LeBron James compares Redeem Team with the Dream Team – NBA Update
LeBron James sat down for an interview recently in which he was asked about his plans to participate in the 2012 London Olympics as part of the USA Men’s basketball team. James gave the answer in the affirmative and the player
also touched on the comparison between the Redeem Team and the Dream Team.
LeBron, who plays for the Miami Heat, was part of the Redeem Team; the USA Men’s Basketball team that won gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The country had not won gold in the 2004 edition of the Olympics which caused some embarrassment
to the NBA and American basketball.
The NBA is the pinnacle of the Sport and the best players in the world play there. Therefore NBA stars losing out in the Olympics was viewed as a very embarrassing event for the USA. The country responded by assembling the best
of the best in the world of basketball for the 2008 Olympics.
That team won the gold very easily, defeating opponents by an average margin of around 22 points. For their achievements and their star power, the 2008 team was dubbed the “Redeem Team” and comparisons almost immediately started
with the Dream Team of the 1990’s.
The Dream Team was formed when the Olympics allowed professional basketball players to participate for the first time. Giants of the game like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley and Larry Bird led the United States
to utter domination in the Olympics that time around, winning by an unbelievable average margin of around 44 points.
As the Redeem Team had the biggest stars of this era, such as Kobe Bryant and LeBron James himself, the media invariably started comparing it with their counterparts from the previous era. Most analysts believe that the Dream Team
was a superior outfit because not only did it feature all time greats in abundance, it also had enormous quality at every position on the court. James was asked about the comparison in the interview and this is how he responded,
“They were bigger than us. They had David Robinson, Patrick Ewing and Charles Barkley… They had some bigger guys. We may be a little faster with the speed that we have. I think both teams were very competitive, both teams wanted
to win and that’s what it’s about.”
James also took time out to discuss what it was that made the difference between the failure in 2004 and the success in 2008,
“I think we didn’t have enough time to come together. The ‘08 team made a three-year commitment. Every summer we got together for that time. The ‘04 team was kind of just put together and I don’t think that we became a team fast
enough for that.”
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