The Dream Team’s Influence

As the years have passed, more and more people forget that Team USA basketball only sent amateur players to the Olympic Games pre-1992. Meanings from the years 1988 and before, the best college basketball players represented Team USA in the Olympics and not the pros. This all changed after the 1988 Olympics after Team USA failed to win the Gold and had to settle for the Bronze medal after losing to the Soviet Union. However, many believe that the best team that year was Yugoslavia, a now defunct nation who split apart into Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, and a few others. In today’s NBA we recognize Serbia, Slovenia and Croatia as countries with a rich culture in basketball and some of the league’s very best are from the now defunct Yugoslavia: Nikola Jokic and Luka Doncic just to name a few. {For further information on the breakup of Yugoslavia and what it meant for their basketball team, watch ESPN’s 30 for 30 called “Once Brothers” narrated by Vlade Divac, it is available on Disney +}. The loss in 1988 was a huge shift for how Team USA Basketball would view the Olympic Games moving forward. In 1992, Team USA recruited the very best NBA players to represent their country and compete for Gold in Barcelona, Spain, and after this, the sport of basketball would change all over the world forever.

Up until this point, the NBA was not a global game and majority of the NBA players were not global icons- aside from Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson.  However, the 1992 Olympic Games changed everything for basketball and for the world. For the first time ever, the world was able to see the shear talent and might that NBA players possessed in comparison to the rest of the world. Team USA was so dominant, that even in the Gold medal game against Croatia, they won by 32 points; Vlade Divac insists if Yugoslavia had never broken up that they would have beaten The Dream Team, but that is for you to decide upon completion of watching “Once Brothers”. With all of the NBA’s best players on the same team in full display for the world, the influence happened effortlessly. The NBA began to become a global game, young kids from all across the world began to idolize NBA players, NBA culture, and of course NBA basketball. The most famous athlete in the NBA during the ‘90s was easily Michael Jordan, and he was the perfect combination of skill and showmanship to grow the brand worldwide. Michael Jordan inspired a brand new generation of hoopers, not only hoopers in the United States, but foreign-born hoopers as well. Dirk Nowitzki, former NBA MVP, was born in Germany in 1978, which places him at age 14 during the 1992 Summer Olympics. Dirk has been on the record saying that watching The Dream Team gave him something to shoot for, something to aspire to be. Many young players felt this call to action after the summer of 1992, with huge NBA dreams. Although foreign-born players were already in the NBA, their peers and teams alike saw them as “soft” or “not tough enough”. Dirk was one of the true pioneers who forced teams to reconsider how they evaluate foreign-born players because he was so skilled and so driven; you don’t became the NBA’s 6^th all-time leading scorer without those attributes.

As time has gone on, more and more foreign-born players are currently on NBA rosters. Specifically, there are 125 foreign-born players in the NBA with a total of 450 roster spots (not including two-way contracts); meaning roughly 28% of the NBA is foreign-born as opposed to only 5% back in 1992. The number has jumped significantly in just 30 years, and the longstanding influence of The Dream Team is one of the chief reasons why. The influence The Dream Team has had on world basketball is unheralded; the irony being, when Team USA sent their very best, the world benefited from it most.

AAU’s Role in American Player Development

Although the influence of The Dream Team was vital in the rise of foreign-born hoopers, the other key contributor is actually the decline in skill development in the United States by way of AAU basketball. For those unfamiliar, AAU stands for “Amateur Athletic Union” and essentially AAU is travel youth basketball where all of the most talented kids in the country pay to play across the country in organized tournaments and exhibitions. As a 31 year old in Southern California who grew up playing basketball, I experienced AAU as both a player and as a spectator. I played briefly when I was 12 years old, and I had the chance to watch my little brother play for a few years as well. I can unequivocally say that AAU basketball is the worst brand of basketball I have ever watched in person. These youth teams are predicated on having 1 or 2 elite scoring options on their team, and then these players play Iso basketball for the duration of the game. The teams rarely play defense, the teams rarely run plays, and the teams show very little in terms of development of their skillsets, which should be the focus of younger players. Below is what a typical Saturday in an AAU gym looks like.

This problem may seem like it is not a huge deal, but then you watch how it has translated to the NBA, the results are atrocious. There are players in the NBA who grew up in the AAU circuits scoring at will in isolation style basketball, and those same players are doing it in the NBA. Granted, those players can still score, but they are sub-par playmakers, sub-par defenders, and overall bad teammates. So although some view what they do as sexy and fun to watch, that style of basketball does not translate to victories; look no further of an example of this than LaMelo Ball. LaMelo is one of the most gifted scorers in the NBA, but the volume of his shots, the overall shot selection, and his low basketball IQ make him a poor teammate and ultimately leave his team at the bottom of the standings every season.

Whereas, you look at many of the foreign-born players that have entered the NBA over the last decade and they come in so polished with high IQ’s and a team first mentality. Nikola Jokic is the best example of this, and perhaps maybe too good of an example. Jokic was drafted in the second round and was regarded as someone who was fat and un-athletic with little promise. However, Jokic learned how to play the game the right way in his early development. Europe does not have AAU, the players over there go to skills academies and train every day to harness their overall skills: not just scoring. Although US born players are typically more athletic and better scorers, foreign-born players typically are better defensively and better playmakers. Obviously, there are always examples to the contrary this is just generalizing. The United States youth basketball system has failed in player development for the last 15 years, which has enabled foreign-born skillsets to catch up to and even surpass that of US born hoopers.

What Does This Mean for the Future of the NBA?

Aside from the decline in youth basketball skill development and the overall influence from The Dream Team, I think another reason foreign-born hoopers are on the rise in the NBA is simple: they are hungrier. Never underestimate the drive for someone to better their life and get out of their current circumstances using their God-given talents. You see it in the NBA today, so many players do not have the intensity and competitiveness of the NBA pre 2015. Too many of these players are friends because they grew up playing AAU basketball together and that has made the NBA less competitive and more soft. That is why, as a fan, it is such a delight to see someone like Wemby enter the league and compete every single night as if the other team stole his game check. The question is, how much more dominate will foreign-born hoopers become in the NBA? The answer to that question will be answered by the summer of 2028, when the world ascends to my city, Los Angeles, for the Olympic Games. The old guard of LeBron, Steph, and KD will be gone, and Team USA will be forced to send in the new team. We will see then just how much better the world is; but until then we marvel at how the world has grown in basketball in only 33 years, and question, how will the NBA look in another 33 years with the influence of today’s foreign-born stars leading the way for the next generation…