![]() Rimas Kurtinaitis led the Soviet side with 28 points in the 92-76 victory. made a late-game charge that closed the gap to three points with just over a minute to play, but the Soviets were able to preserve the lead and take home bragging rights just as they had 16 years earlier. set back by Hersey Hawkins' absence due to injury and Danny Manning's early foul trouble, the Soviets led for most of the game. glided into the semifinal matchup with a perfect record. The USSR boasted a strong roster that included future NBA players Sarunas Marciulionis and Arvydas Sabonis, but they had lost a game in pool play. Both teams were considered gold-medal contenders. ![]() didn’t just determine who would play for the gold-it was also the first time both countries had occupied the same court since the infamous gold-medal game at the 1972 Munich Games. The 1988 Seoul Games semifinal matchup between the USSR and the U.S. The door would open for other countries-including Spain, Lithuania and Argentina-to create new legacies and change the landscape of international basketball. may have been able to take out years of frustration having been forced to previously compete against pros as amateurs in the international game, but the Barcelona Games also marked the end of the battle of the superpowers. At just 28 years old, Petrovic died tragically by car accident during the summer of 1993 just as his NBA career with the New Jersey Nets was taking off. "I feel bad we didn't have the opportunity to play in the 1992 Olympic Games against the real Dream Team," Divac told Brian Mahoney of the Associated Press in 2010.ĭivac and Petrovic never did play together again. ![]() The Soviet Union dissolved, and its national team players went on to compete with newly formed teams/states such as the Commonwealth of Independent States or Lithuania, which harbored four of the six top scorers from the 1988 gold-medal Soviet team.Īs for Yugoslavia, if it weren't for war, Petrovic would have been flanked by former countryman and Los Angeles Lakers legend Vlade Divac (as well as Toni Kukoc and Dino Radja). On top of that, he led his newly established country, Croatia, to a silver medal.īut fans of international basketball can't help but wonder what could have been if the Eastern Europe geo-political landscape had not changed so much between the Seoul and Barcelona Games. Drazen Petrovic was the second-leading scorer in the 1992 Barcelona Games-ahead of any member of the Dream Team-with an average of 24.6 points. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |