July 11, 2012: “It’d be a tough one, but I think we’d pull it out, “ said Kobe Bryant on what would have occurred if his 2012 Olympic squad played against the 1992 Dream Team. “Well, just from a basketball standpoint, they obviously have a lot more size than we do — you know, with [David] Robinson and [Patrick] Ewing and [Karl] Malone and those guys. But they were also — some of those wing players — were also a lot older, at kind of the end of their careers. We have just a bunch of young racehorses, guys that are eager to compete.
CHAIN REACTION: Less than 24 hours after Bryant made those comments during a break his U.S. national team’s practice, Charles Barkley provided a response.
“I just started laughing,” Barkley said. “How old is Kobe Bryant, 36? He’s 34? And he’s calling us old? At the time, we were only like 28, 29. … Michael Jordan and me were the same age. We were both 29… “Other than Kobe, LeBron (James) and Kevin Durant, I don’t think anybody else on that team makes our team. “I heard Kobe say we were not athletic,” a smiling Jordan said as he sat in a golf cart puffing on a cigar while waiting to tee off. “But we were smart. He said we were too old, but I was 29 and in the prime of my career. Pip (Scottie Pippen) was 26 or 27, (Charles) Barkley was 29, Patrick (Ewing) was 29 and Chris Mullin was 29. Almost everybody was still in their twenties.”