The Redeem Team, Netflix, 59th & Prairie Entertainment, Mandalay Sports Media, NBA Entertainment, Olympic Channel, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, UNINTERRUPTED, USA Basketball

Dream Team

Netflix original documentary The Redeem Team dropped October 7th, 2022.

#RedeemTeam has been watched 18.14M+ hours.










rottentomatoes: 92%

metacritic: 76

imdb: 7.5



Kobe Bryant, The Redeem Team, Netflix, 59th & Prairie Entertainment, Mandalay Sports Media, NBA Entertainment, Olympic Channel, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, UNINTERRUPTED, USA Basketball
Kobe Bryant, The Redeem Team, Netflix, 59th & Prairie Entertainment, Mandalay Sports Media, NBA Entertainment, Olympic Channel, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, UNINTERRUPTED, USA Basketball

Kobe Bryant

Kobe Bryant leads his compatriots to an Olympic gold medal outside of 2008 Beijing, China.

Kobe Bryant, The Redeem Team, Netflix, 59th & Prairie Entertainment, Mandalay Sports Media, NBA Entertainment, Olympic Channel, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, UNINTERRUPTED, USA Basketball

“What’s up? How you feeling? Well, it’s a higher priority. You’re representing your country, and you’re competing against basketball players who are the best in their country. To me, that holds a greater significance. You know, it’s, uh… to me, it’s just walking around every day. Just, you know, whether I’m going to the grocery store or going to pick up coffee or whatever it is, people just coming on the street and just saying, ‘bring back the gold.’ You see a guy with a Celtics jersey at Disneyland, I’m ready to kill him. ‘Cause he’s wearing a Garnett jersey, you know, I’m pissed. I’m thinking he going to say something smart about the Finals. ‘Bring back the gold for us.’ Enough said.” — Kobe Bryant

“How you doing? We gotta do something this summer and get a contender. I don’t want to be a one-man show. Yeah, I would like to be traded.” — Kobe Bryant

“‘Together.’ One, two, three. Together. It means everything. I’ve been looking forward to this for a while, and to be in this position, to be able to represent our country, man, it’s special. Special.” — Kobe Bryant

“When we lost in 2004, um, it was a heavy blow for us. You know, this is a sport that we’ve dominated for years, and I think, you know, there was… there was… was a lot of beauty in the fact that we lost, because it means that the game is growing so much and there’s so many countries that are playing at a high level. But at the same time, it was like, ‘okay. That’s beautiful.’ ‘But now we want it back.’ ‘We want it back.'” — Kobe Bryant

“For us, it was a chance, a shot at redemption. We wanted to show the world that we are a basketball-playing country.” — Kobe Bryant

“Stay over there, stay over there, stay over there. Come on! Coming up! Help it, help it!” — Kobe Bryant

“Growing up overseas, you know, I have a… a pretty good understanding of the emotion and the passion they play the game with over there and how important it is to… to… to beat us.” — Kobe Bryant

“Knowing a lot of guys that play overseas, they think we’re a bunch of showboat players that can score a lot and do a lot of things offensively but won’t do the dirty work. Because we’re all star players, we won’t do the dirty work to win and to beat them on a consistent basis, and to me, I think that’s the thing that’s gonna get us over the hump.” — Kobe Bryant

“Ball, ball, look at the ball!” — Kobe Bryant

“I hear the talk. You know, I think it’s exciting. You wanted to see Magic and Bird. You wanted to see Michael and Magic. And you wanted to see those matchups, just ’cause they’re interesting.” — Kobe Bryant

“He’s… he’s hilarious. I mean nonstop, though. You know what I mean? Like, it don’t stop. It’s fun for me to be around and see that kind of enthusiasm, because we both have the same passion. We just show it in different ways.” — Kobe Bryant

“I don’t say nothing. Oh yeah! That’s off. Back to you! And one, Bron! And one, Bron! Way to run the floor, boy!” — Kobe Bryant

“That’s the word.” — Kobe Bryant

“You know, tonight’s, uh, the first game, the first kind of step in that direction. And we’re ready to go. So it’s the beginning of a long journey.” — Kobe Bryant


LeBron James, The Redeem Team, Netflix, 59th & Prairie Entertainment, Mandalay Sports Media, NBA Entertainment, Olympic Channel, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, UNINTERRUPTED, USA Basketball

LeBron James

“Chillin’. What’s going on? Okay. Enough said. Bring back the gold.”

“It felt like I was the best basketball player in the world, but I still hadn’t proven enough.”

