This is going to be a long
introduction.
I used to envy my good friend and
classmate Gary Villanueva’s basketball collection. I relished going to his
house (in the Araneta Avenue area if I am not mistaken) with my classmates so
we could watch all his tapes on NBA games and whatnot.
When the US Men’s Olympic Basketball
Team was announced, I knew that this was my chance to have my own collection of
hoop matches. My family wasn’t particularly well moneyed so I never owned any
of those replica jerseys that my rich friends wore during pick up games that
forever earned our envy (there’s that word again) and admiration. But if he
wore a pair of Air Jordan sneakers and didn’t play like Elvis then we’d whale
him out.
But there were a few other memorabilia
and merchandise that I could get. That is if I saved enough. At this time, I
had just begun my professional career as a copywriter in an ad agency and my
purchase power wasn’t really much. Bottom of the totem pole, you see. So if
there was anything I wanted that was out of the budget I had to save or do
extra work. Fortunately, my boss had me working with our public relations
department and that meant extra pay (not to mention extra stress considering
the people I did BS work for).
There was that famous issue of Sports
Illustrated where the term “Dream Team” was coined and had Michael Jordan, Karl
Malone, Patrick Ewing, Magic Johnson on the cover. I used to buy my second hand
Sports Illustrated issues at the now gone The Rastro in Shoppesville,
Greenhills. These were the copies from American servicemen from either Clark
Air Base and Subic Naval Base (you see how all this is outing my age) so the
covers had the servicemen’s names on the cover. The one issue of the Dream Team
on the cover wasn’t in the best of conditions and so I didn’t buy it at first.
I was a huge comic book collector at that time and you know how OC comic book
collectors can get – you know, being particular about the condition of the mag,
its spine, it’s creases, if it’s in mint condition etc.
But this was Greenhills and people who
went to shop here had money. I remember how I used to go to the very first
Odyssey music store (also in Shoppesville) where they had that New Order
12”inch single “Ceremony” that sold for a hundred twenty smackers. I saved up
enough of my allowance to buy it but back then that was such a princely sum
that I hedged to the point where when I finally decided to buy it, someone had
beaten me to the punch.
So no way was I going to lose out on
this Dream Team cover.
Eventually, I also purchased the Dream
Team souvenir shirt from the Tournament of the Americas. I still have it
although it doesn’t fit me anymore.
As I recall, the Dream Team’s games –
from the Tournament of the Americas to the Barcelona Olympics – were shown in
the evening and I could tape them on those
now-consigned-to-the-dustbins-of-history-betamax-machines.
Now I watched and taped every one of
their games. I knew that one day the tapes I had would be priceless. However,
because of the constant viewing, the tapes wore out. I failed to have those
brittle betamax tapes converted into the superior VHS format (told you this was
old school). And when Ondoy happened, those tapes were destroyed forever.
All I have of those pre-internet,
pre-social media days of the Dream Team are a few magazine articles and the
occasional photo in books, and of course, my memories.
That is why when Jack McCallum’s book
on the Dream Team came out, I knew I had to get it. Whenever I make a trip
abroad, I always list down what I want to look for in a bookstore or a CD/DVD
shop. McCallum’s book was one of them.
I bought it at Page One in Times
Square, Hong Kong (get off at the Causeway Bay station and it’s at the 9th
Floor of the same building although the branch at Festival Walk in Kowloon is
much bigger). It cost me HK$279 or PhP1,518 (it's a bit expensive. Just wait til it's released in Fully Booked).
I have always been a McCallum fan.
Following the NBA, I read the Vescey brothers for news but if I want a good
story then it’s Jack. Similarly, if it’s baseball, I read Tom Verducci.
McCallum’s Unfinished Business (about
the ill-fated 1990-91 campaign of the Boston Celtics) remains to this day one
of my favorite books. It is every bit a huge influence on me as was Sam Smith’s
The Jordan Rules and Rick Reilly’s columns. In fact, when I wrote The 18th
Banner (the story of the Ateneo Blue Eagles Season 71 campaign, I paid homage
to McCallum’s work).
