I think it would be one of the best basketball games ever” – Toni Kukoc reveals the only team that could’ve defeated the Dream Team
Former NBA player and two-time Olympic silver medalist Toni Kukoc believes that the 1992 USA men’s basketball team, AKA “the Dream Team,” was set up to defeat Yugoslavia, who won the 1990 FIBA World Championship. According to the two-time NBA champion, the fact that a stacked Yugoslavia team didn’t get to face the Dream Team remains the biggest “what if” in basketball history.
“We were so dominant in a couple of Championships… The World Championships and the Olympics were the Americans, the Russians and us. The rest of the world didn’t exist. After the Russians and we embarrassed them a couple of times, that whole Dream Team was created because of the final in Barcelona. I’m sorry that team didn’t show up. However, you all know…” Kukoc said in Belgrade at the presentation of the film “Magic Week.”
What happened leading up to the Barcelona Olympics
Kukoc doesn’t sound insane for saying that his country would have challenged the Dream Team in the Barcelona Olympics. Leading up to that, Yugoslavia was a constant problem for the US in basketball terms as they beat them in the Junior FIBA Tournament in 1987 and followed it up with another tremendous victory against the team in 1990. That was before Yugoslavia dissolved and at the time when professional basketball players weren’t allowed to represent the United States.
That dominant Yugoslavia team consisted of Kukoc, Drazen Petrovic, Dino Radja, and Vlade Divac, among others. However, that same year, Slovenia and Croatia parted ways from Yugoslavia, which meant these Yugoslavian players had to go their separate ways as well.
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