“I didn’t think I earned an opportunity to be on that team. You know, literally, this is the summer right after my rookie year, and all I’m thinking about is hanging out with my friends, hanging out with my family, and training.”

“You look at all the younger crew, you know, myself and Melo, D Wade, you know, we just trying to figure out, like, how do we fit into this?”

“We didn’t take Puerto Rico with the respect they deserved, and they, uh… they kicked our ass. They just had the chemistry. They had the teamwork. They had the camaraderie. They had everything out on the floor. I mean, they just… they played the game how the game’s supposed to be played.”

“There wasn’t a lot of time. We had to figure out how to become a team in two weeks. I was young, but I understood what it meant to build chemistry in order to win.”

“I’m sitting on the podium, you know, receiving the bronze like, ‘this shit was a waste of my time.’ At that moment, I definitely wasn’t playing for Team USA again.”

“Growing up in the inner city, you hate Duke. You just hate Duke. You hate Christian Laettner. You hate JJ Redick. You hate Coach K. You hate the damn Blue Devil. There was no, like.. excitement when Coach K was, uh, appointed that position with Team USA.”

“Coach K and Jerry, they stressed that from the beginning, it needed to be a commitment where you really took it serious and not just some old one-off. You know, three summers, right away.”

“What’s up, man?”

“The first thing that surprised me about Coach K was that he didn’t give a fuck about nobody’s résumé, but he always did it with respect. I’ve always gotten the best out of myself playing for someone that holds everybody accountable.”

“Two times!”

“You know, 3 days, you’re gone from your family, but you’re able to, um… you know, it’s another family. It’s like another part of your family. It’s like I never left home. You feel me? I would rather you say, ‘I got a ring,’ than just say what you just said.”

“FIBA Worlds in ’06 was the first time we went as a team with Coach K, and what put even more pressure on is that we needed to qualify for Beijing. And we needed to win the tournament.”

“It ain’t about an individual. It’s about us. It ain’t about us playing for our teams. It’s about the United States of America. Let’s do it for everybody in the United States of America. ‘USA’ on three. One, two, three! Let’s go!”

“It wasn’t time. You can’t think that things are gonna happen on your term. I know I didn’t feel as shitty as I did when we lost in Athens, but it wasn’t the right time.”

“We was kind of surprised that he wanted to be a part of Team USA after everything that had went on. I’m not one to force a relationship with anyone, but you sense Kobe is someone who don’t really want to be fucked with.”

“Let’s go. Let’s go get ’em, man.”

“This motherfucker Kobe was already, like, drenched in sweat. And we was like… ‘yeah, he different.'”

“Who’s the best in the world? Is it Kobe? Is it Bron? Is it Bron? Is it Kobe? I heard it, and it was definitely on my mind, ’cause as alpha males, you always got in the back of your mind, saying, ‘I want to be recognized as the greatest in the game.'”

“At shooting guard, number 10, from Philadelphia-slash-Italy. Listen, I understand Kobe is serious as hell when it comes to work, but he want to smile too, and he want to feel accepted too, so… the Marksman-slash-Mamba Kobe! Right! Right! Right! I mean, I don’t call myself a comedian, but one thing about him, he’s always gonna keep his guard up. But it was a relief for the whole team and just for the program to see him in a different light. I was talking to a dude yesterday from Croatia who said, ‘if Dwight Howard come down to Atlanta, I’m gonna punch him in his mouth.’ Bang bang! Game time!”

“By yourself, screen right! I’m a vocal-type guy. You know, and Kobe is… is not much vocal. Yeah, he don’t talk much, but I do most of the talking. But with that combined is… is… is danger for… for the opponent. You’re all by yourself, Mike! Down! Down! Down! Down! You guys know what he do on the court as far as his example.”

“That’s the word. That’s the word, huh?”

“Shit, man.”

“I sit at home and say, ‘if I had Dwight Howard on my team or if I had Carlos Boozer on my team or if I had Chris Paul as my point guard, I’d win an NBA championship.’ I got all y’all on tis team. So, what’s my excuse now? Do we all have an excuse? We don’t. This is everything that we always dreamed of, of having that guy next to you and winning something. I don’t have no excuse now. None of us.”

Dwayne Wade, The Redeem Team, Netflix, 59th & Prairie Entertainment, Mandalay Sports Media, NBA Entertainment, Olympic Channel, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, UNINTERRUPTED, USA Basketball

Dwayne Wade

“We had a lot of things that we needed to show the world. And it wasn’t just basketball.”