His writing taught me a lot about
watching, observing, and telling good stories. That is why when his second
basketball book, Seven Seconds or Less (about the Phoenix Suns), came out, I
knew that he would have improved upon his technique in team reporting and
storytelling. And that book in my mind, remains his best. And that meant, the
onus was on him to top everything with Dream Team. It should after all that team
changed the way the game is played forever (as it paved the way for Dream Teams
in other sports).
I found the 337-page book a little
maddening to read. For the first time in McCallum’s three hoops tomes, he is a
part of the story rather than the quiet observer he was in Unfinished Business
and Seven Seconds or Less (he was embedded with all three teams by the way). That
left me wondering if this were his memoirs or a story about a basketball team.
In spite of what is generally known
about the Dream Team and its individual players, McCallum starts off by
throwing a curve ball you never saw coming and that is how former FIBA
President Boris Stankovic had a lot to do with pro basketball players being
admitted into the Olympics and other FIBA tournaments (more than David Stern).
Then McCallum begins to lay the
groundwork by featuring the background of the different players and coaches who
comprised the squad. For players like Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson both who
have so much written material out there, it’s like reading filler material but
I thought that not everyone might not be as well as read as the your basketball
junkie so maybe it works.
Those parts however for me slowed the
book's momentum down. That is if you’re thinking, “I want those Dream Team
inside stories and tidbits NOW!”
What makes the portion regarding the formation
of the team all the more compelling is the issue of Isiah Thomas’
non-inclusion. Thomas who as we all know had a poor relationship with Jordan
and his many transgressions over the years eventually hurt his chances of being
a part of that team of which he should have belonged.
The author glosses over the Tournament
of the Americas. While the games were blowouts and it maybe doesn’t necessitate
a blow-by-blow account, I believe there is still some material here that should
have been mentioned. Because McCallum repeats the same thing when he gets to
Barcelona. There is hardly any mention of the games save for Germany, Lithuania
and Croatia. And that was in snippets. The drama of the gold medal match where
the Croats stayed with the US and took a 25-23 lead was again glossed over.
It seems that the card games and the
golfing got a lot more mentioned that the actual basketball matches. In the
aftermath, McCallum mentions what happened to a few of the players but not all
of them. And that was disappointing especially when you think that Michael
Jordan and Scottie Pippen played John Stockton and Karl Malone two times in the
Finals. Clyde Drexler won his NBA title with Houston while the San Antonio
Spurs denied Patrick Ewing a second time in 1999. Instead, McCallum tells of
how Ewing was so worn out by all the talk that the Knicks will not win with him
so he forced a trade to another team. What of David Robinson? He eventually won
two titles even if much of it had to do with the arrival of Tim Duncan.
There are portions that tell too much
of what the team was doing off the court and not enough on the court. It was
nice to read of how those games affected players like Dirk Nowitski. But it
would have been great to actually have gotten quotes and anecdotes fro players
like Pau Gasol and Manu Ginobili rather than simply refer to them.
Conspicuously missing are also the
results and box scores. Instead all you get is the average margin of victory by
the Dream Team.
The portion on Lithuania’s national
team is a welcome side bar but in the over all scheme of things doesn’t fit.
The banter and interaction between the
players is priceless especially the final parting. As the pages went by pretty
fast, I thought that they were like the games of the Dream Team – they went by
real fast and that I wish there was more. It’s like magic – now you see it now
you don’t. At times, I felt the book was written in intervals or phases hence,
the change of the feel of the book. Some parts are written in greater detail
but the parts especially the matches themselves are on fast forward.
Dream Team is a good read but it is not
great like Seven Seconds or Less or even the charming but imperfect Unfinished
Business. It’s like going to this restaurant where you order the house
specialty (because you heard so much about it) only for you to find it lacks a
bit more flavor.
If you’re a basketball fan especially
if you followed the Dream Team then I still recommend this book.
No comments:
Post a Comment