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Next thing you know, Michael signed on. By then, everybody really started clamoring to play. Before long, Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone, John Stockton, Chris Mullin, David Robinson, Scottie Pippen, and Charles Barkley had agreed to be on the team. The good thing about it was they didn’t have any tryouts, because that could have gotten really ugly. The original plan was to have eight pros and four college players, but the response from the NBA guys was so overwhelming that the committee decided to pick ten pros and leave two spots open. The idea was that if one pro had a really unbelievable year, he’d be added, but if no guy emerged, they’d take two college players. In the end, the pro who had the great year turned out to be Clyde Drexler. He was put on the team along with Christian Laettner, the only college player, who had just finished up a great season at Duke. He beat out a big center from LSU, a kid by the name of Shaquille O’Neal, for the final spot, in part because his team had more success, and in part because he had put more time into playing international competition through USA Basketball.
    Of course there was going to be some controversy over who didn’t make it, and the one guy most people were talking about was Isiah Thomas. I know he must have been hurt by it. Hell, Isiah was one of the top players in the league. He helped Detroit win two championships. He was one of those special players and, to be honest, I wondered myself why he wasn’t on the team. The problem with a selection process like that is a lot of guys are going to be left off. You always know somebody is going to be left unhappy.
    For those of us who did make it, we all understood it was an honor. Even Michael, who had played on a gold medal Olympic team before, said how great it was to be part of the Dream Team. Our first training camp was in San Diego, and it was amazing to see all these players in one gym and on the same team. Right away, the atmosphere was loose. The first day, Magic was busting on everyone in sight, and that set the tone for the whole Olympic experience.
    Magic liked to tease the other guys about all his rings. I never said anything about it. Magic did all the talking about the championships. One day me and Magic were shooting around at one basket and Patrick Ewing came over. Magic took one look at him and said, “Get out of here.” Patrick said, “What’s with you?” And Magic said to him, “You don’t belong at this basket.” Patrick is all confused, and he says, “Why not?” Magic says to him, “Hey, you haven’t won nothing!” So then he shouts over to Barkley, “Hey Charles, you might as well just stay over there too, ’cause you haven’t won anything either!” That’s Magic for you. So now he’s got everybody in the gym going. I’m getting all embarrassed about it, but Magic says, “Hey, if you’ve got championship rings, you can shoot at this basket. Let’s see. I’ve got five of them, and Larry’s got three. We’ve got eight championship rings over here. What do you guys have?” Next thing you know, Michael is coming over, and at that time he had won two titles. So Magic starts shouting, “Okay, then. Now we got ten rings.” He sees Scottie Pippen laughing, and he says, “Hey Scottie, you want to come over and shoot with us? Then we’ll have an even dozen. You don’t want to be over there with all those losers, do you?” We were all cracking up.
    Everyone got caught up in the Olympic fever. Everywhere we went, people were urging us on. I remember one night in San Diego, me and Ed Lacerte, the Dream Team trainer, who had also been my trainer with the Celtics, went out with Bill Walton. Bill lived in San Diego, and he took us to this restaurant where he thought we might not be bothered too much. So we’re sitting in this Mexican place having dinner, when these people come up and ask us for our autographs. Ed is sitting in between us, so after I signed the paper, he took it and