“I remember watching it via TV, and you just see some of the players not wanna go. It just became this epidemic. I just finished my rookie season, and I’m in summertime in Chicago, hanging with my family, and I get a call asking me to be a part of the Olympic team, and I’m like… ‘what?’ ‘Oh my God, they asked me to be a part of something that I remember being so incredible with the Dream Team.’ ‘Sign me up.’ But mind you, we got the call saying, ‘if y’all want to play, y’all gotta meet us in Jacksonville in two weeks.'”

“We’re young. We up and down, dunks, lobs, this and that. If you look at the names on the team, you’re like, ‘we g… we good. Let’s go do this.'”

“The younger guys, we were pissed at Larry Brown, because he didn’t play us. We thought, ‘we should be playing because we could help this team win.’ But Larry Brown didn’t… he didn’t think that we could as much as the veteran guys.”

“You can tell immediately that they had this chemistry. They could pass the ball right here and know that the guy is cutting. It was ugly to watch. It was terrible to watch and terrible to be a part of.”

“Is that what you want?”

“I think early on, it was looked at as, ‘international players are soft, right?’ ‘American players are tough.’ Once you start looking at it, you’re like, ‘no, they’re not soft.’ ‘They’re skilled. They play the game a different way.’ He was the one who told us, ‘hey, I don’t want y’all to not come in here with y’all egos and y’all pride. That’s who makes y’all who y’all are.'”

“I remember sitting there watching and hearing him say that. I was like, ‘that makes sense.'”

“I’m the best-looking one of the crew. So you know, it… it’s… you know, they like my bodyguards, you know what I’m saying?”

“It definitely hit me in my emotions. They show us who and what we were playing for. Scotty, you hear me? Blue is getting into us right now. So White Team, we gotta pick it up as a team. They’re playing better than us. Y’all put y’all uniforms on. I know y’all got a lot of pride. We put these jerseys on, we feel a lot of pride walking around with USA on our chest. So, I know y’all got a lot of pride. You guys are role models to a lot of us out here. We won’t get a chance to tell y’all. Y’all are role models to us. We respect what y’all do for our country.”

“We were very good. You could tell, like, okay, we getting the swagger back. Every game, we did our job. We came out, and we put teams away. And we were playing very well. They beat us with our own offense. The NBA, at that point, is now a high pick-and-roll league. They beat us with high pick-and-roll. And they confidence kept going. They was making shots. They played the perfect game, and we never got back.”

“We did not want to go up and get on that stand and take those bronze medals, ’cause we was like, ‘we are better than this.'”

“You can walk through the free-throw line when someone’s shooting. In the Olympics. You can touch the ball off the rim in the Olympics. It’s, like, all these small rule things that we weren’t used to.”

“That was so much fun.”

“And in my mind, I’m like, ‘what the fuck?’ These two guys have been touted as greats since high school, and, you know, it’s a lot of media coverage that kinda put them versus each other. ‘Who’s this? Who’s that? Who’s the best?'”

“Everyone had to make sure their relationship worked, because if that didn’t work, there’s no way in hell none of this was gonna work.”

“I think, at that time, Kobe, LeBron, and myself were the three best players in the NBA. So I had came off a serious injury, and it took a while for me to build myself to be back to that place when a lot of people didn’t think I would. no one thought I would even be on the Olympic team because I didn’t recover the way I needed to, uh, and then I was having knee problems, so I got surgery on both.”

“Coach K definitely wanted me to be a part of the team. Right? But Jerry Colangelo had some questions. They had to come up to Chicago, watch me train, watch me work out.”

“You know, talk to my trainer. I did understand that, but I was pissed, because it was just a part of, like, my never-ending story of, you know, always feeling like they don’t appreciate you. You’ve been forgotten. So it was just another part of like, ‘okay, here we go. Grade school? Same thing.’ ‘High school? Same thing. NBA? Same thing. Olympic–‘ you know, same thing. I was just trying to get myself back, get my self, you know, to that place. But I’m just sitting back watching, like, ‘okay, where do I fit in?’ Because I didn’t know if I fit in or not no more.”

Carmelo Anthony, The Redeem Team, Netflix, 59th & Prairie Entertainment, Mandalay Sports Media, NBA Entertainment, Olympic Channel, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, UNINTERRUPTED, USA Basketball

Carmelo Anthony

“I don’t know. I wasn’t there. There was a snowball effect of just negativity.”

“Mind you, from’04 to that point, we was losing. Team USA Basketball was at the bottom. Nine guys drop out. So they had to fill those spots, and we got the call, like, ‘would y’all want to be a part of this USA Team?’ I’m like, ‘hell, yeah.’ Like, ‘c’mon, let’s do it.’ We didn’t know what to expect. Everybody had backed out. This was going to be our moment to go over there and get, you know, a gold medal.”

