Dream Team

If I hear the men's basketball from the USA team referred to as The Dream Team one more time I am going to absolutely lose it. Whether it is a commentater, the news reader or my mate down the street - there is sure to be kicking and screaming, bricks through windows and probably car alarms wailing in the background as sweat drips from my brow and my muscles twitch with anger.

The fact of the matter is this: the men's basketball team from the US of A currently competing at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games is not The Dream Team.

It's as simple as that. End of story. There ain't nothing more to it.

The Dream Team (pictured) was the US basketball team from the 1992 Barcelona Olympics with superstars like Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Magic Johnson, Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan.

Now, I'm not inferring that the 2008 team has not got big names, Lebron James and Kobe Bryant put that argument to rest immediately. But they are not part of The Dream Team.

Yet, idiotic people in the media keep calling them The Dream Team.

In Australia, it would be like calling Ricky Ponting's men of 2008 The Invincibles. The fact is, we all know The Invincibles were the Australian cricket team that toured England and remained undefeated in 1948. The Invincibles tag only refers to that particular team. It is the same for The Dream Team.

But as soon as an American basketball team takes the court, especially when the Boomers played them in the quarter finals last night (The Aussies were heavily defeated by 116-85), they get called The Dream Team.

However, according to Wikipedia, there have been some US basketball squads after the original Dream Team was assembled in 1992, that have been labelled as Dream Team II or the like. But it just ain't the same and at the end of the day - there is only one Dream Team.