92 Dream Team vs. Current Olympic Team

This really could also be described as a game between two approaches to the game: Team style Basketball vs. AAU style Athleticism. I know thats a bit simplistic (because certainly Jordan, Pippen, Robinson, etc were very athletic... and I'm not saying that Kobe or Lebron don't play any team basketball). But you get my point. The game is changing, and as we try to compare and contrast the two teams, and how they might do against eachother, their different approach to the game that we see now comes into focus.

The current style has been allowed to develop as the League pays less and less attention to rules like traveling and palming/carrying the basketball --- in order to accomodate the crowd-pleasing, wide open street ball type game that today's stars began playing in AAU and have now brought into the NBA. The muliptle steps allowed by the refs, and the "crab step" or whatever Lebron calls his move, and the "jump cut" that Derek Rose and CP3 use to do their incredible crossover dribble that requires them to carry the ball in order to freeze the defender while they change direction... they all make for great highlights and ESPN Top 10 plays, but lets be honest they are moves that would not have been legal when many of the original Dreamteamers began playing. Obviously there is some grey area here because Jordan himself was really the first one that the rules began being bent for, but today's stars have been given a whole new level of freedom to create amazing new moves without concern for the letter of the law.

So the first question to answer about a potential game between the two teams would really be what set of rules would we be playing under? Because honestly, I think half the moves the players do today to show their incredible athletism (and there is NO DOUBT that todays players have used modern training and techniques to become amazingly athletic) would not even have been allowed back in the day. Do you really think Rose is quicker than Isaiah Thomas was for example? I don't think so. But he is playing in an NBA that now allows guards to carry the ball in order to make quick change-of-direction moves, which allows cross-over dribbles, splitting defenders on the high pick and roll, etc, which leads to dunks down the lane, etc, etc. Don't get me wrong, I love the highlights and high flying dunks as much as anyone. I'm just pointing out how the game has evolved to help some of those plays to occur.

I don't mean to overvalue the original Dreamteamers as being great team baskeball players --- its easy to romanticize the past when you look back at it. But I really believe that the way the game was played and officiated at the time required those players to take a more team apporach, and execute a more complete gameplan, than is required today. The idea of "breaking down the defense off the dribble" just wasn't as easily accomplished as it is by today's freak athletes who have the freedom to bend the rules.

I read somewhere that the Dreamteamers vs. todays Olympic team might be a bit like a game of the NBA vs. the ABA players when they first arrived. And I kind of like that analogy. As much as I loved Dr. J and George McGinnis and World B Free and the "We owe you one" 76rs, they got shut down by the old school NBA Trailblazers with the size, passing, and unselfish team play of Bill Walton and company in the NBA Finals. And I suspect that if the Dreamteamers were to play todays stars, the same thing would happen.