Carmelo Anthony ranks the 2008 Redeem Team above the 1992 Dream Team: "Those other teams didn't feel that pressure. We felt that pressure."
The 1992 Dream Team is often hailed as the greatest basketball team ever assembled. With legends like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and Charles Barkley, they dominated the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, winning gold with an average margin of victory of 43.8 points per game.
Carmelo Anthony
| Position: | SF |
| Age: | 40 |
| Height: | 203 cm |
| Weight: | 104 kg |
| Birth place: | Maryland, United States of America |
But recently, Serbian national team head coach Svetislav Pesic claimed that the current 2024 Team USA is "stronger than the Dream Team from 1992." This year's squad boasts current NBA stars like Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Joel Embiid, and Anthony Edwards, among others.
"I was there with Germany, I remember that no one could believe such players exist," Pesic recalled. "But it was 1992, now it's 2024, and this team is better; a perfect opportunity to see where the rest of the world is compared to them."
Despite this, NBA legend Carmelo Anthony, who was part of the 2008 Redeem Team, argues that his team deserves recognition as the best.
"My rank is '08 because of the amount of pressure that we were facing in 2008. Those other teams didn't feel that pressure. We felt that pressure," Anthony told BasketNews' Donatas Urbonas.
"I think the '92 Dream Team is what established the US as, like, this is the level of dominance that we can portray around in international play," Melo said. "So that was the first time you saw all the top guys coming together and coming out there competing at the very forefront of basketball globally.
"In 2008, we were able to assemble a team based off of the Dream Team because we knew in order to make this work, we had to bring the best of the best, the cream of the crop."
According to Anthony, the 2008 Redeem Team was special because they had to bounce back from consecutive fiascos in the Athens 2004 Olympics and the 2006 FIBA World Cup.
Puerto Rico
USA
Brazil
Serbia
France"We don't want to be compared to the '92 team. We want to be our own team, we want to have our own energy, so I just think 2008 what gives us that edge is the fact that we were coming off of losing in 2004 and 2006," Anthony noted. "So the fact that we can bounce back like that and come together and bring the best players, all the top-tier guys at that point in time. '08 would definitely be more special to me than anything else."
The 40-year-old then talked about the current Team USA, which he spectates from the courtside at Bercy Arena in Paris.
"This '24 team is just like, look, we going to go put the best guys out, we get the best team out there together, let's go out there and try to win this gold. This is like the Avengers, in a sense," Melo said. "But the '08 team was really structured, it was really strategically put together. Every player was strategically put in each place and each role on that team, so I can only go off for the teams that I've been on, but that '08 was very special."
Anthony's perspective carries significant weight, as he currently holds the title of the winningest male Olympic basketball player ever, with more gold medals than any other player and more than any country except the U.S.
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