THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
In the current issue of The American I write about the selection of the USA Olympic basketball team, and how it was wrong, with the current impact of overseas players on the NBA, to call it a Dream Team
. The biggest reason, however, was that the original 1992 Dream Team marked an epic change in international basketball.
It was the first time professional players from the NBA (as opposed to the International Olympic Committee's tolerance of 'shamateurs' in many sports) were allowed to compete. The US team included Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, who had helped propel the NBA back into prominence in America, and Michael Jordan, who would lead it to new heights worldwide.
The current tide of NBA stars from the rest of the world and the amazing growth of basketball worldwide are due in large part to that decision — the international federation FIBA benefited, the IOC benefited (and now we see professionalism rampant in the Olympics) and of course Michael Jordan became an international superstar short of only Muhammad Ali.
But there was one other US Olympic squad that might have deserved a Dream Team accolade, and for similar reasons. That was the gold-medal winning team of 1960. Not just because they romped to victory — the 1956 squad had done that, and so had the teams in 1948 and '52, and it would not be until 1972 that the US actually lost an Olympic match (a result vs the USSR that remains controversial to this day). But because the 1960 squad was the first one where the tryout process was dominated by selections from colleges, not from the AAU.
This was part of an ongoing feud between the AAU and the NCAA for control of the game. The 1956 team in Melbourne had Bill Russell and KC Jones from the NCAA champs University of San Francisco, and Carl Cain, a 6-3 forward from Iowa. The rest of the team was drawn from AAU players, from the Armed Forces but mostly from the National Industrial Basketball League (NIBL). These were teams who were sponsored by companies whose players worked year-round for them. This kind of semi-pro status satisfied the IOC's amateur status, but it also provided the players with a steady living; NBA salaries were not great and most players had second jobs — when I was young my uncle had a boys camp where St Louis Hawks' star Cliff Hagan used to show up for a two-week basketball camp at the end of the summer season. Jim Daniels, a star guard from South Dakota, played for the New York Tuck Tapers, and wound up a vice-president of the company.
In 1948, the Olympic team was coached by Omar 'Bud' Browning, who coached the Phillips 66ers, sponsored by the oil company out of Bartlesville, Oklahoma. His assistant was the legendary Adolph Rupp from the University of Kentucky, and the final squad included five of Bud's Sixers, five of Rupp's Wildcats, two other NIBL and two more college players. One of those two college players was Don Barksdale from UCLA, who was the first black player in US Olympic history. Barksdale would then play NIBL for the Oakland Bittners until the NBA integrated; playing with the Boston Celtics he became the first black player chosen for the NBA All-Star in 1953. Interestingly, given Rupp's reputation for coaching all-white Kentucky teams (one of which famously lost the NCAA title to an all-black Texas Western), Barksdale recalled Rupp as being his most supportive backer in 1948.
In 1952, Warren Womble, coach of the Peoria Cats (sponsored by the makers of Caterpillar tractors) was assisted by Dr. Forrest 'Phog' Allen, the coach at Kansas. Coaches certainly had more interesting names back then. The team had seven of Phog's players, five of Womble's from Peoria, and two from Phillips, including 7-0 center Bob Kurland (a former college star at Oklahoma State) who carried the American flag at the opening ceremony. The '52 team's best player was future NBA star Clyde Lovellette, who had played for both Kansas and Phillips! But they were run close in games against Brazil (57-53) and Argentina (85-76) before winning the final over the USSR 36-25, a game where the Soviets tried a stall tactic (there were no shot clocks in those days).
Russell and KC had made the case emphatically for collegians in Melbourne, winning all eight games by an average margin of 53 points; their closest were the two games against the Soviets which they won by 30 and 34 points. So when choosing for Rome, the process was decided by an eight team tournament held over three days in Denver, March 31 to April 2, 1960. The teams were the NCAA champions, Ohio State, an NCAA University Division All-Star team, and an NCAA College Division All-Star team, an NAIA (which was primarily historically black colleges at the time) All-Star team, three NIBL teams: Phillips, Peoria and the Akron Goodyear Wingfoots (all of which were reinforced by players from other NIBL squads) and an Armed Forces All-Star team.
The coach was Pete Newell from the University of California; his Golden Bears had lost to Ohio State in the NCAA final that March, having beaten West Virginia 71-70 the previous season. Warren Womble returned as his assistant.
The Ohio State team included Jerry Lucas, who turned 20 the day before the trials began and was the MVP of the NCAA finals, along with future Celtic stars John Havlicek and Larry Siegfried, future fiery coach Bobby Knight, and NBA forward Joe Roberts. Lucas would be the only one picked for the team. Chosen from the NCAA university team were Jerry West of West Virginia, Oscar Robertson of Cincinnati (the leader scorer in the 1960 NCAA tourney), Terry Dischinger, a 19 year old forward from Purdue, big men Darrell Imhoff from Newell's Cal and Walt Bellamy from Indiana, and guard Jay Arnette from Texas.
Not picked from that NCAA team were Tom Satch
Sanders of NYU (another future Celtic star) and high-scoring Tom Stith of St Bonaventure. From the small college team, Wayne Hightower wasn't picked: the 6-8 forward played for Kansas (not a small college, but who cared?) and came from Overbrook HS just a few years after Wilt Chamberlain. He would play in the upstart ABL, which challenged the NBA in 1961, and then become a star in Spain. The NAIA team included another talented big man, Zelmo Beaty, who had a fine career in the NBA and ABA.
