With Team USA fresh off winning the gold medal for the second straight Olympics, the 20th anniversary of the 1992 Dream Team having been celebrated for months and the debate over which 12-player group was better raging on, Jordan on Tuesday was part of the video-game team announcing that — conveniently enough — the latest version, NBA 2K13, will include USA Basketball for the first time. That means the 1992 and 2012 teams are featured in the game, which will be released Oct. 2.
Forget the fact that Scottie Pippen won’t be available for the ’92 squad (he didn’t agree to terms with the game’s makers) or that a simulation won’t be settling the question about which team was better (I’m going with the old guys). Having Jordan surrounded by this kind of promotional synergy was vintage Air Jordan in every way — as was the manner in which he used this particular platform.
While Jordan and the Lakers’ Kobe Bryant shared their opinions recently regarding the Dream Team discussion, Jordan pounded his point like only he can during a conference call with reporters on Tuesday. Bryant initially said the current Olympians could beat the ’92 squad. He later clarified his remarks, saying that while he considers the original team of NBA pros superior, he believes the London group could win a game against the legends. Jordan, true to form, wasn’t about to relinquish the throne to anyone.
“I know Kobe said some things early on and I responded to those — where the ’92 Dream Team, I felt, was a more well-rounded basketball team,” Jordan said. “He felt we were a little old, but we only had two players that were over 30 at the time — that was Magic [Johnson] and Larry [Bird]. Everybody else was 29 or below [Clyde Drexler, Patrick Ewing and John Stockton actually turned 30 shortly before or during the Olympics], so I think that the team itself would have been well-rounded defensively, offensively, inside, outside.”