I understand that it has not been 1992 for quite a while (although zubaz are coming back) but I still wish that Christian Laettner would not have been selected to be on the Dream Team. Most people at the time would have been surprised to find out that Laettner would go on to have the incredibly lackluster career that he ended up having but I still regret this decision nonetheless. It is easy for one to look back on things and judge past decisions now that everyone knows how things have played out but I disagreed with Laettner’s selection to the team at the time and I will always regret that it happened. Ultimately, I think he was selected because of the immense fame and publicity he received from making his game winning shot in the NCAA tournament at Duke.
In my opinion, if Laetner had missed that shot he would not have been selected to the team. This gave him a higher profile at the time than some other NBA players who were more deserving of the honor and with the NBA using the Dream Team as way to grow the game internationally; the story of Laettner’s heroic shot added to the team’s mystique. If my theory is correct, I understand why the decision was made. The significance of the Dream Team, what it represented and what it accomplished is immeasurable. It was one of the best things to happen to basketball since James Naismith busted out the peach baskets as it made basketball much more important throughout the world than it had ever been before. However, if somehow I could correct this mistake I would not hesitate to do so.
If we had to pick one player out of college to be on the team, I would have picked Shaq or Alonzo Mourning. While we were already stacked at the center position, I think either one of them would have been a bigger contributor to the team than Laettner was and we could have played either one of them at forward as they were both still very athletic at the time. Additionally, Tim Hardaway, Joe Dumars, Reggie Miller, Larry Johnson, Mitch Richmond, and Shawn Kemp, to name a few, would have been better for the team in 1992 than Christian Laettner was. Although these players did not ultimately achieve the status of most of the other Dream Teamers, you could make an argument that any one of them was as deserving as Chris Mullin. Nevertheless, I don’t think I would be writing this 18 years after the fact if Isiah Thomas had not been such an asshole or if Dominique Wilkins had not blown out his achilles tendon.
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Christian Laettner, though a good pro prospect (he was taken 3rd overall), wasn’t chosen because of his pro potential – if that had been it, Shaquille O’Neal would have been chosen. He wasn’t chosen because he made one famous shot, either. He was chosen because he was perhaps the most decorated/most successful/most clutch college player of all time, and certainly the most celebrated college player of that time. His inclusion was symbolic – the team was made up of pros for the first time, was supposed to be the greatest team ever assembled – so what better way to honor both the amateur past of US olympic teams, and that team’s nature as ‘the greatest ever assembled’, than including the most successful NCAA player ever? Would including a second-tier NBA star such as Mitch Richmond to be the 12th man instead have really added anything? It would have detracted. Laettner earned his place on that team. His NBA career had no bearing on it, and indeed it ultimately had little bearing on his career as a whole. People remember him as Christian Laettner, the prototypical Duke player – great, a winner, whitebread, and obnoxious. They don’t remember his good, not great NBA career, which after such a college career, and considering Laettner’s physical limitations and the limitations of his game, could never have been anything but anti-climactic.