The U.S. Olympic basketball team of 1992 was known as the Dream Team because it had the game's biggest stars, including Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan.
Sports Illustrated's Jack McCallum (Seven Seconds or Less, Unfinished Business) brings these colorful personalities to life as he recounts the creation of the Dream Team and its path to Olympic gold. When a meat inspector from Belgrade came up with the idea of rescinding the amateurs-only clause of Olympics competition, it made it possible for the U.S. men's basketball team, traditionally made up of college players, to become a squad of NBA All-Stars, characterized by outrageous and iconic players and an unusual vision of the game. As McCallum tells it, this team took its ambassadorial role seriously, as the superstars relinquished their playing minutes to the greater goals of victory, teamwork and honor in a manner arguably absent from today's game.
Dream Team's tone is occasionally reverent, but just as McCallum begins to speak in mythic terms, he reminds us that these men were only human, tapping into their personal lives and private sides (when his shared history with them allows). McCallum is nothing if not opinionated, but always fair in his analyses, and the quotations and one-liners that pepper his text are pure gold in terms of entertainment as well as illumination of the fine sport of basketball. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pages of julia