Cast:
Grant Hill, Chris Webber, Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway, Bobby Hurley, Jamal Mashburn, Allan Houston, Rodney Rogers, Roy Williams, Christian Laettner, Mike Krzyzewski, Anthony Edwards, Tyrese Haliburton, Steve Kerr
Synopsis:
WE BEAT THE DREAM TEAM reveals the little-known story of a group of college basketball players who were tasked with preparing Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan and the rest of the legendary “Dream Team” for their Olympic debut in 1992. In an unexpected twist, the college team, which featured Grant Hill, Chris Webber, Penny Hardaway, Bobby Hurley, Jamal Mashburn, Allan Houston, Rodney Rogers, and Eric Montross, shocked the NBA superstars by defeating them in a scrimmage – an outcome that ultimately helped propel the Dream Team to gold.
The 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain marked the first-time professional basketball players were allowed to compete, giving rise to the legendary Dream Team. With the exception of Duke University’s Christian Laettner, who was the lone college athlete on the team, star college players were invited to the “USA Select Team” and brought in to the prepare the NBA superstars for the Olympics. Using the only surviving VHS copy of the secret scrimmage, interviews with the USA Select Team key players and coaches, and additional rare archives, the film revisits the sole game the celebrated Dream Team lost, unspooling the story from the perspective of the college athletes.
In full-circle fashion, many of the Select Team players went on to have illustrious careers in the NBA, with Hill becoming the USA Basketball men’s national team managing director in 2021, providing the film with an especially intimate perspective to this uplifting “David and Goliath” tale.
Trailer:
