Yo…
It’s one thing to have dreams…everyone has dreams.
There’s an unknown actor right now showing up to auditions…dreaming about his Oscar acceptance speech.
To share your dreams out loud; to openly speak about your dreams…is bold.
You gotta be crazy to make it to the NBA.
Currently there isn’t even 500 basketball players in the NBA. Yet there’s thousands of college players. Plus all the international players, lately. Those are intimidating odds.
To make it to the NBA you’re constantly ignoring or overcoming the odds.
You will be doubted.
You will be an underdog.
You keep going anyways.
As crazy as it maybe…you keep going.
In the popular Cameron Crowe movie Say Anything; John Cusack plays Lloyd Dobler who announces: “I am looking for a dare to be great situation.”
And in 1992 a group of college athletes—talented basketball players crazy enough to believe they were destined for the NBA—were faced with a dare to be great situation.
Here’s the thing about overcoming the odds:
Odds are not the same thing as fate.
Overcoming the odds can become a habit.
If you believe you can achieve.
Cue the Rocky soundtrack.
On April 8,1989 FIBA (The International Basketball Federation) under the leadership of Secretary General Borislav Stanković approved the rule that allowed NBA players to compete in international tournaments, including the Olympics.
Until that point, USA Basketball Men’s National Team was populated with college players; granted many of these kids would eventually end up in the NBA. Still, they were 19, 20 year old kids…all raw talent.
The 1988 US Team collegian roster included future NBA all-stars David Robinson, Danny Manning and Mitch Richmond. (Thunder Dan Majerle led the team in scoring, averaging 14.1 points per game.)
That 1988 team came up short, winning the bronze medal. The American team beat Australia 78–49 in the bronze medal game. To give you a sense of where International competition was at that time. Soviet Union won Gold and Silver went to Yugoslavia (which was populated with talented NBA players like Vlade Divac).
1988 was the last time the American Olympic Team consisted exclusively of non-NBA (mostly college) players.
Within the first two minutes of HBO’s We Beat The Dream Team documentary there is this Bob Costas voiceover quote:
“America’s collegians have a rich history in world competition. And with professionals now in the picture…it looks like the start of a promising new era.”
That was a radical understatement. Following the FIBA rule change…the greatest basketball team (sports team?) ever was assembled.
The legendary Dream Team was:
Larry Bird,
Magic Johnson,
Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen,
John Stockton and Karl Malone,
Patrick Ewing,
Chris Mullin,
David Robinson,
Clyde Drexler and Charles Barkley.
Christian Laettner was the one collegiate player.
Stunning.
Of course, in the 1992 Summer Olympics, the U.S. Dream Team won the gold medal with an average winning margin of 44 points per game. And without calling a timeout.
It was a dominate performance marred only…by 1 significant loss. To the Select Team.
Cue the We Beat The Dream Team documentary trailer:
The 1992 Select Team was
Grant Hill,
Chris Webber,
Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway,
Bobby Hurley,
Jamal Mashburn,
Allan Houston,
Eric Montross and Rodney Rogers.
That’s still an impressive team.
These were all 19, 20 year old kids: this was Duke Grant Hill and Michigan Chris Webber. No doubt they were good.
(Watching this HBO documentary I learned that had FIBA not changed the rule to allow NBA players to hoop during the Olympics this was the team America would have sent. This is a formidable team. Would they have won gold? Well, they would have medaled for sure. That’s a strong team.)
It seems silly now but head Coach Chuck Daly wanted to prepare The Dream Team. An assembled talented like that could only win Gold. Anything else would be considered a failure and entirely unacceptable.
We used to have common standards; these days we just have debates and excuses.
“But would you rather be underpaid or overrated?
Moral victories is for minor league coaches.”
~ Jay-Z: So Appalled
So Coach Daly pitted The Select Team vs The Dream Team in a private scrimmage to prepare for battle.
There was no press present.
Just one still photographer (Andrew D. Bernstein, fantastic NBA photographer) and one videographer (Pete Skorich); who had the only surviving VHS copy of the secret scrimmage.
In an unexpected twist, the upstart and snarky college team shocked the NBA superstars by defeating them in that scrimmage.
The scrimmage lasted about 20 minutes, but the Select Team finished with a solid 62-54 triumph. Sure: it wasn’t a “real game.”
But come on…did you really think these college punks were just gonna walk into this gym and defeat the NBA elite?
It was a sobering reset and according to the established narrative…that trash talking laced loss ultimately propelled The Dream Team to gold.
“What really hurt was they were talking trash. I mean talking trash.”
~ Magic Johnson (a quote from We Beat The Dream Team)
“Using the only surviving VHS copy of the secret scrimmage, interviews with the USA Select Team key players and coaches We Beat The Dream revisits the only game the celebrated Dream Team lost, sharing this powerful David vs Goliath story from the perspective of the college athletes.”
Only…did it all happen? There’s one lingering controversy: Did The Select Team Really And Truly Beat The Dream Team?
For that and which side you pick…you gotta watch the documentary.
(Or listen to the attached MSL conversation with We Beat The Dream director Michael Tolajian. He and I get into all of that.)
“The Dream Team were mad. It was a hurt yo’feelings day.”
~Chris Webber (a quote from We Beat The Dream Team)
This is more than just the latest My Summer Lair podcast. This is a time machine. And we’re going back to the ‘90s.
