worth Press, 1999. Provides advice and tech-
niques for companies that are undergoing the
restructuring process. Chapters include topics
such as organizing layoffs, dealing with low mo-
rale, internal changes, redefining the critical
business plans, and identifying market strategies
in a global business climate.
Doeringer, Peter B.Turbulence in the American Work-
place. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Provides an account of how turmoil in the U.S.
economy in the 1970’s and 1980’s changed the
marketplace.
Smith, Vicki.Crossing the Great Divide: Worker Risk and
Opportunity in the New Economy. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cor-
nell University Press, 2001. Smith uses four case
studies from the 1990’s to analyze the effects of
downsizing on white- and blue-collar workers.
Gayla Koerting
See also Business and the economy in the United
States; Employment in the United States; Income
and wages in the United States.
Dream Team
Identification U.S. men’s basketball team at the
1992 Summer Olympics
Place Barcelona, Spain
After losing to the Soviets in 1988 at the Olympic Games
in Seoul, the Americans assembled a “Dream Team” com-
posed, for the first time, of professional basketball players
and routed the opposition in the 1992 Olympic Games, rees-
tablishing the United States as the home of the best basket-
ball players in the world.
After the International Basketball Federation
(FIBA) opened the Olympic competition in basket-
ball to professionals such as players from the Na-
tional Basketball Association (NBA) in 1989, the
United States named Chuck Daly, coach of the De-
troit Pistons (NBA champions that year), to coach
the 1992 U.S. Olympic men’s basketball team. His
coaching staff consisted of Lenny Wilkens, Mike
Krzyzewski, and P. J. Carlesimo. Despite being the
coach, Daly did not select the players for what came
to be known as the Dream Team, which included
NBA stars Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Magic John-
son, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing,
Chris Mullin, Scottie Pippen, David Robinson, John
Stockton, and Clyde Drexler, as well as college player
Christian Laettner of Duke University. In prepara-
tion for the Olympics, the Dream Team scrimmaged
a Developmental Team made up of outstanding col-
lege players and practiced using international,
rather than NBA, rules. From June 27 to July 5, the
team was in Portland, Oregon, where they played
other countries in their bracket; they were unde-
feated against Cuba, Canada, Panama, Argentina,
Puerto Rico, and Venezuela, averaging well over one
hundred points per game and winning by at least
forty points per game. The team then had a two-
week break, spending one of the weeks in Monte
Carlo, where they defeated the French team by forty
points in an exhibition game.
In Barcelona, the Dream Team was assigned to
Pool A of the round-robin competition, and they
again dominated, winning all their games against
some tough European teams such as Croatia, Ger-
many, and Spain, and South American power Brazil.
In the next round, the team defeated Puerto Rico
115-77 and, after defeating Lithuania in the semifi-
nals 127-76, faced Croatia in the finals for the gold
medal. The Dream Team only once trailed Croatia,
at 25-23, but went on to win 117-85.Impact Winning the gold medal restored Ameri-
can pride and reinstated the United States as the
dominant country in what many Americans consid-
ered to be their game. The games, televised world-
wide to more than three billion people, also spurred
new interest in basketball and raised the level of play
worldwide. Some countries had an NBA player on
their 1992 Olympic squads, but after 1992 the num-
ber of foreign players on NBA teams increased dra-
matically. Most important, despite the lopsided
scores, players from other countries did not resentThe Nineties in America Dream Team 271
United States 116, Angola 48
United States 103, Croatia 70
United States 111, Germany 68
United States 127, Brazil 83
United States 122, Spain 81
United States 115, Puerto Rico 77
United States 127, Lithuania 76
United States 117, Croatia 85Dream Team Results, 1992