Kay's Korner: It's no dream, this team may be best ever

At first, I was hesitant. After all, I did have the complete Dream Team starting lineup set. But these new kids the U.S. has put together are darn good. And come 2008, they may just be better than the original marquee U.S. team.

Like all U.S. teams, this one is chock full of talent. We’re talking one-name talent: LeBron, Dwyane, Elton and Carmelo. Aside from the two injured Suns -- Amare and Shawn Marion -- there are few complaints one can make of this roster. It's got stars, role players and a coach with enough sway and hardware to keep everyone in line. It’s a team every NBA GM dreams about. And it’s not even complete.

How would the 1992 Dream Team fare in today's international basketball scene? (Getty Images)

And it’s likely going to be better than the 1992 squad.

Few can argue with the star power of ’92. Ten out of the 12 members were on the 50th Anniversary Team. That’s ridiculous. The team posted the second-highest winning margin by a U.S. crew. That’s silly good. Coach Chuck Daly never called a timeout. Not once. That’s a fantastic tidbit.

There’s no denying this team was one of the best assemblages of talent in sports history. However, there are some realities that should awaken traditionalists from their dream about this team.

The team was full of regular-season winners, but only half of them ever won an NBA title. John Stockton, Karl Malone, Christian Laettner, Patrick Ewing and Chris Mullin all never won titles. The current batch of Americans only has one, but if players like Kobe Bryant and Ben Wallace join the mix by ’08, that number could change. Also, let’s go ahead and assume LeBron gets one by then.

And when it comes time for the NBA 75th Anniversary Team, I’m banking on seven to make it. My list: LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, Elton Brand, Dwight Howard, Chris Paul and Chris Bosh. If Gilbert Arenas is still considered part of the team, make it eight.

Also, all that HORSE playing over Big Macs with Michael Jordan left Larry Bird’s back in shambles. He was, for the most part, ineffective in any capacity other than a spot-up shooter. So let’s reduce the greatness factor of the Dream Team by four percent. Every little bit helps my cause.

But the big argument for the current team and against the Dreamers is level of competition. There’s a reason Daly never had to call a timeout -- the opposing players were too busy asking for autographs to make a defensive stand. There’s no denying it, the international community was in awe of the Dreamers. There were often autograph and photo sessions before each game. It wasn’t competitive basketball; it was the Globetrotters versus the Generals, with likely as much traveling.

Do you think the 2006 FIBA team is better than the 1992 Dream Team? Tell us about it. (Getty Images)

Back in ’92, there were roughly half a dozen NBA-quality players on the aggregate rosters of all the teams. We’re talking names like Dino Radja, Zan Tabak and Luc Longley. Croatia had what you could call two stars in Toni Kukoc and Drazen Petrovic and Lithuania had Sarunas Marciulionis. Nice sixth men, but All Stars? Not really. There was typically less talent on the court against the U.S. than at a Nanny 911 casting call.

Conversely, LeBron and co. face a much different field. And they have the Dreamers to thank. If the Dream Team accomplished anything -- gold medal aside -- it was opening up the international community to the sport. If the ’92 Games were in Atlanta or Montreal, basketball probably wouldn’t have taken off at the rate it did. But Barcelona was the perfect geographical spot to show off David Stern’s product. This time around, three West African nations -- Nigeria, Senegal, Angola -- and a slew of European nations are all in the mix, due in large part to the Barcelona Games.

An influx of talent to the global community also has followed basketball's international rise. We're not talking about sixth men and spot-up sharpshooters any longer. We’re talking about bonafide NBA stars in Dirk Nowitzki (Germany), Yao Ming (China), Pau Gasol (Spain) and Manu Ginobli (Argentina). There are two No. 1 overall picks in Andrew Bogut (Australia) and Yao. There is a No. 2 overall pick in Darko Milicic (Serbia) and fine, even one Sixth Man of the Year winner in Boris Diaw (France). Throw in rising star Andres Nocioni (Argentina), lockdown defender Mickael Pietrus (France) and serviceable center Radoslav Nesterovic (Slovenia) and the international community is one well-stocked pond. There are a whole slew of others -- Johan Petro, Cem Dinc, Beno Udrih, Aaron Bruce, Peter John Ramos -- who are on some form of NBA roster or playing college ball stateside.

In ’92, it was America-as-salesman. We were pushing the game to undeveloped sporting nations. It worked considering some of the bigger names this time around aren’t even on the U.S. roster.

The '92 squad's biggest legacy? Successfully exporting the NBA to the world. (Getty Images)

And that’s exactly why this team, if it wins FIBA (acronym: Federation International de Basketball Amateur. The Amateur was dropped in 1986) and the ’08 Summer Olympics in Beijing, should be considered the best-ever in U.S. international basketball history.

I’m not saying that in a video game, I’d take this roster over the other guys. But we just don’t know how the Dreamers would have done against actual competition. Every four years, a World Cup favorite -- this time uber-power, I-don’t-know-how-to-say-Dream-Team-in-Portuguese Brazil -- seems to cave faster than you can say red card. The World Baseball Classic proved that All-Star heavy squads like the U.S. and the Dominican Republic couldn’t keep up with Japan’s less-heralded, but championship-winning team style of play.

This current crew has the star power needed to qualify as a Dream Team and actually has the competition.

But the first thing we need to do is start thinking about a name for these guys. I’m sick of Dream Team, and don’t really have anything to bring to the table other than this: The iPod Squad. Because after all, they’ll be singing their own tune when it’s all said and done.