Los Angeles Lakers' star Kobe Bryant has sparked an interesting debate in the basketball world after making comments, in which he believes, this years' current Team USA can compete and win against the 1992 Dream Team.
Michael Jordan says there's no way Kobe Bryant and this year's USA Olympic team could've beaten the 1992 Dream Team.
Jordan told The Associated Press Thursday that he laughed, "I absolutely laughed" when hearing Bryant's comments that the squad training in Las Vegas could take Jordan and company. Jordan said there's "no comparison" which team is better.
"For him to compare those two teams is not one of the smarter things he ever could have done," Jordan said prior playing in a celebrity golf tournament in Charlotte.
Jordan said the 1992 team, that included 11 future Hall of Famers and won its six Olympic games by an average of more than 43 points en route to capturing the gold medal, was a better overall team largely because of experience it put on the floor.
"I hear Kobe say we were not athletic," Jordan said smiling. "But we were smart. He said we were too old, but I was 29 and in the prime of my career. Pip (Scottie Pippen) was 26 or 27, (Charles) Barkley was 29, Patrick (Ewing) was 29 and Chris Mullin was 29. Almost everybody was still in their twenties."
Jordan shook his head when asked why he thinks Bryant made the comments.
"I imagine he's trying to say it to legitimize his own Dream Team," Jordan said. "But to me it's not even a question what team is better."
Jordan confirmed Bryant is entitled to his own opinion-even though he said it's just plain wrong.
"For him to make that comparison, it's one of those things where it creates conversation," Jordan said. "I guess we'll never know. I'd like to think that we had 11 Hall of Famers on that team and whenever they get 11 Hall of Famers you call and ask me who had the better Dream Team. Remember now, they learned from us. We didn't learn from them."
Jordan's comments came after Bryant told reporters in Las Vegas that this year's team could pull out a win against the Dream Team if they faced each other in their primes.
"Well, just from a basketball standpoint, they obviously have a lot more size than we do-you know, with (David) Robinson and (Patrick) Ewing and (Karl) Malone and those guys," Bryant told Yahoo! Sports on Wednesday. "But they were also-some of those wing players-were also a lot older, at kind of the end of their careers. We have just a bunch of young racehorses, guys that are eager to compete.
"So I don't know. It'd be a tough one, but I think we'd pull it out."
Charles Barkley was the first member of the 1992 Dream Team to sound off against Bryant, in an interview on The Mike Missaneli Show on 97.5.
"I just started laughing," Barkley said. "How old is Kobe Bryant? He's 34? And he's calling us old? At the time, we were only 28, 29. Michael Jordan and I were the same age. We were both 29. ...
"Other than Kobe, LeBron (James) and Kevin Durant, I don't think anybody else on that team makes our team."