beat perals check this out you see that score USA versus Germany Germany is up 82 to 81 with 4 minutes left in the fourth quarter the game should have never been this close but it is in fact it's been a close contest since the opening tip both teams going bucket for bucket neither of them really able to pull away someone is going to have to step up and take control of this game if they want to win and of all the players on this court of all the talent the greatest shooter of all time a former MVP the future of USA Basketball it is none other than all reliable 39-year-old LeBron James who completely takes over this game find James knifing through nice here Sav by James trying to take over inside trying to answer the tie it James and on the rebound to do so this coming weekend got o no James Bard and a foul which will send him to the line look at this bench reacts LeBron James open for three LeBron James bodying inside he STS he's a man good this as he take over you have a right to do with the game on the line and four minutes left in the fourth LeBron turned back the clock and completely put Team USA on his back scoring their final 11 points and single-handedly outscoring Germany the Young Bucks are loving it these performances should have came to an end years ago and yet here we are 22 years in and the old gezer still got it but wait a minute this is the best basketball team on the planet some have even called this roster the best team of all time but if that's the case then why out of all of these players does it take a 39-year-old LeBron going ballistic in the final minutes to win a game by single digits their previous game against South Sudan was a similar story with the go-ahead basket by LeBron being the only thing separating the US from A Loss a couple months back when this team was first announced they were immediately hailed as one of if not the greatest team ever assembled however through five exhibition games three of which were won by six points or less the title of greatest team ever seems to have been given out a bit prematurely is this team truly the best team we've ever seen on paper they have all the credentials to fit the bill but on the court they aren't nearly as dominant as some teams from the past today I've teamed up with DraftKings the One-Stop shop for all things fantasy sports to bring you the largest best ball tournament in DraftKings history best ball is easy to play Draft your team in a snake style draft there's no roster management no waiver wire just sit back and watch your team collect points throughout the season while draft King Kings handles the rest your goal is to construct a team that earns the most fantasy points throughout the season and right now you can enter into DraftKings best ball tournament for a shot at a share of $15 million in guaranteed prizes and this year two millionaires will be crowned you will also receive a bonus ticket with your first entry into the NFL baseball tournament that's two entries for the price of one download the DraftKings app and sign up using promo code Jimmy highy roller enter into to the DraftKings best ball tournament receive a bonus ticket with your first $20 entry and earn your shot at a share of $15 million in guaranteed prizes only on DraftKings last summer after a fourth place finish in the FBA basketball World Cup reports surfaced that LeBron James was recruiting players from around the league to suit up for the US Men's National Team for the 2024 Olympics reaching out to teammates friends foes all to better their odds of defeating a common enemy everyone else and although fun to imagine the team he was attempting to put together seemed like a classic case of too good to be true except it actually happened a 12-man roster that some are saying is the greatest basketball team of all time LeBron Durant Curry embiid Tatum ad Booker Kawaii who has since been replaced by Derek white Edwards halberton holiday and Bam one of the most loaded teams in the history history of basketball and yet five exhibition games into this year's summer olympics and this team has just barely escaped with a win on multiple occasions nowhere near some of the Colossal blowouts we have seen Team USA put down in the past which begs the question is this actually the greatest team of all time greater than the 1992 dream team a group of players that won games by a record shattering margin and took basketball to a global scale are they greater than the redeemed team or even the US Olympic team in 2012 led by Kobe and a prime LeBron and Durant well it all depends on how you want to Define greatness are we talking about a team with the best collection of Talent OR is greatness defined by how good they are as a collective unit man since the 2024 US men's Olympic team has yet to play a single non- exhibition game together I assume we are referring to option number one in terms of major career accomplishments such as MVPs championships all NBA teams the key Milestones that we use to measure how great individual players are here is how the 2024 US men's Olympic roster Stacks up against some of the greatest teams of the past now it's important to note that I only took into consideration the accolades these players earned leading up to the time of the Olympics so for example although Michael Jordan won six titles and five MVPs by the end of his career I only included the two titles and three MVPs he won heading into the 92 Olympics this is only fair since players on the 2024 roster have yet to finish their careers and still have time to pile up more accolades so this is a snapshot of how accomplished these teams were at the time of their formation and when ranked against the most accomplished teams you could make an argument that this 2024 team is the greatest of all time just slightly edging out the US men's team in 1992 and in '96 oddly enough the 96 US men's Olympic team was more accomplished at the time of their formation than the 92 dream team was but overall this year's team is arguably the greatest team in terms of their basketball resumés but that might be due to the fact that this year's US Olympic team is old by the '92 Olympics Larry Bird had already played his last NBA season his back was completely toast and he was the oldest player on the team by a considerable margin he was 35 which means right now Stephen Curry is older than bird was during the '92 Olympics in fact Devin Booker has already been in the league longer than most of the players on that 1992 dream team so although this 20124 team has the advantage of experience and Longevity the team in '92 got many of their players during the peak of their careers so what if instead of accolades and accomplishments we looked at how good these players were individually at the time of the team's formation here is a chart of the 2024 US men's Olympic basketball roster and their production and efficiency from this p past season with box plus minus on the Y AIS and win shares per 48 on the x-axis now a few things jump out here Tyrese halberton has been considered one of the weaker links on this roster but he was actually one of the better players on this team throughout the regular season LeBron James is really old and still really good and Joel embiid spot is a quick reminder that if it weren't for a season ending