“I remember going to Jacksonville, seeing the US team. It was separated. It was like two different teams. Like you had AI and Marbury, Tim Duncan. And then you had the younger guys, the rookies who was just… who was coming into the league.”

“It was a disconnect between both groups. It was like, ‘oh, we have this young group of guys that’s coming on board.’ Then you had the older guys, just like, ‘this is our shit. We gotta make this work.’ And then you just had, Larry Brown.”

“We got a lot of doubters out there for the simple fact we’re a young team. I don’t think a lot of people think that young players could do it. So we gotta prove ourselves.”

“But the first game against Puerto Rico really let us know, like, ‘damn, like, okay we… we fucking around.’ ‘We… we gotta get our shit together.'”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t out there. I don’t think… they scored more points than us. That’s all I can say. They was more cohesive. They was more running plays. They was running sets.”

“We was just a whole bunch of… kind of just bullshit thrown together and said, ‘go out there and… and… and win us a gold medal.’ There was no culture with Team USA. There was no culture at all.”

“Coming back home and the disrespect that we were getting from our own country. There were songs about us. Everybody was talking about us. You know, ‘these players suck,’ and, ‘the rest of the world’s caught up.’ ‘How do you lose to Puerto Rico?'”

“It was just a snowball effect of… of just negativity. When they announced that he was coming on, our first thought was, like, ‘yo, how is he going to handle all these players that’s on this team as a college coach?'”

“What’s up? What’s up, baby. What’s going on?”

“I remember he was mad. He was livid about that. Like, we got to respect everybody in the rest of the world. From day one, he established himself as that guy. Like, ‘listen, I’m not here to tell you guys what to do.’ ‘You guys are professionals, but this is a working relationship.’ ‘I want y’all want to talk to me. I want to be open. I want to be honest.'”

“Get on the bus! Grab the bags, man! No. No.”

“Coach K is a motivator, and that’s what he did. Each day, we had a different person come in there, talk to us.”

“We would be mic’d up. We would say little things to him in the mic and talk to him from the court. I remember everybody’s in the locker room already after the loss, and I’m just on the court, and we looking at the celebration. And it was just like… …’we can never have this feeling ever again.'”

“Man, Kob is a guy that… he’s a loner. Rolls by himself. Like, he don’t need nobody with him. Like, he’s that guy, and he’s comfortable with that. I don’t think nobody accepted him like that at that point in time, and I don’t think he was receptive to anybody at that point in time.”

“It was like, ‘Kob, look.’ ‘You here to play with us. We here to play with you.’ Like… ‘we don’t need Laker Kob.’ ‘You know I’m saying? Like, we need Team USA Kob.’ He was like, ‘I get it. I’m in. I’m tired of watching y’all lose.’ He said that to me. ‘I’m tired of watching y’all lose.'”

“Come on. Let’s go.”

“Think we was at… we went out to, like, Club Tryst or something like that. Kobe is downstairs in the lobby with his bad and his sneakers and his gloves, like, weight… weight-lifting gloves. And we’re, like, joking, ‘where the fuck you going?’ ‘I’m going downstairs.'”

“Like, ‘man, it’s four o’clock, man. I’m…’ ‘I’m going to sleep. I’ll see you at practice.’ It was a domino effect. You know, once you start seeing, like, the greats in there doing they thing and leading the pack, then it’s like, ‘oh, I’m here. I’m with you. Let’s go.’ And he created that. He wanted that. He wanted to see who was gonna commit. I’m gonna be honest with you. I wasn’t going at no fucking 4:30. That’s… that’s too early. But we started getting down there for breakfast and lifting weights. We would lift, then we would eat and then go to practice.”

“Ten minutes, boy!”

“I didn’t think D Wade was gonna play in ’08. And then he showed up with number nine and a bald head. And it was like, ‘oh, okay.’ ‘This is what we doing right here? This is what we doing? Aight.'”

Chris Paul, The Redeem Team, Netflix, 59th & Prairie Entertainment, Mandalay Sports Media, NBA Entertainment, Olympic Channel, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, UNINTERRUPTED, USA Basketball

Chris Paul

“There was a hunger about that ’08 team. There was a hunger.”

“Get up, Brad. Get up, Brad. Uh-huh. Right there.”

“Trials was crazy. We stayed at the Wynn in Vegas for like a month. We lived in Vegas for like a month. That’s when a lot of the relationships that you see were sort of forged. I got no say on the bus! I can’t get on. I can’t get on!”

