In our times, the 1984 US Olympic team is widely considered to be the best prior to the 1992 Dream Team, which was the first year that NBA players were eligible.
You could make a good argument for the 1960 team though.
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That group included names most of us won’t recognize, like Jay Arnette, Burdette Haldorson and Lester Lane. They came to the team via AAU teams and by AAU teams, we mean the old-school, grown-up AAU teams, not the teenage farm system we have today.
Aside from guys like that though, that team had Walt Bellamy, Bob Boozer, Terry Dischinger, Darrall Imhoff, Adrian Smith, Jerry Lucas, Oscar Robertson and Jerry West, all of whom went on to outstanding NBA careers.
And they were coached by Pete Newell, one of the great minds in the history of the game. That team won by an average of 42.4 ppg.
That team was so deep that John Havlicek and Lenny Wilkens were relegated to alternates and four players would go on to become NBA Rookies of the Year: Robertson in 1961, Bellamy in 1962, Dischinger in 1963 and Lucas in 1964.
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Put it this way: Jerry West didn’t win Rookie of the Year. That’s how good that team was.
West speaks in this video of the joy of winning gold and of how thrilling it was to hear the National Anthem play. He calls it “the most special moment of my life.”
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