injury this past year the man might be a back-to-back MVP right now and now for some context here is the 20 12 US Olympic team and their Advanced numbers in the season leading up to the Olympics LeBron was the best player on this team followed by Chris Paul and Kevin Durant they also had a veteran Kobe Bryant and Olympic Melo and statistically you can make an argument that the individual players on this team were better than the players on the 2024 team the 2008 redeemed team was relatively young and inexperienced in the international realm with LeBron James leading the way coming off of his fifth season in the league A Young Chris Paul entering his Prime and MVP Kobe Bryant but overall this team probably wasn't as good as the US roster this year 1996 however is one of the more underrated teams ever assembled with a ton of '90s greates like Pippen Gary Payton Reggie Miller and of course the greatest front Court lineup the world has ever seen featuring David Robinson hakee elijuan Shaquille O'Neal Charles Barkley and Carl Malone this team was experienced they were all still in their their Prime and as a whole they were better than this year's team which leads us to the 1992 dream team who are still on a completely different level from any other team before and since their Inception because here's Michael Jordan here's David Robinson Magic Johnson Drexler Stockton Barkley and the rest of the team and now we have a better picture of just how good this 92 dream team was the 1992 US men's Olympic team was so good that Anthony Edwards in 2024 was statistically worse than every single player on the 92 Dream Team outside of Christian lner who hadn't even played a single minute in the NBA up to that point now you may be thinking that these stats of the players in 1992 might just be inflated or possibly a miscalculation how was there so many all-time great players at their peak in the NBA in '92 and where are all of these players today well they're playing for other countries because here's Nicole yic here's Luca donic here's Giannis and here's Shea gilis Alexander so in terms of individual dominance the 92 Dream Team would be like having this 2024 roster without some of their relatively weaker links and the addition of Luca yic Giannis and SGA that is how good the dream team was and I don't know if we will ever see one single team as good as this 1992 US men's Olympic team was ever again in 1992 basketball was a sport dominated almost exclusively by American players the NBA and by default the entire world revolved around players from the US there was of course exceptions to this among the elite foreign players of the early 90s were Nigerian born hakeim ljan who ended up playing for Team USA Patrick eing from Jamaica who also ended up playing for Team USA deadlift shrimp from Germany and Croatian Legend draws on Petrovic but that was about it the NBA had yet to really pursue basketball on a global scale the two International Teams that were eventually added to the league wouldn't make their debut until 1995 95% of all NBA prospects were American Born or attending us universities but as Steve K said after team USA's lost in last year's feeble World Cup this isn't 1992 anymore over the last 32 years the number of foreign born NBA players has skyrocketed from 21 foreign born players just 5% of all active players in the league in 1992 to 125 foreign born players throughout the league in 2024 representing nearly a quarter of all active players today when players join International competition more often than not they're just playing their NBA teammates in these tournaments it's a bunch of NBA guys versus a bunch of NBA guys the 92 dream team was and still is the greatest team ever assembled because they were a collection of the best basketball players not just in the US but in the entire world at the time outside of hakee who was arguably not as good as Ewing or Robinson in 1992 and Isaiah Thomas who was unjustly snubbed from this team they couldn't have gotten any better now in the case of this 2024 team they're great but they aren't nearly the best possible iteration of what the greatest collection of talent in the entire world would look like today so Not only was the Dream Team the greatest collection of talent in the history of basketball nearly all of the players on the Dream Team were at the peak of their powers but they were also eviscerating teams more legendary than this 92 roster and the dominance of their individual players the dream team was crushing their opponents in game one of group play the dream team scored 116 points while holding their opponent to just 48 in the semi-finals the dream team beat a really good Lithuania team by 51 points if you want to know just how outmatched these countries were look no further than the guy who just threw in the towel and just started snapping pictures of the Dream Team while the game was still going on and in the gold medal game against a loaded Croatia team featuring six inba players the dream team won by 33 points look at this play right here gold medal game the pride of an entire country on the line Barkley hits lner for a three and calls it good before he even puts up the shot these games were never close in fact this team wasn't even fair during the '92 Olympics the dream team had an average margin of victory of nearly 44 points the largest margin of victory of any men's team at any professional level and twice the margin Team USA put up in the 2016 and 2020 Olympics their average margin of Victory this summer has been just 10 points granted they are still making tweaks to their lineups and experimenting with different game plans so this number will likely change over the course of the Olympics but through five exhibition games they aren't winning in nearly the same blowout fashion we saw in the past and this level of dominance that we saw from the Dream Team the USA men's team in '96 2008 and even 2012 will more than likely never happen again in 1992 excluding the US team the 11 teams that played in the Olympic basketball tournament featured 18 players that were active in the NBA or were in the NBA at one point in their career in this year's summer olympics the 11 countries outside of the us that are playing in the tournament feature 68 active or former NBA players now this is an oversimplified way of looking at the caliber of these teams because as we've seen before having the most NBA Talent on your roster does not guarantee success but it does show just how much the world has caught up with the US in basketball the once massive Chasm that separated USA basketball from the rest of the world has been shrinking for over the last decade or so and is now at a point where many countries can truly contend for a gold medal as it stands this 2024 US men's roster may be the greatest team ever assembled in terms of their accomplishments and their legacies and resumés but when it comes to the sheer dominance they have on the court together and how good each individual player was at the time of the team's formation the dream team is still the best team in the history of basketball and with the Leaps and Bounds foreign players continue to make I don't think we will ever see one single team Reach This level of dominance ever again a team that Still Remains the gold standard [Music]