“There was a group of us that played cards every single night for 35 straight days. Know what I’m saying?”

Jason Kidd, The Redeem Team, Netflix, 59th & Prairie Entertainment, Mandalay Sports Media, NBA Entertainment, Olympic Channel, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, UNINTERRUPTED, USA Basketball

Jason Kidd

“’92, it was introduced as a global game, but the game was starting to catch up to us. We talk about these different countries, they have talented basketball players who have been taught the fundamentals. Now the world is not afraid. The scare factor was gone.”

“Coach K, I thought, did a wonderful job of making sure that things were competitive but they didn’t get out of hand. You gotta separate the rams, right? Like, keep the two bulls separated if we want to have a good practice.”

Carlos Boozer, The Redeem Team, Netflix, 59th & Prairie Entertainment, Mandalay Sports Media, NBA Entertainment, Olympic Channel, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, UNINTERRUPTED, USA Basketball

Carlos Boozer

“We had a group of guys that… I think Coach was trying to prove a point with the Olympics, that he could get all of us to play ‘the right way,’ which was ‘his way.’ We’re not even in the Olympic Village. We’re not by the Olympians. It didn’t really feel like we’re a part of the Olympic experience.”

“You could tell they had spent real time, like years and years playing with each other.”

“It’s like the Yankees. Either you love ’em or you hate ’em. That’s how Duke was because of the success.”

“Our whole team met in Vegas for a training camp, and in the very first meeting, Coach K says, ‘this is not our game.’ ‘This is the world’s game.'”

“After we lost ’04, we all felt like we were letting USA Basketball down, especially us four guys. You know, myself, D Wade, Bron, and Melo, we were part of that team, and we felt that agony of defeat.”

“When you’re a great player, you think you can do it by yourself. I can win by myself. I can score enough points. Whatever. With Coach K, what he wants to do is, you can do it, but you can achieve more with a group than you can individually. It’s a military mindset.”

“If you’re down here bumping without the ball or cutting like they said this morning, if you’re cutting down from the high post down to the low post, he can get in my way, and there’s no foul. In the NBA, we can’t do that anymore.”

“We’re in Vegas. We’re training and all that, and we want to go out. So we all go out. Everybody but Kob. We’re dressed like this, dressed to impress. Got our fly stuff on. We had a good time.”

“Come back to the hotel about 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning, and guess who’s in the lobby on his way to the gym?”

“‘Where you going, bro?’ ‘I’m going to the gym.'”

“As we’re going in the elevator up to our rooms, we’re like, ‘did you see… did you hear that?’ We’re all talking, just like, ‘this guy’s really dedicated.’ Next think you know, it goes from just Kobe going at 5:20 in the morning to LeBron and D Wade, and by the end of the week, the whole team was getting up every morning, and we’re on Kobe’s schedule.”

“At this time, there’s literally a debate going on in every barbershop across the country and every household… ‘who’s the best player?'”

“They just play off each other so beautifully, and you got two alphas in the prime of their careers that don’t care about who the alpha is.”

Chris Bosh, The Redeem Team, Netflix, 59th & Prairie Entertainment, Mandalay Sports Media, NBA Entertainment, Olympic Channel, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, UNINTERRUPTED, USA Basketball

Chris Bosh

“From the get-go, the pressure was on. We lost last time. We’re supposed to be the best in the world. So with the national team concept, if you’re not coming in and taking it seriously, you won’t last.”

“It might look on the TV like, ‘why don’t they just stop ’em?’ When you’re playing in real time, it’s hard to figure out what the hell is going on.”

“We knew right away how serious it was. And he always had a very serious demeanor. You don’t meet Kobe, and he’s like, ‘hey, man! I’m Kobe!’ That’s not the experience you have. It’s more like, ‘this is Kobe Bryant.’ ‘Nice to meet you.’ I’m like, ‘damn,’ you know?”

“I knew Kobe, but I didn’t know him. Played basketball against him. He’s the best player ever. And he was… he was almost untouchable.”

“You see the ascension and then injury. And let’s be frank. The Heat sucked that year before and, I think, the year before that too. I mean, they had a rough run of it.”

Dwight Howard, The Redeem Team, Netflix, 59th & Prairie Entertainment, Mandalay Sports Media, NBA Entertainment, Olympic Channel, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, UNINTERRUPTED, USA Basketball

Dwight Howard

“You know, I remember that game like it was yesterday. They had a guy, ‘Baby Shaq.'”

