In 1989, the International Basketball Federation opened up the Olympics to NBA players. As a result, America mined the NBA to create the men’s basketball team for the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. The Dream Team was possibly the greatest basketball team ever assembled, stacked to the brim with NBA superstars, plus Christian Laettner. The team averaged a 43.8 point margin of victory over their clearly-inferior opponents. Two decades later, eleven of the twelve-man roster are now enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame, plus Christian Laettner1.
So how do you memorialize the twentieth anniversary of such a dominant team?
With plastic cups, of course.
Yes, you make some plastic cups. Burger King is now offering five commemorative cups, featuring the jerseys of recent Olympic teams. According to this press release:
This cup series will highlight four of USA Basketball’s memorable teams over the last two decades, including the 1992 Dream Team, and the teams from 1996, 2000, 2008, along with this year’s 2012 USA Basketball team. Each of the cups will feature the unique jersey designs from one of the teams as part of the five cup series.
So to re-iterate, they’re celebrating the most memorable Olympic teams since 1992. That includes the 1992 team, the 1996 team, the 2000 team, and the 2008 team, as well as this year’s 2012 team. Something’s missing…something’s missing. I just wonder what it is.
Footnotes:
Laettner actually beat out another sure-fire hall-of-famer for the last spot: Shaquille O’Neal. That may be the only real mistake ever made by the Dream Team. ↩︎
