Grant Hill is a seven-time N.B.A. All-Star, Chris Webber a five-timer and Penny Hardaway a four-timer. Allan Houston was selected twice, Jamal Mashburn once.
But back in 1992, they were just a bunch of college students playing a scrimmage against the U.S. men’s national basketball team, otherwise known as the Dream Team, which included Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing and six other future Hall of Famers. The odds that Hill and company could topple a squad that went on to destroy every opponent at the Olympics by an average of 44 points seemed vanishingly thin.
The HBO documentary “We Beat the Dream Team,” which premiered on Monday and is streaming on Max, recounts the day in June 1992 when that shocker actually happened — when the Select Team, as this collection of youthful sparring partners was called, stunned the game’s biggest players.
Bobby Hurley, the Select Team’s point guard, pushed the pace and shredded the Dream Team defense with pinpoint passes. Houston buried threes. Webber was a force inside. Their elders looked complacent and sloppy, turning over the ball and even missing dunks as the game slipped away. The scrimmage lasted about 20 minutes, but the Select Team finished with a solid 62-54 triumph.
Because of a rule change made by the International Basketball Federation, the 1992 Barcelona Games were the first Olympics in which N.B.A. players were permitted to play. For the college players, who were a bit resentful because they had hoped to represent the U.S. at the Games, the scrimmage victory was the ultimate vindication. (A few celebrated with perhaps a bit too much trash talk.)
But as the documentary makes clear, their victory was essentially buried. The coach of the Olympic team, Chuck Daly, made sure the scoreboard was shut off before reporters came into the gym. No one really talked about it in the media that day. (Daly had allowed only one camera to record the game.)
“We had this incredible experience that virtually no one knew about,” Hill said last week in a joint interview with the film’s director, Michael Tolajian.
The next day, the Dream Team took revenge and destroyed the youngsters, 102-55, which the Select Team accepted as fitting. What Hill and Tolajian want the film to do, they say, is set the record straight about the win. As details about the scrimmage have emerged over the years — notably in a 2012 documentary, which first made the game footage public — so has a counternarrative. In that film and since, Mike Krzyzewski, who was an assistant to Daly in 1992 (and Hill’s and Hurley’s coach at Duke), has said that the game was thrown. He likened the Select Team to children who believe in Santa Claus.
In the Select Team’s defense, “We Beat the Dream Team” marshals testimony from all the living members of the Select Team — Hill, Webber, Hardaway, Mashburn, Hurley, Houston and Rodney Rogers — but also stars from the Dream Team, including Jordan, Johnson and Barkley. Those players shoot down Krzyzewski’s claim.
“Those kids kicked our butts,” Jordan says, adding that they “underestimated our opponent.” (Krzyzewski sticks to his story in the film, but his fellow assistant coach from 1992 P.J. Carlesimo disputes it. Daly, who presumably could have settled the question, died in 2009.)
Hill, who narrates the documentary, went on to win Olympic gold in 1996 as a member of the U.S. Men’s National Team and was recently its managing director, overseeing the 2024 Olympic squad. He and Tolajian talked about their motivations for doing the film and what it was like to confront Coach K on camera. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
How did this documentary come about?
MICHAEL TOLAJIAN I was attracted to the David and Goliath narrative. It’s an archetypal story that has been told since the beginning of time. The question was how to take one 20-minute scrimmage with only one grainy VHS tape and create a feature-length documentary. But I thought of Grant being in charge of the U.S.A. Basketball men’s national team, so it felt timely with Grant coming full circle, now in charge of picking the team.
GRANT HILL As a steward of U.S.A. Basketball, I feel these stories are part of our history and important to tell. But also, from an ego standpoint, we wanted to tell our story. Every time my teammates see each other it’s all we talk about, so I wanted to do this for the guys.
TOLAJIAN Sometimes with documentaries you have to pull stuff out of people, but the Select Team guys were literally rubbing their hands together, saying “I’ve been waiting 32 years for someone to knock on my door and ask me about this.” So 45-minute interviews lasted three hours.
Was it difficult to persuade Jordan, Bird, Johnson and these other icons to talk about losing this game?
TOLAJIAN For the Dream Team guys it ultimately wasn’t that big a deal since they went on to win the gold medal and destroy everybody and reclaim America’s place atop the basketball universe. It isn’t an embarrassment now, and there’s this respect for these guys that beat them.
HILL Even going back to 1992, they were gracious with us, letting us into their world. The first time I ever golfed was with Scottie Pippen. But also we did become their peers in the N.B.A., and we did compete against them.
And I think they’d also say that the loss helped prepare them for what they were about to embark upon. It showed them that just because they were this incredible collection of players, anything can happen. After that day, they became that dominant team.
In the footage, the Dream Team looks sloppy. Do you think they were complacent or that they started trying too hard after they saw how good you guys really were?
HILL I can’t put myself in their minds, so I don’t know if they just weren’t ready to go. But we had arrived a few days early and were practicing and preparing to play a style that they might see overseas — to play with pace and to shoot threes. We were loose and we were ready. This was our championship, this was our Game 7.
Was it important to have the scene confronting Coach K about his theory that the Olympians threw the game?
TOLAJIAN As a filmmaker, you want that narrative arc with Grant going on this quest to find out the truth that’s been haunting him since that first documentary came out.
HILL It was great to confront Coach K, and my intentions were not good when I arrived. And when I challenged him, he was steadfast in what he believed. After I listened to him unpack what he thought, it was almost like talking to Chuck Daly, and I felt that even if what happened was not by design, the way he adapted and adjusted and used it as something to help the team was brilliant.
And then Jordan, Barkley and Johnson rebut the coach.
TOLAJIAN Ultimately, the Dream Team is the opinion that matters, in this case. When you have Michael Jordan saying what he thinks happened, I think most people will accept that and the jury will rest.
Even though the Select Team are our heroes in this narrative, watching the Dream Team stomp them the next day and hearing them talk about how Jordan, Johnson and Bird took over is equally fun. Did it make it easier knowing the audience would root for both teams?
TOLAJIAN It’s as if you’re playing your 11-year-old son on the driveway and he beats you. You’re kind of thrilled, but the next day you’re happy to put him back in his place. And other fathers probably think that’s good. As much as viewers love seeing the kids win here, it’s fun to see them put back in their place.
Grant, how would last year’s team — with LeBron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant — have fared against the Dream Team?
I don’t know. It would be a great game. I have the utmost respect for the ’92 team … but I don’t think either one of those teams could beat the ’96 team.