BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS / DAY 14 : Players With the Green Soon Will Have Gold

Into the private sanctuary of the Heavenly Hoopsters dared venture a swimmer. His name was Matt Biondi, he was as tall or taller as many of those in attendance and he hailed from Castro Valley, which, as the swimmer had to clarify for more than one wisecracker in the crowd, is in California, not Cuba.

The basketball players who engulfed the swimmer had renown and riches beyond compare. They had cola commercials and personalized sneakers. They had furs and Ferraris. They had ego and alter ego, did Mailman and Magic and Larry Legend and Sir Charles. They had the whole world in their hands, they had the whole wide world in their hands.

One thing, alas, they did not have.

Biondi bit into it.

“Mmmm,” the swimmer said. “Real gold this time.”

It was precious metal, and he should know. The five doubloons Biondi had brought home from his 1988 treasure hunt in South Korea had not turned out to be fools’ gold, exactly, but just the same, the swimmer was quite pleased to discover that this time, for having taken the Olympic plunge off the coast of the grimy Mediterranean, he and others would be rewarded with genuine pieces of Spanish gold.

The more Biondi chewed on the medal he had won as a link of an American relay, the more those around the swimmer affectionately got on his case.

“I doubt it,” Charles Barkley said with a growl and a scowl, as beguiling as Gaudi architecture.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Michael Jordan chimed in.

But the fact that he hadn’t yet seen it was precisely the point.

What else was there that anyone, swimmer or hammer thrower or archer, could possibly own that the Twelve Basketeers already did not? Answer: an actual gold medal. Not shiny, gilt-plated brass, as had been bestowed upon Jordan and Patrick Ewing and Chris Mullin at another Summer Games eight years before. But the real stuff. Pure gold. Olympic ore.

Soon it would be theirs. There was one more contest--make that clinic--to be staged, after which the Dynamic Dozen were free to go their separate ways. But the plunderers were not about to leave Spain without their spoils, for as one of them, John Stockton, recalled from his Pacific Northwest boyhood: “I used to watch these things, wishing they would let me stand up there on one of those pedestals for any sport.”

The basketball squad, United States of America:

Charles Wade Barkley, Leeds, Ala.; Larry Joe Bird, West Baden, Ind.; Clyde Drexler, New Orleans, La.; Patrick Aloysius Ewing, Kingston, Jamaica; Earvin Johnson Jr., Lansing, Mich.; Michael Jeffrey Jordan, Brooklyn, N.Y.; Christian D. Laettner, Angola, N.Y.; Karl Malone, Summerfield, La.; Christopher Paul Mullin, Brooklyn, N.Y.; Scottie Pippen, Hamburg, Ark.; David Maurice Robinson, Key West, Fla.; John Houston Stockton, Spokane, Wash.

What a hoot to see them charted this way, by birth-certificate names and places, same as, well, swimmers and hammer throwers and archers. Never mind for a moment their stature as Mt. Olympus gods. For one more day, they are but mere Olympians, no larger than the Lilliputian gymnasts, no wealthier than the richest yachtsmen, no weaker than the mightiest weightlifters, no stronger than the bravest wheelchair athletes.

Team of dreams?

Maybe it is.

Will there ever be another?

“Not unless I’m on it,” said Bird, tongue in beak.

He is the eldest United Statesman, this once-upon-a-time self-styled hick, some 13 years older than the recent yuppie-academy college graduate with the GQ-cover face who doesn’t have a clue what it feels like to be 35 years old and suffering from a bad back. The refreshing thing about hanging around with Laettner is that it reminds hardened professionals that their life’s work is, after all, a game.

Some of the guys got up a game of Scattegories, simply to pass the time.

When Laettner’s turn came, the question for him was, “Name something you would like to hide.” And there was a catch: It had to begin with the letter F .

Laettner thought it over.

“Family members,” he blurted.

That got a laugh--in fact, a laugh-and-a-half. There is nothing the Courageous Cagers enjoy more than catching one of their brethren with his guard down, exposing a vulnerability, finding an opening that can later be used for some unmerciful taunting. Barkley, naturally, is the master. Jordan is no slouch. Drexler is gentler, Bird more acerbic, Stockton more of a listener, Johnson a tweety-bird in perpetual chirp.

Are they amazing? Of course, they are. Are they human? Of course, they are.

How else to explain Drexler turning up for a practice Thursday wearing two right shoes--a mix-up Clyde the Glide tried to hide until Bird bailed him out with a Converse shoe for Drexler’s left tootsies to go along with the Avia on his right.

Or how else to explain the sudden deterioration in the physical condition of Jordan, Pippen and Stockton, all of whom on the very same day contracted a malady that has been linked over the years rather unfairly to a great 16th-Century Aztec emperor who undoubtedly would have preferred to be remembered for his role in Mexico’s 1519 invasion by the Spaniards, that unlucky old bronze medalist Montezuma.

And still the conquests for the invading Americans came easily, by scores of 116-48, 103-70, 111-68, 127-83, 122-81, 115-77, 127-76--gaudy scores on Gaudi’s shores. So magnificent have they been that when his own comrades were in full retreat, Arturas Karnisovas, a smiley-faced, crew-cut kid from Lithuania, sat cross-legged near his bench and snapped photographs of the team from the USA.

His impression?

“They are stars from the stars,” Karnisovas said.

Those of us who know better also know enough to keep quiet. If this be the image the rest of the world has of the Remarkable Roundballers, then where is the harm in perpetuating the myth? Mt. Olympus will always need gods. Hundreds of years ago, they were Roman or Greek. Maybe today, they come from Alabama and Indiana and Brooklyn.

“Larry Bird! Oh, Larry Bird!” Charles Barkley calls.

“What?”

“Time to leave, Larry Bird!”

Bird looks at his wristwatch.

“Who says so?” Bird asks.

“God Jordan,” Barkley says.

“He does?” Bird asks.

“He does!” Barkley says. “And when god Jordan speaks, his people must obey.”