usa dream team 2 roster

He never saw action in Olympic or World Championship play. While Paul and Hinrich were more traditional pass-first PGs than some of their predecessors, Paul was only a rookie and Hinrich was a good-not-great NBA PG (15.9 ppg, 6.3 apg in 2005-2006). In a fitting achievement for the selfless group, the 2010 team’s 68.2 points allowed per game ranks #1 among US teams in the post-Dream Team era.The B-Team may not be the greatest assembly of US talent, but it found a way to accomplish its mission in a way the United States used to take for granted. The results have been surprisingly varied considering the six decades of American dominance that preceded.Nearly every American NBA superstar over the past two-plus decades has played on at least one US team, but not all earned a Gold medal for his efforts. We remember its brilliance and character on the 20th anniversary of its landslide victory at the FIBA World Championships.The 2014 FIBA World Cup is scheduled to begin Saturday, and I'm intrigued to see how this young USA Basketball squad will perform. Also, Dream Team II would go undefeated in the tournament, something Team USA hadn't done since 1954. They were talking crazy, dunking on people, grabbing their nuts after big plays and generally doing whatever they wanted. Tim Duncan was in the prime of his career, but getting him only 8.4 shots per game ensured the spectacular failure that was the 2004 team.Losses:  Argentina 87-80, Yugoslavia 81-78, Spain 81-76The 2002 team’s beginning was familiar enough with a 50 point cakewalk over Algeria and a 5-0 start to the FIBA Championships, but by the time the tournament ended, it was a new era of international basketball. Dream Team II. Team USA did win the Gold, but largely did so in unspectacular and unmemorable fashion (other than the Vince dunk which was so good it deserves to be linked The second Dream Team was a combination of veteran all-stars left off the original Dream Team (Dominique Wilkins, Reggie Miller, Mark Price) and the next generation destined for superstardom (Derrick Coleman, Larry Johnson, Shaq). The ragtag bunch did come home with a Bronze medal, and was just two point losses against Lithuania (84-82; a Jimmy Oliver game-winning three just missed at the buzzer) and Russia (66-64; the US led by 10 points inside of three minutes) away from an undefeated tournament.The negative spin is that, as the nation that invented basketball, nothing but Gold is acceptable to the United States.

Now in its third Vince Carter led the US in scoring (14.8 ppg) and in ridiculous dunks while jumping over seven-footers (The competition had picked up by 2000, with Lithuania in particular giving the Americans headaches in 9 point and 2 point contests. Let's be clear about Dream Team II: they kicked everyone's butt in the World Championships. With revisionist history it’s an odd collection of players, but at the time it worked.

No small feat given the previous 12 years of USA basketball.Team USA coasted to Gold in 2000, but for a variety of reasons, the world yawned. Not only did the US suffer its first loss ever with an NBA-filled roster, but it lost three of its final four games, limping to a previously unfathomable 6The honor that is playing for your country had clearly become lost on the league’s current crop of superstars as not a single 1International players like Dirk Nowitzki (Germany), Yao Ming (China), Manu Ginobili (Argentina), Peja Stojakovic (Yugoslavia) and Pau Gasol (Spain) led national teams no longer intimidated by the US star power.The positive spin on 1998 is that with NBA labor issues preventing its players from participating on Team USA, a group of amateurs, CBA and overseas professionals that was thrown together in just the three weeks leading up to training camp performed admirably under the circumstances. In true All-Star fashion, an amazing eight players averaged between 9.0-12.0 points per game.The third Dream Team had it all.

Still the 1996 team slots in at No. Clearly the 1998 team would get crushed head-to-head against both the 2004 and 2002 teams, but it gets slotted ahead based on its on-court results and (as painful as it is to say) lesser expectations.By 2006, USA Basketball was in a rut, having won Gold only once since 1996.

Despite a line-up that included several elite stars including LeBron, D-Wade, Carmelo and Elton Brand, the 2006 team couldn’t quite break the drought due to a 101-95 loss to the upstart Greeks in the semifinals.In what had become a theme for Team USA by 2006, the Americans had a roster with backcourt issues. Nicknamed Dream Team III , [2] the team included five players who were Olympic teammates on the original "Dream Team" , from the 1992 Olympic basketball tournament : Charles Barkley , Karl Malone , Scottie Pippen , John Stockton , and David Robinson . In the 22 years since that first Olympic showing by the legendary “Dream Team,” there have been 10 other Team USA rosters compiled for both the Summer Olympics and international FIBA tournaments.