YouTube Gold: The Redeem Team Claims Gold

Spain was a worthy opponent but in the end, the US was a much, much better team.

People have asked lately if this year’s Olympic team is better than the Dream Team of 1992 to which we say: probably not and certainly not yet.

However, here’s another question: is this team better than the 2008 Redeem Team?

And that’s an interesting question.

Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski took over after Larry Brown’s 2004 team bombed and he and Jerry Colangelo completely overhauled the structure of the team and indeed the program.

The 2008 team featured LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Carmelo Anthony, Jason Kidd, Dwyane Wade and Carlos Boozer, among others. And while some of the games were competitive, the US won going away in every game. Spain was a very worthy opponent in the finals but the US pulled away there too, winning 118-107.

Bryant helped beat back a late push by Spain, hitting a four-point play to push the US up 108-99 after Spain had cut it to 104-99.

It’s never going to be easy again but the US still has advantages, not least of all on defense. We’ll see about this year’s team starting on Sunday: the US opens with Serbia at 11:15 AM Eastern time.