Olympic Basketball: Putting the Team Before Dream

Everywhere Lenny Wilkens goes this season, the Atlanta Hawks coach is sure to find a new best friend: Vin Baker in Milwaukee, Jason Kidd in Dallas, Mitch Richmond in Sacramento. Wilkens will coach the 10 NBA players who have been chosen to represent the United States on Dream Team III at the Olympics this summer: Anfernee Hardaway, Orlando; Grant Hill, Detroit; Karl Malone, Utah; Reggie Miller, Indiana; Hakeem Olajuwon, Houston; Shaquille O’Neal, Orlando; Scottie Pippen, Chicago; David Robinson, San Antonio; Glenn Robinson, Milwaukee; John Stockton, Utah.

Two slots remain.

So when players face Wilkens and the Hawks this season on the NBA schedule, many are eager to show how much they can do for the Dream Team -- usually by ringing up big numbers against the Hawks.

Wilkens usually smiles and exchanges pleasantries with the players, very rarely telling them that he really has little to do with selecting the final two players. “And I’m glad it’s not me picking them,” he said. “Someone will be very unhappy -- a lot of people will be very unhappy.”

After the NBA regular season ends later this month, the USA basketball senior selection committee, chaired by Rod Thorn, an NBA vice president, will convene to select the final two players. When the committee picked the initial 10 team members last spring, the selection process differed in two ways from Dream Team I, which represented the United States in the 1992 Olympics, and Dream Team II, which went to the world championships in Toronto in 1994.

First, they were told to pick the 12 best players in the world, a distinction everyone assumed meant there wouldn’t be room for a collegiate player, unlike the ’92 Olympics. That year Duke’s Christian Laettner joined Robinson, Patrick Ewing, Larry Bird, Pippen, Michael Jordan, Clyde Drexler, Malone, Stockton, Chris Mullin, Charles Barkley and Magic Johnson. The NBA players took advantage of revised eligibility rules to compete for the first time in the Olympics as well as in the pros. Coached by Chuck Daly, they took the gold medal easily.

The second mandate for the 1996 committee was more emphatic. USA Basketball president C.M. Newton, athletic director at Kentucky, said he wanted a team “with character -- not characters.”

That was in response to Dream Team II. That squad, coached by Don Nelson, easily won the gold medal in Toronto. It included O’Neal and Miller, both members of the ’96 team, Derrick Coleman, Tim Hardaway, Larry Johnson, Alonzo Mourning, Steve Smith, Isiah Thomas and Dominque Wilkins. Although it featured solid citizens such as current Mark Price, Joe Dumars and Dan Majerle, many remember not the quality of play but on-court incidents that Thorn calls “embarrassing.” In one play cited by many, Seattle forward Shawn Kemp grabbed his crotch while hanging on the rim after dunking the basketball.

“They want people to change their lifestyle, what they say and do, and I can’t change who I am for the sake of a couple of months this summer,” Kemp said recently of the 1996 selection process. “It would be great to be on the team but you can’t change the person you are. They’re looking for a particular person to be on the team; that’s not fair but it doesn’t matter. I can’t let my ego get caught up in all of that.”

Who will get the last two slots? It may come down to choosing another point guard to back up Stockton; it may come down to rewarding a meritorious career. If Michael Jordan picks up the telephone, and Magic Johnson recants his recent announcement that he doesn’t want a spot, there might not be much of a decision to make.

Right now, no one knows what’s going to happen -- not even committee members.

“I have a notebook in which I keep a list of players who I think should be candidates but I’m just trying to keep an open mind until the end of the season,” said Atlanta Hawks General Manager and committee member Pete Babcock. “Suppose I narrowed it down in my mind to two players and one of them was injured? Suppose someone already named got hurt? That would change the needs of the team.”

Cleveland Cavaliers Coach Mike Fratello thinks the choice should be simple -- pick players who add the most to the squad. He sees Indiana’s Miller as the only pure shooter, so one of his spots might go to Sacramento’s Richmond. A number of players -- Pippen, Hill and Anfernee Hardaway -- can play numerous positions, but there isn’t a bruising rebounder -- like Kemp.

“What’s right and what’s wrong? Nothing’s right or wrong,” said Seattle Coach George Karl of how the vote should be conducted. “I like the idea of selecting those who’ve served basketball the best but (Seattle guard) Gary Payton is one of the 12 top players in the league this year and the Olympics are this year -- so are you basing the choice on this season or on a player’s career?”

“What I would really be curious about,” Fratello said, “is if you polled the people who selected the initial 10 guys, would they select the same 10 guys -- or would they make their choices based more upon what’s happened this season?”

Said Thorn: “All the guys we have are good team members -- it’s not about who has the best numbers. A lot of guys have good numbers but they aren’t good people to have on a team.”

“If that’s the criterion,” Richmond said in an interview with ESPN, “then I’m a shoo-in.”

Thorn, chairman of the 1994 selection committee, said the people he voted for the world championships “were really good players,” but reiterated that talent alone wasn’t sufficient for the first 10 spots on the 1996 team and won’t be for the final two.

“You’re representing your country first and USA basketball -- that’s different than just playing on some regular team -- you want the best of what your country’s about,” Thorn said. “Does that mean the standards are higher than they would be for a normal team? Probably they are . . . does it mean that people are being judged for everything they say or do? You know something? All of us are judged, every day and by the actions we’ve accumulated over time -- it’s just a part of life.”