IN ONE of the episodes of ESPN's mega-popular series The Last Dance, viewers had the opportunity to see Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen brutally welcoming Toni Kukoc, NBA's best European basketball player at the time. Croatia and the American Dream Team played two games at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, and the Bulls stars, knowing that Chicago GM Jerry Krause adored the skinny guy from Split, decided to discourage him from joining the NBA league.
"He kept saying how good Toni was. Just like a beloved father who has many children but clearly loves one more than the others. We wanted to guard him even on the bench, and we wanted to give him the worst experience of his life. We didn't play against Toni Kukoc. We played against Jerry Krause in a Croatian jersey," Michael Jordan recalled in The Last Dance.
Jordan and Pippen were taking it out on Kukoc in Barcelona, but if it weren't for him, they wouldn't have even played at those Games
Later, Jordan, and especially Pippen, accepted Kukoc, who won three NBA titles with them. But if it weren't for Kukoc, the world would have never seen Jordan, Magic, Bird, Barkley, Malone, and the rest of the best team in the history of sports in one place. Kukoc dominated the Americans with the Yugoslav national team at the 1987 Junior World Cup in Bormio, at the 1990 Goodwill Games in Seattle, and at the 1990 World Cup in Argentina. Considering that the Americans also lost in the semifinals of the Seoul Olympics to the USSR national team that later played against Yugoslavia for gold, it seems obvious that the nation that invented basketball was tired of losing from some Europeans, and thus sent the crème de la crème of the NBA to Barcelona.
The Americans sent mixed college teams to World Cups since gold medals in those tournaments were not a priority for them. But the Olympics were a different story. Although due to Coubertin's rules banning professionals from competing in the Olympics, Americans could not send NBA stars, they sent the best players from colleges to the Games. The consequence was their absolute domination. Basketball appeared at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, and from then until 1988, the Americans were defeated only once – namely in a game against the USSR in Munich in 1972. The defeat was so devastating to them that they refused to accept silver medals. Yet, in the late '80s, things started to change. Yugoslavia and the USSR had fantastic teams, and Toni Kukoc was a key person in breaking the American domination and initiating a new world basketball order.
It all started in Bormio
It all started in Bormio in 1987, when Yugoslavia easily won the Junior World Cup gold, beating the Americans twice - once in the group stage, and then again in the finals. What Toni Kukoc managed to do in the first game against the USA became a legendary story, being retold even after more than 30 years.
Svetislav Pesic's players easily defeated the national teams of China, Nigeria, and Australia in the first three rounds, and then it was time for the most challenging test of that generation. The Americans came to Bormio with an exceptionally strong line-up. Around 1,500 spectators in the Bormio venue witnessed one of the most beautiful and flawless performances ever seen.
The night of Toni Kukoc's life
Yugoslavia beat the US with a 110:95 victory. The only thing the Americans' coach, the famous Larry Brown, as well as Gary Payton and Larry Johnson, future NBA stars who led the US national team could do was to enjoy the show. They were destroyed by only one man - Toni Kukoc, a lanky left-handed man from Split who played the game of his life at the age of 18, scoring as many as 11 three-pointers from 12 attempts.
Svetislav Pesic, junior coach of Yugoslavia at the time, shared his impressions of the game of Kukoc's life.
"It's an absolute record, I've been in basketball for 15 years as a player and 30 years as a coach, and I've never seen anything like that again. In that game, Kukoc was the player who had the most possession of the ball, and he was practically the playmaker... He had the head of a playmaker, but not the body of one. His shot wasn't his greatest quality, he did other things better, he was never a born shooter, and he said he liked two people to be happy, him and the one who scores a basket," Pesic recalled in an interview, while the Pink Panther recalled some memories from that match in an interview he gave to his colleague Vlado Radicevic:
"Well, how could I not remember? Everything went well for me that night, if I had been able to shoot 20 more balls, they would have all gone in. I remember I started with shooting 5 out of 5 three-pointers, and only at the end of the first half did I miss the first three-pointer. I scored six more in the second half, and all of them went in clean, without touching the hoop! Ah, what a phenomenal feeling that is, like throwing a ball in the tub, every ball you point to the basket, you're sure it will go in. I even fired from pure counterattacks, and I regularly used three-on-one situations for a three-pointer. The coaches don't like that, but since I was in the zone... "
The Americans believed that in the finals, they would be able to take revenge on Kukoc for what he did to them, and that is where America's coach, the famous Larry Brown, completely failed tactically. He focused his full attention on Toni, so the other players got the opportunity to easily score against America.
Vlade Divac scored 21 points, Dino Radja 20, Nesa Ilic 14, Sale Djorđević 11… for an 86:76 victory.
What about Toni Kukoc? Toni finished that night with "only" nine scores, but that was more than enough considering that he had already made history just a few days earlier.
The night the Lithuanian masters shocked the Admiral and company
A year after that defeat by Yugoslavia in Bormio, the United States came to Seoul to defend the Olympic title that Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing, and Chris Mullin, members of the 1992 Dream Team, had won in Los Angeles four years earlier. The Americans sent one hell of a team to Seoul, including David Robinson, Mitch Richmond, Dan Majerle, and Danny Manning, who later all became NBA legends. The Americans expected gold, but they were defeated in the semifinals by the USSR. Sabonis and Marciulionis shocked the basketball world and won with an 82:76 victory. In the finals, the Soviets got their revenge on Yugoslavia for the defeat in the group, and bronze was taken by the Americans who beat Australia that had young Luc Longley in the line-up.
Dominating the Americans in Seattle and Buenos Aires
Right before the 1990 World Cup in Buenos Aires, Seattle hosted the Goodwill Games, and Yugoslavia, which had convincingly won the Eurobasket a year earlier, arrived in Northwest America with a mixed team, without Drazen Petrovic and Vlade Divac. It didn't matter. Yugoslavia ended up celebrating after a victory against the hosts in the finals, causing their then second defeat at home in history. A similar thing happened at the World Cup. Although Dino Radja was seriously injured in Seattle and broke his leg, Yugoslavia easily won the gold, and in the semifinals it routinely defeated the Americans who came to Argentina with a strong line-up including Alonzo Mourning, Kenny Anderson, and Dream Team member Christian Laettner. Toni Kukoc was brilliant throughout the tournament, his play was amazing, and he was rightly chosen as the MVP of the World Cup.
The last dance of Kukoc's golden generation took place in Rome a year later, after the war in Yugoslavia had already begun. Yugoslavia swept to victory, and the future star of the Bulls was chosen as the MVP of the tournament.
"I am proud to have been a member of the generation that changed the course of world basketball and its future. If it hadn't been for us, the Americans would have never sent the Dream Team to Barcelona. Maybe NBA players would have played in the Games sometime in the future, but not in that line-up. Kudos to every American team since then, but there is only one Dream Team. And it was created because of us," Dino Radja said.
A bloody war destroyed that generation, but on the court of the strongest league in the world, Kukoc, Petrovic, Radja, and Divac proved that they belonged there and forced the arrogant Americans to finally take them seriously after having suffered enough defeats from Toni and the team.
And they did, in Barcelona, in 1992.