Although Havlicek was considered by many the final cut (though one official told him the first alternate would be '56 Olympic veteran Dick Boushka from the AAU), the most notable absence was that of Lenny Wilkens, the Providence College guard who had been MVP of the National Invitation Tournament (NIT), which then was still an important college thing, given the limited number of teams who played in the NCAA version. Wilkens was certainly a more advanced point guard than, say, Arnette, but he was not even invited to Denver, a move which remains inexplicable even today.
One of the players chosen from the AAU side was Bob Boozer, a college star at Kansas State who chose to play in Peoria for a season rather than go directly to the NBA and lose eligibiility for the Olympics. He'd been the MVP of the national AAU tournament. Also from Peoria was Allen Kelley, a 5-11 guard who'd played college ball at Kansas. From Phillips came Burdette Haldorson, a veteran of the '56 squad, and Lester Lane, a 5-11 guard added as a reinforcement to the 66ers, who'd been a football star at Oklahoma before playing hoops for Wichita Vickers. Among the AAU players not chosen were future NBA and ABA stars Tom Meschery and Don Ohl. The final pick was guard Adrian Odie
Smith from the Armed Forces squad. He went on to play opposite Robertson on the NBA Cincinnati Royals, and was the MVP of the 1966 NBA All-Star game. In fact, the Royals at one point in 1964 could field five of the 1960 squad: Robertson, Lucas, Boozer, Smith and Arnette.
The team played a warm up schedule against some NIBL squads, and were beaten 101-96 in overtime by the Cleveland Pipers in their first game. They beat the Pipers 91-69 in the second. Cleveland had been bought by one George Steinbrenner, and under Coach John McLendon would win the 1961 NIBL and AAU titles, behind star guard John Barnhill. Steinbrenner would then take the Pipers into the ABL, making McLendon the first black head coach in modern US pro sports. In the summer of 1961, the Pipers, reinforced by Jerry Lucas, would tour the Soviet Union playing exhibitions. The key point in the development of the team was Jerry Lucas asking coach Newell to play him at center. Newell later called Lucas the smartest and least selfish player he'd ever coached. He was a very mobile 6-8, but Newell, whose specialty was developing big men, had his own 6-10 Imhoff and the 6-11 Bellamy available. But Lucas fit perfectly into a starting lineup that included both West and Robertson at guard, Dischinger and Boozer, a tough 6-8 rebounder at the forwards. Lucas could slide to forward, and they could also play Smith at guard and West as a wing-forward. Although always listed at 6-3, West has insisted he was actually nearly 6-5, as was Robertson.
The US won the Olympic title easily - with its usual Euro-style structure, the competition kept the two best teams, US and USSR, from actually meeting in a final - with an average margin of victory of 43.5 points (a sign the rest of the world was catching up). The closest games were a 24 point win over the Soviets and a 27 pointer over Brazil in their last contest. Oscar and Lucas averaged 17 points per game, West 13.8, Dischinger 11.8 and Smith 10.9. Bellamy and Boozer were the next highest scorers. But the precedent had been set, and from that point until 1992, the colleges were the prime source for American teams; the growth of the NBA (and expansion via the ABA) basically killed off the Industrial League as a viable career path for top college players.
How good was this team? Well, they provided the next four NBA Rookies of the Year. Oscar took the award in 1961. Big Bells, who'd been a junior at Indiana, won it in 1962. Dischinger took it in 1963. Dischinger's career ended early due to a history of knee injuries which actually began in this Olympic process. He was a 6-7 forward, what would now be called a small forward, who could shoot from the outside as well as play underneath.
Jerry Lucas was the 1964 rookie of the year, but George Steinbrenner played a part in that. After their ABL championship (the league, started by Harlem Globetrotters' owner Abe Saperstein, contained the Pipers and Tuck Tapers from the NIBL, and featured the first three point shot line in organized ball) the Pipers won the first ABL title, the team included Thornhill, future Knick Dick Barnett, and future NBA big man Connie Dierking, as well as Lucas' Ohio State teammate Larry Siegfried on the bench. Having lost to the University of Cincinnati in the NCAA final, Siegfried had refused to signed with the NBA's Cincinnati Royals when they drafted him!
During that first ABL season, Steinbrenner literally sold one of his players to the opposition Hawaii Chiefs at halftime of a game in Honululu. John McLendon quit as coach as soon as the team returned to Cleveland, and Steinbrenner hired Celtics' Hall of Famer Bill Sharman, whose ABL team in Los Angeles had already folded, as his new coach.
But Steinbrenner coveted Lucas. After the 61-62 college season concluded, with Lucas and Ohio State reaching the NCAA finals for the third straight year, Steinbrenner signed the Ohio hero to a huge $40,000 contract. But he'd also made a secret deal with NBA commissioner Maurice Podoloff, to merge his team with the Kansas City Steers and bring them into the NBA. The ABL sued and kicked Cleveland out; the NBA's Royals, who held Lucas' NBA rights, kicked up a fuss. The Pipers, unable to pay the NBA enough to join on their own, folded, and Lucas, whose contract was actually with two Cleveland businessmen, had nowhere to play. He finally joined the Royals for the '63-64 season, and won the rookie of the year honors.
Of that US Olympic team Oscar, West, Lucas and Bellamy are all in the Basketball of Hall of Fame, as is Pete Newell. In hindsight, there might have been more dreams to that Dream Team had the selection process been slightly different, but on the other hand, you can argue that the influence of these players gave basketball its first big impetus in other parts of the world, and played a huge part in elevating the game to the point where the 'real' Dream Team could take over.
