“Michael Jordan And His Dream Team Wouldn’t Beat Us”: When Oscar Robertson Threw Gauntlet Down To The GOAT’s Olympic Sojourn With Scottie Pippen and co

Oscar Robertson took fierce pride in the basketball played during his era. He truly believed Michael Jordan and his Dream Team would’ve lost to his 1960 Olympics team. 

James Naismith had little idea of how basketball would blow up when he implemented rules for the new game at a YMCA gym in 1891. Over the years, the sport has risen to become perhaps the second most widespread global sport after Association Football.

But while it was played as an exhibition sport at the St. Louis Olympics in 1904, it took over 75 years after that for the game to evolve to where it is today – with a 3-point line and a 15-foot wide paint region.

The game was played without a shot clock at both the NBA level and internationally till 1956. And when it was introduced, the NBA game sped up by a voracious margin with the 24-second clock.

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Looking back, it is hard to imagine athletes of those eras being able to compete in today’s sophisticated tactical battles. This doesn’t mean, however, that old heads are willing to roll over and accept defeat to the evolved game.

Oscar Robertson believes his 1960 Olympics team would’ve beaten Michael Jordan and his Dream Team

Oscar Robertson was commonly acknowledged as the most complete all-around player in the NBA era till the 80s. The advent of Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and later, Michael Jordan, pushed his status somewhere to the sidelines.

But the Big O takes a lot of pride in the game they played during his era as a professional. His 1960 Olympics basketball team had some watershed moments in Rome, bulldozing all of their opponents on their way to a 5th straight Team USA gold medal even as they only fielded college players compared to the ‘amateurs’ from other countries who qualified because they earned ‘allowances’ instead of wages.

Speaking to Jackie MacMullan in an excerpt for Basketball: A Love Story, Oscar Robertson stated:

“The ’60 Olympics – I think we [are] sort of misplaced by the Olympic committee, by the ESPNs, the HBOs, and all those others, when they start talking about great teams. The Dream Team [1992] had future Hall of Famers. So did this team.”

“I don’t understand how they say that the Dream Team were the greatest ever. All they did was play one-on-one basketball. There wasn’t even any resistance in a lot of the games they played. They wouldn’t beat us.”

Was Oscar correct in placing his 1960 Olympics Team over the Dream Team?

As stated before, the 32-year gap between the two Olympics highlighted a stark contrast in styles as well as skill. Ball-handling became a little easier. It became tougher for centers to deter rim runs as the paint became wider.

However, Michael Jordan and his Dream Team was stacked with a whopping 11 Hall of Fame talents. His own athleticism far exceeded that of Jerry West, Oscar Robertson and the other guards/forwards on the 1960 team.

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Their big men David Robinson and Patrick Ewing, as well as talented forwards like Larry Bird, Charles Barkley and Scottie Pippen, would likely have made mincemeat of their 1960 compatriots.

Rest assured, however, that Oscar Robertson will go to his grave defending his comrades from their stupendous Rome run.