Deron Williams, The Redeem Team, Netflix, 59th & Prairie Entertainment, Mandalay Sports Media, NBA Entertainment, Olympic Channel, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, UNINTERRUPTED, USA Basketball

Deron Williams

“These are all guys that are committed to this team, who wanted to be on this team from the beginning. This is the team that’s gonna go over there. This is the team that’s gonna put USA back on top.”

Mike Krzyzewski, The Redeem Team, Netflix, 59th & Prairie Entertainment, Mandalay Sports Media, NBA Entertainment, Olympic Channel, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, UNINTERRUPTED, USA Basketball

Coach K

“This is the most important thing that we will ever do as coaches. The thing that I’ve learned over the last two years is what great heart and courage all of you guys have. This team has been put together to win internationally. We have the three best point guards in the world. You have Dwayne, Carmelo, LeBron, and Kobe. This team has 12 guys who can fucking win an Olympic championship and you don’t know which one of you is gonna be called upon at a moment to play a significant role in a huge win.”

“How are we gonna win? What are we gonna win? What are we gonna establish? Is it just to qualify for the fucking Olympics? If that’s the only reason we’re here, that’s too shallow. When you’re on the US team, you’re supposed to win all the time. You’re supposed to be perfect. These guys were not.”

“Well, I’m watching it here in Durham, North Carolina, and, uh… agonizing. The other countries don’t take anything for granted. They have a national team. Argentina, those guys were together since they were 18 years old. They’re brothers.”

“We had it with the Dream Team, and then there was no continuity after that. I had a lot of concerns. One is just the credibility that I would have with the NBA players. Obviously, I had achieved a lot in the collegiate ranks, but NBA’s different. The thing that changed right way was that you weren’t gonna be the Olympic coach. You were gonna be the national coach. That was the step of trying to have one coach have a four-year period where they were running a program.”

“Guys seem in a good mood. Good seeing you.”

“What you have to understand, in order to win a fight, you have to know who you’re fighting. You’re fighting somebody who thinks that they’re Superman. They have nothing to lose.”

“We have to learn their game and quit making excuses and quit trying to impose our game on theirs. If we learn their game, we will beat them. You all and I don’t know everything. We especially don’t know what each other knows. That’s what practice is about, is all getting on the same page. This is the way we play on the US team. No matter who is playing on it, who’s coaching it or whatever. This is the way the United States team should play. Good, good.”

“You have to give me the egos that you have in your current basketball teams. Bring ’em to this team. Okay? And put it under one ego umbrella. The thing I’m most surprised about is how well you talk to one another. You guys are interacting well in between drills. There’s a really good spirit that needs to be developed. You got it. Just keep developing.”

“Listen, for all you guys, and it’s important. I really want you to pay close attention. This morning, we have people who represent us, and… people don’t get a chance to look up to ’em. You don’t even know what… what they… what they do. There’s no more important thing we’re gonna do today than listen to what these heroes have to say to us.”

“Hearing those stories, our players let their hearts be opened. And as a result, they became the US.”

“Every game we play, we have to play it like it’s a sprint, not a marathon. These games are gonna go real fast. Let’s not pick up any bad habits, especially the habit of overlooking anybody.”

“Don’t be sloppy, okay? And, uh, like you guys have done the whole time, let’s be classy and… and go after it.”

“For one quarter, the third quarter, we were horrible, and they were great.”

“When we lost in 2006 in Japan, I’ve never had a defeat worse than that. I mean, you’re coaching your country’s team, and you lose.”

“We lost in ’06 because we thought we knew the landscape, and we didn’t. We were gonna now learn the game we were playing instead of the game that we played in the NBA. I just want to tell you some… some things that we’re gonna do. It wasn’t natural. That game was not natural and our play– it’s a different ball. It has 12 panels instead of 8.”

“We had to get a feel for the game, a feel for the ball, a feel for the officials. We had to learn a different game. And we knew we needed some older players. That’s why went out and recruited Kobe Bryant.”

“You should think about that, because you are not just playing for Kobe Bryant or LeBron James. You’re playing for our country. That’s an amazing opportunity that is only afforded a very few people.”

“We’ve never had a practice like this. He knew that he had to show the guys… …that he was all in, and the way to do that was to play defense.”

“That was his way of saying to the team, you know, ‘you can talk about things, but when you’re actually doing it, you know, that’s the main thing.'”

“For Kobe, he was the best player, but now LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, these guys were coming up. How do you handle that? And how do you lead a team when you’re the alpha dog?”

