We went into the Redmont Zone with Charles Barkley on Dukes & Bell and Charles talked about his experiences playing in the Olympics and the difference between playing on the two teams.
Barkley talked about the difference between the playing on the Dream Team and then playing on the Olympic team in 1996.
“The first Olympic experience was the greatest thing I’ve experienced in my life, when I played with Magic and Bird, Michael and Scottie, and David Robinson, Patrick Ewing, Chris Mullen and all those guys. It was the greatest experience of my life,” Barkley said. “Chuck Daily said hey guys all of y’all are stars, I’m going to have two different starting lineups, I’ve got a certain lineup I’m gonna play when we’re playing the best teams, but we’re going to alternate starters and guys gonna come off the bench and play the last ten minutes and it was the greatest experience of my life.”
“Now ’96, I did not want to play in ’96, I said hey let somebody else enjoy this thing, this is going to be the coolest thing for somebody because I did it once and Lenny (Wilkens) said no no I need you, I think I’m going to have some issues with these young kids. And I need you to be the veteran guy, and I said well the cool thing about it is it’s in Atlanta so all my people in Alabama can come, it was cool. Then it turned out to be the worst experience of my life, because guys were bitching about playing time, guys were bitching about starting and I was like Lenny, he said that’s why I need you on the team.”