienced (Westbrook, Love, Griffin).

    Devils0720

  • Loved Jordan just laughing off Bryant like he is some peon who means nothing. That's what makes MJ the best. Also want to echo what others have said about basketball being totally different now than it was back then. Can you imagine LeBron going down the lane with Laimbeer hanging out by the rim? Those guys wouldn't be nearly as aggressive going to the basket, and the hand-checking thing was a huge deal in the 90's. It just makes Jordan's offensive numbers look that much more unbelievable, especially what he did in some of those Finals series. LOL at LeBron having very similar numbers.

    charmcity3131

  • charmcity3131 said...

    Loved Jordan just laughing off Bryant like he is some peon who means nothing. That's what makes MJ the best. Also want to echo what others have said about basketball being totally different now than it was back then. Can you imagine LeBron going down the lane with Laimbeer hanging out by the rim? Those guys wouldn't be nearly as aggressive going to the basket, and the hand-checking thing was a huge deal in the 90's. It just makes Jordan's offensive numbers look that much more unbelievable, especially what he did in some of those Finals series. LOL at LeBron having very similar numbers.

    Last I saw this question was the Dream Team vs. 2012, not pick the meanest cheap shotters from the 1980's vs. 2012.

    Oh, and considering Lebron outweighs in his prime Laimbeer by 20+ lbs, I'm guessing he just bowls through him like he does everyone else.

    This post has been edited 2 times, most recently by Devils0720 on 7/12/2012 at 12:53 PM

    Devils0720

  • My point was that play was much rougher and tougher back then, and so the Dream Team would simply be a more physically and mentally tough team than the current crop. I'm sorry if that went over your head.

    charmcity3131

  • charmcity3131 said...

    My point was that play was much rougher and tougher back then, and so the Dream Team would simply be a more physically and mentally tough team than the current crop. I'm sorry if that went over your head.

    That's a ridiculous leap to make, just because those guys played in a rougher league does not mean that you can definitively say that the 2012 team would struggle against their physicality. For one, the athleticism and physical attributes of 2012 are off the charts, for two, while the league might have been rougher, the Dream Team was not a team full of guys with reputations for being hard fouling cheap shot artists.

    Not to mention that while the league itself may be less physical today than it was in the 80's, you're talking about the 2012 team having 9 guys who are in the top 20 in the league in FT's attempted. These guys are used to taking the ball to the rim and used to getting fouled hard.

    Devils0720

  • Devils0720 said...

    Oh, and considering Lebron outweighs in his prime Laimbeer by 20+ lbs, I'm guessing he just bowls through him like he does everyone else.

    Charles Oakley, AC Green, Buck Williams, Greg Kite, or whoever. And those are just the non-legends. Patrick Ewing and Karl Malone didn't exactly pull punches on defense.

    The point is that you can't use simple stats to compare the quality of the offensive games, because in the 80s and 90s players were getting throttled by guys like these whenever they went into the lane. In 2012, scorers like LeBron catch feelings when a Brendan Haywood breathes on them.

    gocaps1

  • Devils0720 said...

    That's a ridiculous leap to make, just because those guys played in a rougher league does not mean that you can definitively say that the 2012 team would struggle against their physicality. For one, the athleticism and physical attributes of 2012 are off the charts, for two, while the league might have been rougher, the Dream Team was not a team full of guys with reputations for being hard fouling cheap shot artists.

    I don't think your argument is entirely off-base, but you lose serious credibility here. Karl Malone was one of the dirtiest defensive players ever. Ewing and Barkley were hardly shrinking violets. Robinson was no pansy either.

    And that's just the frontcourt. Google "John Stockton dirty player" sometime.

    This post was edited by gocaps1 on 7/12/2012 at 1:55 PM

    gocaps1

  • No one played defense in the 80s.

    aschaefe

  • gocaps1 said...

    I don't think your argument is entirely off-base, but you lose serious credibility here. Karl Malone was one of the dirtiest defensive players ever. Ewing and Barkley were hardly shrinking violets. Robinson was no pansy either.

    Malone I might give you, although I think his reputation gets overblown based on that one cheap shot on Thomas. The rest were more victims of the guys you listed in your previous post than offenders.

    Either way it doesn't matter, this is a stupid ass argument. Much like 2012 doesn't lose to the Dream Team because of Jordan, they don't lose because of some ridiculous toughness/grit/some other OWG bullshit factor.

    This post was edited by Devils0720 on 7/12/2012 at 1:57 PM

    Devils0720

  • Tweets coming out that Griffin has injured his knee and is on his way back to LA for an MRI. Anthony Davis has been asked to come back to Vegas.

    This post was edited by sugarmag on 7/12/2012 at 2:07 PM

    sugarmag

  • Hate to see Griffin get injured, but I really wanted to see Davis on the team. Doubt he'll get much PT though.

    aschaefe

  • how many players were there in the 80s and 90s who were like durant, lebron, even kevin love? can it also be argued that there is some added complexity to defenses now even if it's a less "physical" game than it was 20-25 years ago?

    it would still be really close, especially b/c 2012 only has one true center, with pretty limited offensive skills

    screamin_jay

  • gocaps1 said...

    Charles Oakley, AC Green, Buck Williams, Greg Kite, or whoever. And those are just the non-legends. Patrick Ewing and Karl Malone didn't exactly pull punches on defense.

    The point is that you can't use simple stats to compare the quality of the offensive games, because in the 80s and 90s players were getting throttled by guys like these whenever they went into the lane. In 2012, scorers like LeBron catch feelings when a Brendan Haywood breathes on them.

    This.

    charmcity3131

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