On This Day In NBA History: August 14 - "Dream Team II" Wins World Championship of Basketball
The United States of America won the gold medal in Men’s Basketball at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Spain thanks to the “Dream Team,” consisting of some of the NBA’s greatest stars to ever play the game in Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and others.
What many tend to forget is the team representing the United States that followed this team of legends, nicknamed the “Dream Team II” by many basketball historians.
On this day in 1994, the USA Men’s Basketball team won the gold medal at the 1994 FIBA World Championship in Canada over Russia with a 137-91 victory.
With the original “Dream Team” coming and going, the U.S. faced a tough task of assembling another team that could be just as competitive for a gold medal in 1994 at the World Championship of Basketball in Toronto, Canada.
This new roster for USA Basketball consisted of Hall-of-Famers in Shaquille O’Neal, Reggie Miller, Joe Dumars, Alonzo Mourning and Dominique Wilkens. The rest of this roster was filled out by NBA All-Stars in Derrick Coleman, Kevin Johnson, Larry Johnson, Shawn Kemp, Dan Majerle, Mark Price and Steve Smith.
Going 8-0 in the 1994 FIBA World Championship, the United States of America claimed the gold medal for just the third time ever, as the U.S. had won previously in 1986 over the Soviet Union and in 1954 over Brazil.
In this 46-point victory over Russia, Dominique Wilkins finished with a team-high 20 points and Shaquille O’Neal recorded an 18-point, 10-rebound double-double in about 16 minutes. Alonzo Mourning had 15 points, Joe Dumars finished with 13 points and Reggie Miller scored 11 points.
Shaquille O’Neal was named the MVP for the United States and along with O’Neal, Shawn Kemp and Reggie Miller both made the All-Tournament Team.
Since this first-place finish in 1994, the United States has won the FIBA World Championship two other times in 2010 and 2014. They finished third and won the bronze medal in 1998 and 2006.
The idea of the “Dream Team” has lived on for USA Basketball, as NBA All-Stars and the current generation of legends are always featured on the team’s roster year-in and year-out.
Most recently, the team won the gold medal at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo with NBA All-Stars such as Kevin Durant, Jayson Tatum and Damian Lillard leading the team.
