Thirty-two years separate us from this true sporting revolution, born of the participation of NBA players in the Barcelona Olympics. In 1992, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and the others form the “Dream Team”, and this legendary team will forever change the perception of basketball across the planet.
At the time, after the failure of the academics in Seoul in 1988, the greatest stars of the NBA came to challenge the rest of the world with a team, which remains, even today, considered as the greatest of all time. . On August 8, the Dream Team concluded the tournament in apotheosis against “the other best team in the world”, Toni Kukoc’s Croatia with a victory of 32 points. A spanking, and yet it will be the “weakest” gap of the tournament.
This summer of 1992, Tony Parker, Paul Diesel Or Dirk Nowitzki are about ten years old. They are amazed like everyone else, even though none of them plans to have a great career as a basketball player, and even less to go to the NBA, whose doors are then barely open to European players.
“I started basketball in the 1990s or 1991”explains Dirk Nowitzki to USA Today. “I must have been 12 or 13 years old. I was just starting to be an NBA fan. MJ had just won his first title in 1991. And then there was 1992, I remember I wanted to watch every game. The impact on me was huge, I wanted to be like those guys, I wanted to be in the NBA.
From influence to awareness…
And the great Dirk is not the only one, since Pau Gasol was a privileged witness of these Olympic Games, which were disputed… at his place! Born in Barcelona 12 years earlier, the teenager also remembers the impressive feeling: “I couldn’t go to matches”, regret the pivot, “but just to know they were there, to follow the games, to see them play their game and dominate the rest of the world, it was so inspiring. It clearly had an impact on basketball.”
Almost 20 years later, Pau Gasol will win two titles with the Lakers and he remembers his dreams of children born that summer: “They gave me the opportunity to dream and imagine what I wanted to become one day, to hope to be in this league and play against these guys”.
As for Tony Parker, who wanted to be a great footballer, he then turned to basketball with the number 9 on his back. That of Michael Jordan with the Dream Team.
Thirty-two years later, Parker, Nowitzki and Gasol will enter the Hall Of Fame on Saturday August 12. They are the “children” of this Dream Team, and they in turn passed on the torch to a whole generation, European but also African. As proof, the last five MVPs are all non-American players: Giannis Antetokounmpo (Greece) in 2019 and 2020; Nikola Jokic (Serbia) in 2021 and 2022 and Joel Embiid (Cameroon) in 2023.
“Parker, Gasol and Nowitzki had the same effect as the Dream Team on young international players”
Who could imagine that in 1992? “Remember the Dream Team in 1992 and the number of international players in the league back then… Today 25% of players were born outside of the United States” welcomes Mark Tatum, the right arm of Adam Silver. “They literally changed the style of play and the style of basketball.”
For this NBA leader, Parker, Gasol and Nowitzki had “ the same effect as the Dream Team on young international players“. A tribute that touches Dirk Nowitzki. “It is obviously a huge honor if Tony, Pau and I have helped motivate or inspire children for their careers, and if we have created such paths in basketball for others. »
Everything is therefore a question of transmission. When the Dream Team arrived in Spain 32 years ago, the objective was clear: win the Olympic Games and reaffirm the United States as the number 1 nation in basketball. But the other project was also to open up to the world and transform an American sport into a world sport. A more than successful marketing and economic project, since the North American league has never been in such good shape, while renewing its talents with its openness to the world.
