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The 1992 United States men’s Olympic basketball team, AKA The Dream Team, is still perhaps the greatest assemblage of talent ever put together on one sports team.
The team consisted of Magic and Bird, Barkley, Jordan and Pippen, Chris Mullin, Stockton and Malone, David Robinson, Ewing, Drexler, and Christian Laettner.
Really, the only thing that could have made the team even better would have been if the selection committee had chosen Shaquille O’Neal as the one college player on the team instead of Laettner. Shaq was the number one overall pick in the 1992 NBA Draft, but the Dream Team was coached by Mike Krzyzewski, so that didn’t happen.
It didn’t matter, of course, as Team USA went undefeated with the closest margin of victory in the Olympic Games being their 32 point win over Croatia in the gold medal game.
In an odd twist this week, TMZ reports that the Dream Team Olympic gold medal won by Clyde Drexler just hit the auction block with Goldin Auctions on Monday.
With a starting bid of $250,000, it is the very first appearance of a Dream Team gold medal in an auction.
“Scarce doesn’t begin to describe this medal, as no other have emerged on the market, and limited to only 12 issued to the players from that vaunted and historic team, now available to a public hungry to secure this treasure and place it at the pinnacle of their collection,” the description reads in the listing on Goldin Auctions. “This is possibly the only opportunity one will have to secure a medal from this team, making this your chance to own a piece of not only basketball history, but world history as well.”
In one episode of the docuseries The Last Dance in 2021, Michael Jordan explained how he “took offense” at the comparisons between himself and Dream Team co-star Drexler.
And in the book Playing For Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made, author and NBA insider David Halberstam revealed how Jordan tried to humiliate Drexler as much as possible during 1992 Dream Team scrimmages.
“Eventually, some of his Dream Team colleagues suggested that Jordan cut back on the trash talk with Drexler because they were all teammates now, and there was no reason to reopen wounds so fresh,” Halberstam wrote.
Clyde Drexler would later take a thinly-veiled shot at Michael Jordan.
“Everybody is entitled to their own opinion,” said Drexler. “A lot of times guys didn’t like each other from other teams, but as you get older, you’ve got to get beyond all of that and show some love and some respect for the people you played with and against.”
Why Drexler’s Dream Team gold medal is now up for auction is a mystery as it doesn’t specify that in the listing and a rep from Goldin says Drexler isn’t the one who consigned it, but there it is if anyone wants to buy it.