The Dream Team is remembered–quite fairly–as an unstoppable juggernaut. The 1992 US Men’s Olympic basketball squad of Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley and other legends bulldozed its way to an easy gold in Barcelona. Before that romp started, though, they were taken down in a scrimmage against a squad of college players. We Beat The Dream Team, a new documentary streaming on Max, revisits that moment. WE BEAT THE DREAM TEAM: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? The Gist: The story of the Dream Team’s victory in Barcelona has been endlessly covered, but the story of the college team that beat them in a scrimmage is less well-known. Here, we get the story of their behind-the-scenes victory, led by former NBA superstar Grant Hill–a participant on the college team and the current managing director of the US Men’s national team. Joining him are many of the players involved in the college Select Team–Jamal Mashburn, Allan Houston, Chris Webber, and more–along with a few players from the Dream Team itself. What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: There’s been plenty of revisitations of the Dream Team story over the year, but timing causes this to feel like an unintentional companion piece to Court of Gold, the six-part Netflix documentary that released last month and profiled the men’s basketball team from the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics. Performance Worth Watching: There’s a wealth of big names and great commentary here, but for me, the best was hearing from Hall of Fame player and coach Lenny Wilkens, an assistant coach on the 1992 team, about the pressures facing the coaching staff. Memorable Dialogue: “I remember me and Chris Webber walking down a hallway,” Jamal Masburn recalls, “and we see this figure, tall, and I’m like, ‘Chris, that’s Larry Bird coming towards us.” And, first impression was, damn, I didn’t really realize how tall Larry Bird is. Larry Bird approaches us, and Larry goes, ‘are you guys part of that college Select Team?’ and we say ‘yeah, Mr. Bird!’ and he goes ‘oh. Get some fucking rest, it’s gonna be a long week.’ It was almost like a pretty girl insulting you, but you take it as a compliment?” Sex and Skin: None. Our Take: As the years have stretched into decades and the idea of a team of NBA all-stars dominating at the Olympics has gone from fantasy to expectation, it’s easy to forget just what a big deal the Dream Team was in 1992. Take it from Chris Webber — a future five-time NBA All-Star and Basketball Hall of Famer himself, but at the time a college player. “You have to remember the state of basketball. At this time, there weren’t trades in the league like there are now, and so you would never see Magic play with a Celtic, are you kidding me? It’s the same as superhero movies now, how kids take for granted that Batman and Superman are in the same movie. And Jordan? I don’t think I can explain to the world how big Jordan was.” The most enjoyable undercurrent in We Beat The Dream Team — a smart, tightly-produced documentary revisiting the moment when Webber and a group of college stars recruited to help warm up the Dream Team actually bested them in practice — is this dynamic, seeing players who would achieve great things themselves recall the awe they felt being in the same room as Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and the rest of the Avengers-like squad assembled to bring the United States to glory in Barcelona. Unfortunately for the drama of this documentary, though, the not-inconsiderable accomplishments of the players on the so-called “Select Team” of college players dulls the shine of this underdog story. This wasn’t a ragtag bunch of misfits, a Hoosiers or Mighty Ducks-like squad — it was a collection of very, very good basketball players. As then-assistant coach Mike Krzyzewski recalls, “In the Olympics, at that time, remember we’re making a transition from college to pro, so everyone felt that the Select Team should be a collection of the best college players. These were guys who were going to be lottery picks in the next draft or the draft after that. If there weren’t pro players playing at that time, that Select Team would’ve been our Olympic Team.” Truly, we’re not seeing a bunch of forgotten faces off the street here. Webber, Mashburn, Grant Hill, Penny Hardaway, Allan Houston — all of those players were future NBA All-Stars. Even the ones who weren’t — Bobby Hurley, Rodney Rogers, Eric Montross — were very good college players who went on to play multiple years in the pros. No doubt, even with the benefit of hindsight, they’re an underdog to the Dream Team, but they’re a team that likely could’ve won Olympic gold (or an NBA title) if given the chance. Of course, they didn’t get to go. “I was disappointed that the pros went,” Jamal Mashburn recalls. “Taking Michael Jordan and all those guys, I can see why people want to see them instead of college kids, but for the guys that played on that college Select Team, that was our dream to play in the Olympics.” This isn’t to say that We Beat The Dream Team is without its pleasures. If you were a kid in 1992 like I was, then anything involving the Dream Team is an enjoyable watch, and the documentary wisely eschews outside commentators. As much as I found Grant Hill’s narration to be self-congratulatory — c’mon, Grant, you’re a seven-time All-Star, you don’t need to convince us — I’d much rather hear the story from the players themselves as we do here than from a bunch of contemporary commentators. The archival footage shared here is great, and at a slow time in the sports calendar, a good sports documentary can be a ray of sunshine. Still, only the Dream Team could turn these guys into underdogs. Our Call: SKIP IT. If you can’t get enough of the Dream Team story, then there’s a lot to keep you satisfied here. Ultimately, though, in the words of another NBA great … ”We talking ’bout practice?” Scott Hines, publisher of the widely-beloved Action Cookbook Newsletter, is an architect, blogger and proficient internet user based in Louisville, Kentucky.