This is the Dream Team Tapes, a diversion podcast's original series in association with IHeart Radio.

This is the story of the United States Olympic basketball team that won gold in Barcelona in 1992, known worldwide as the Dream Team.

No section of my book, Dream Team, got as much attention as the chapter I called the greatest game nobody ever saw, which is exactly what I'm calling this, episode six of the Dream Team tapes. I'm Jack McCallum,

and today I tell you what happened in Monte Carlo the week before the Dreamers went on to

Barcelona for the Olympics. Some recap, the team had its initial training in San Diego, went on to

play the qualifying tournament in Portland, but Chuck Daly and the folks at USA

basketball didn't want to go to Barcelona a cold, so they set up a week of pre-Olympic training

at a place where everyone goes when they want to train seriously.

Monty Carlo.

Yeah, right.

It was a brilliant move, really.

The players may not have wanted to practice, but they knew the good times they could have in Monte Carlo. It wasn't as move, really. The players may not have wanted to practice,

but they knew the good times they could have in Monte Carlo.

It wasn't as sybaritic as you might think.

Most of them brought along their families.

The team was going directly from Monte Carlo to Barcelona.

And I remember looking at them when they checked into the Lowe's Monte Carlo.

It looked like a group family vacation of millionaires, which is exactly what it was.

Strollers, luggage, luggage, more babysitters, more luggage, more babysitters, more luggage.

Charles Barkley was one of the few who was batching it.

So the mine cannot begin to grasp what a great time he must have had in that haven for gamblers,

models, and folks with F.U. money.

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