“Where you would think that there might be a butting of heads, you know, those two guys were amazing as far as developing a relationship. Humor played a big part in the whole thing.”

“They knew that the key to the team would be how their relationship was and how it was perceived by everyone.”

“Guys, there are going to be people in 50 states looking at you guys. There are going to be kids, people everywhere wanting to have pride in all… all of you. You know? They’re not going to be Laker fans, Cavalier fans. They’re looking to be USA Basketball fans. Understand that responsibility. I know I’m not gonna fucking lose. I am not gonna fucking lose. Not when I’m wearing this and at this time in my career. You’re gonna have to fucking shoot me. That’s the… I’m telling you, that’s the way I want you guys to play. Now, I’m a grandfather. I got five grandkids. At one time in your life, you sumbitches are gonna have maybe an artificial hip or a knee, or you’re gonna be fucking losing your hair. Gonna be a little fucking pouch on your fucking stomach. And there’s gonna be a grandson sitting on your lap and saying, ‘hey, poppy,’ or ‘grandad.’ ‘Yeah?’ ‘Weren’t you in the Olympics?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘What did you do?’ ‘Well, son, we lost to that fucking Greek team.’ ‘Where’s Grandma?'”

“This is where we blow the game open. Let’s not let up. Okay, yo, great job. Great job, everybody. We’re going to China.”

“Dwayne, for me, he was critical. You have to know what you’re going for.”

“And sometimes, you have to see it, and you have to see it every day. What we’re gonna do is we’re gonna have notebooks for you. And the very first page of this notebook will be right here, the gold medal. That’s our goal, is the gold medal. Any of you other guys have… coaching staff or anybody? We gotta be a no-excuse team. I know I’m guilty of this sometimes.”

Jerry Colangelo, The Redeem Team, Netflix, 59th & Prairie Entertainment, Mandalay Sports Media, NBA Entertainment, Olympic Channel, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, UNINTERRUPTED, USA Basketball

Jerry Colangelo

“Back in early 2004, my net worth was really wrapped up in the Phoenix Suns. So I decided to sell the team. I knew it was gonna leave some kind of a void. And I said, ‘you know, what’s next?’ It was just a couple of weeks later when I got that call about USA Basketball. You know, I basically said, ‘I… I’ll do it. I’ll do it.’ ‘But no more committees.’ ‘I’ll pick the coaches. I’ll pick the players.’ I had some names up on a bard of… of coaches. Let’s talk about coaches. Dean Smith, from North Carolina, obviously, said, ‘there’s only one coach who could get the job done, who has the respect of all the players.’ ‘He stands alone. He’s the only one.’ It was Coach K at Duke.”

“On behalf of USA Basketball, I just want to welcome you back. Last summer, we fell short of something we wanted to do, and that was win the World Championships so that we wouldn’t have to qualify this summer. And it didn’t happen.”

“We get into the first day of scrimmage. This was like 30 seconds into the scrimmage, and there was a loose ball. And he’s diving headfirst on the floor over and over for the loose balls. Tell me that didn’t set an example. It set a big example.”

“I did share with them my… my thoughts. Uh, I talked about when he came into the league, he was really hungry, and he really established himself. But it appeared to me from a distance, I felt that was missing. He wasn’t the same guy.”

Colonel Bob Brown

“Let’s face it. It’s what makes teams great, is selfless service. It’s putting the needs of someone else before yourself. On the basketball court, that may be diving for the loose ball or taking a charge. On the battlefield, it may be running into a… a… a wall of bullets. Putting your life on the line for someone else, and… and that… to that level of selfless service.”

“An explosion went off, and a piece of shrapnel came and hit him in the eyes. It looks like, uh, his eyes are normal. He does not have eyes. They were taken out by the shrapnel that went through his head. And he’s still serving. That’s a hero.”

“These are the flags we wore on our uniforms in Iraq, and, uh, we got a flag for each one of you. I’m hoping they can put it on your warm-up jerseys. And what I’m hoping is that you’ll look down, you’ll see that flag, and you’ll realize thousands of people have gone before you had and sacrificed so you can be a great basketball player.”

Team USA

“Coming left! Coming left! Get up there! Yep! Yep!”

“USA!”

“C’mon, Kob! Yessir!”

“Oh, come on, Kob. Get ’em, Kob!”

“Come on!”

“Shadow! Shadow! Go!”

“‘USA’ on three. One, two, three. USA!”

Photographer

“Eyes right here.”

Larry Brown

“We’ve played a certain way for the last five or six years. All right? We gotta… we gotta change right now. We’re ready to take the roll. You go screen… this has become a world sport. We better respect the people we play, or we’re gonna be in trouble.”

