The 2024 Paris Olympics marked yet another gold medal for Team USA men’s basketball, but this victory didn’t come without a fight. The United States held off France to win their fifth consecutive Olympic gold medal since 2004. However, the road to victory was far from easy. In the semifinals, the Americans found themselves in a serious bind, trailing Serbia by 17 points in the third quarter. Despite the efforts of three-time MVP Nikola Jokić and a determined Serbian team, Team USA mounted a dramatic comeback, securing a 95-91 win.
This scare against Serbia underscored a reality that many basketball enthusiasts have been recognizing in recent years—the gap between American basketball and the rest of the world is rapidly closing. A shift that Larry Bird, a former gold medalist and NBA legend, had predicted long ago. Reflecting on the evolution of global basketball, Bird explained, “The one thing I’ve seen in the last 20 years is everybody’s gotten better. It’s not just the United States or China, everybody in the world’s basketball is getting better, and it’s because of what happened in 1992. If they didn’t get better, USA was gonna dominate forever.”
In 1992, the Dream Team changed the landscape of international basketball forever. That was the year the Olympics saw the first-ever lineup of active NBA superstars representing the United States. Players like Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, and Larry Bird became global ambassadors for the sport, with the Dream Team dominating the Barcelona Games. They won the gold medal with an average margin of victory of 43.8 points per game, establishing a new standard for basketball excellence.
However, Bird’s reflection on that era isn’t just about Team USA’s overwhelming dominance. He believes the success of the Dream Team sparked a wave of growth in basketball around the world. International players saw what was possible at the highest level and began to elevate their own games. This shift in competition has made it increasingly difficult for Team USA to maintain the same level of dominance, especially with the rise of talented players from countries like Serbia, Spain, and France.
Fast forward to the present, and Team USA is no longer guaranteed an easy path to gold. The 2024 Olympic tournament showed that the competition is fiercer than ever, with younger stars like Anthony Edwards and established veterans like LeBron James, Stephen Curry, and Kevin Durant all pushing hard to secure victory. Despite the challenges, Team USA prevailed, but the near-upset against Serbia served as a reminder that global basketball has caught up—and the game will never be the same.
Larry Bird’s observation is a poignant one: the legacy of the 1992 Dream Team is not just about the gold medals and the dominance of the Americans. It’s about how that team ignited a global basketball revolution, pushing countries around the world to elevate their game and making international competitions more competitive than ever before. Today, the world of basketball is richer and more diverse, with players from all corners of the globe contributing to its continued growth. And that, Bird believes, is a testament to the lasting influence of the Dream Team.