I’ve done many NBA-basketball related interviews and yet I think this is the first episode where I bring up Lil Penny. Shout out to those iconic trash talking commercials where Lil Penny was voiced by Chris Rock.
We Beat the Dream Team features old school footage paired with contemporary interviews with Penny Hardaway and Grant Hill. Those 2 players are legendary NBA coulda beens…injuries cut their careers short but the flashes of glory we glimpsed were so special.
Shortly before Toronto secured a basketball team; I watched live NBA games in Detroit at the fabled Palace of Auburn Hills. It was right after The Bad Boys era…Joe D was still on the team. I got to watch Joe D guard Jordan, when the Bulls visited. What a treat. By then then Pistons had players like Lindsey Hunter and Grant Hill.
Early Grant Hill was glorious. It’s frustrating that he wasn’t able to achieve his potential. Him and Penny, really. They broke my heart. It’s a dream to make it to the NBA but it’s another whole different dream to stay healthy. To live out all the potential and promise loaded in their DNA.
No joke. Every single time a Marvel movie visits a different universe in the vast multiverse…I wonder if Grant and Penny did good in that world. I hope so.
More old school? I asked Michael Tolajian about working at NBA Inside Stuff; one of his first professional NBA gigs. All the abiding adoration we currently have for Inside The NBA is mirrored in that classic Saturday morning TV show hosted by Ahmad Rashad and Willow Bay.
Yes…this is clearly all about ‘90s NBA. And if you are a basketball fan, this is the good stuff.
And yet this is all about dreams. About resilience. About hope. That’s also the good stuff.
You know how satisfying it is to be placed in a situation where you are not expected to win? The instructions you are given is eh…do your best.
All the Mission Impossible movies are about…well impossible missions. Tom Cruise is given a choice in every single movie: “Your mission, should you choose to accept it…” (Thankfully he accepts the Mission in every movie; otherwise the movie would be 2 minutes long if he said thanks but no thanks and set off to take a nap.)
It’s weird but true…we called that collection of NBA greats The Dream Team. But really? It’s the college kids…The Select Team who are the real Dream Team.
Whatever you have planned for this week…this month: if the odds are intimidating; so be it. Take em on.
And don’t forget to loudly trash talk as you do it. Be the sarcasm you wish to see in the world.
Yes, there were times, I’m sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew
But through it all, when there was doubt
I ate it up and spit it out
I faced it all, and I stood tall
And did it my way
~ Frank Sinatra: My Way
We Beat The Dream Team is streaming on HBO Max (America) and Crave (Canada): #SetTheVCR.
Oh one odd postscript. Footage in We Beat The Dream Team was assembled after Michael Tolajian Indiana Jones recovered the infamous VHS tape of the infamous scrimmage.
That’s all part of the documentary. What’s not part of the documentary is that NBA Zapruder Film sparked a fiction film.
“In 2017 that infamous videotape is the subject of one of the hotter scripts currently circulating around Hollywood in search of a producer. Titled The Tape, the script is a comedic caper about three brothers who try to find the elusive VHS tape of the 1992 Dream Team scrimmage in hopes that it will save their sports bar. Written by Chase Pletts.”
Of course that movie was never made. (Writing a script on the infamous VHS tape, the scrimmage…it all confirms there’s an abiding passion for just what happened in 1992.)
Though, if you IMDb Chase Pletts you see it’s pretty thin.
Did he give up his Hollywood dreams? Is he still hustling? A bus keeps to a schedule. Dreams…not so much.
One somber final ‘90s note. We lost Val Kilmer on April 1, 2025. That one hurt a lot.
His run was impressive.
Top Gun, The Doors, Tombstone, True Romance…so much more.
His memoir I’m Your Huckleberry: A Memoir came out April 2020…shortly after the pandemic started. (It wasn’t his first book…he’d published 2 poetry collections. I liked him as writer as well as an actor. (It was clear he’d written this book; not like a celebrity who hires a ghost writer.)
In Huckleberry Val writes a lot about: Freedom, Love, Light, Hope, Joy, Faith.
Here’s the mention count for those key words:
Love (mentioned 236 times),
Light (63 mentions),
Pray (33 mentions),
Joy (30 mentions),
Magic (29 mentions),
Hope (24 mentions),
Faith (20 mentions)
and Cher (96 mentions!)
There’s some great scenes and stories in the book; like this:
“But I had to take Heat.
My agent at the time strongly recommended that I pass.
“Are you kidding?” I asked.“Val, the pay is less than your per diem for Batman.”
“But it’s Michael Mann directing. And it’s Pacino and De Niro. If I do the movie, I’ll get to call them Al and Bob for the rest of my life.”
“Financially it makes no sense.”But I wasn’t thinking finances. I was thinking folklore. Oh, just to collect some deeply nuanced, joyous stories about the Godfather films! Just to be able to say “Al and Bob” for the rest of my life!”
Heat is a phenomenal movie.
I’d recently rewatched it just about a month before Val Kilmer passed away. (Closing Heat with Moby’s God Moving Over the Face of the Waters. Yo. I just sat there in silence. And that was before I knew Val died.)
Thank You for your Work Val Kilmer.
We had some great times together.
Rest Now.
The best part of Dreams is Sleeping…
Sammy Younan
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Sammy Younan is the affable host of My Summer Lair podcast: think NPR’s Fresh Air meets Kevin Smith: interviews & impressions on Pop Culture.
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