Producer

“Bron, you’re on that side of the couch. Bron right here. Yeah. Bron right here, Kobe on that corner. All right, Kobe. So you won the gold. Where would this stack up? When did it sink in this is something much bigger than yourself?”

“What’s up, man? Good to see you. Welcome.”

Sportscasters

“Welcome to Beijiing, the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Summer Games. The moment has arrived. And the focus of China and the world is on the National Stadium. If you follow basketball, then you know the nickname of this year’s squad. The Redeem Team. They’ve been dubbed the Redeem Team. The Redeem Team, because of the past failures internationally. There’s a new era in Olympic basketball, and it’s one in which the United States is no longer dominant. We had lost respect internationally. We had lost respect for ourselves.”

“Into this mess, they all brought their own individual stories. Kobe was keeping to himself. He never seemed to find any common ground. There’s a ghost haunting every play. The ghost of defeat.”

“The scoreboard tells the story in a nutshell. USA 89, Russia 55. And America holds the world championship of basketball. Gold medalists, the United States of America. The United States of America. The United States capture another championship without loss of a game.”

“Welcome to the semifinals. It’s the United States and the Soviet Union. The drama beginning to build. We’re underway! Last time they played was 16 years ago in Munich. The only time the American team has ever lost an Olympic basketball game. Coles… tough defense. Sabonis rips down another… it’s a two-on-one break. Marčiulionis… and that should do it for the Soviets. The United States goes home stunned.”

“How big a win was it? US came into this game with an 84 and 1 Olympic record overall, having won nine of ten gold medals. Bottom line may have been the Soviet experience, which, uh, may accelerate the push in the United States to allow NBA pros to compete in the Olympics.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, the US Olympic Dream Team. This group may well be the greatest team ever assembled in the history of team sports. This, of course, is the Dream Team, whose declared purpose is to win back US basketball honor. But it’s here for another purpose as well. It’s taking care of business. This team of All-Stars is almost too good. Some think we should go back to the collegiates. It’s been too easy.”

“And now to the upcoming Olympic Games in Greece, where fear of terrorism has left the lineup for America’s men’s basketball team up in the air. Big-name NBA stars routinely lend their talent to take home the gold, but this time, some are saying no.”

“When it comes to excuses, coach Larry Brown has head them all. Jason Kidd has a sore knee. Shaqulle O’Neal says he’s waiting to see how far the Lakers advance in the playoffs.”

“The Olympics Games are here in Greece, which one local official described as ‘a convenient intersection in a bad neighborhood.’ The players and their families will stay on a cruise ship off the Greek coast while being protected by Greek and American authorities during the Games.”

“It starts with Puerto Rico. Will the United States men win another gold medal? Will they suffer a loss for the first time in Olympic play since NBA players were allowed to compete? Those questions will be answered with this game.”

“Iverson to Marion! …pick-and-roll, Puerto Rico. Nice feed inside! And Puerto Rico opens up a nine-point lead. Carmelo Anthony. Beautiful save by Ayuso. Carlos Arroyo– oh, what a ball fake! Arroyo draws the foul. And one! It’s finally happened. The United States loses in Olympic play with NBA players.”

“Lots of people are talking about the American men’s basketball team. It was, by any stretch of the imagination, a complete upset and an embarrassment. They were called the ‘Dream Team,’ but now some people are calling them the ‘Cream Team.’ They can still win. They can still win. That’s what I was looking for. It’s a round-robin event. It’s conceivable they could win gold. Right.”

“We’re going to bring you live coverage of the United States and Argentina. The spot in tomorrow’s gold medal game on the line. Argentina has such open looks. They passed the ball so well. There’s Sánchez spotting up and shooting the three. Ginóbili, wide-open three. Count it, and a foul! Ginóbili. Sánchez threads the needle to Oberto. Sconochini, fancy to Montecchia. Oh, what a fancy play. There’ll be no gold in Athens. And there’s the exclamation point. The United States men fail to win it all at the Olympic Games.”

“They might be starting to say there’s a new era in Olympic basketball, and it’s one in which the United States is no longer dominant. The United States set to receive their bronze medals. You can see from their body language, they’re disappointed. And you see the joy in Argentina.”

“The United States men settle for the bronze.”

“The Duke of Destiny has won it! For the first time in two decades, college basketball has a repeat champion.”

“And welcome to a special edition of the FIBA World Championship. The United States will take its first step this morning in trying to reclaim the top spot in the basketball world.”

“Big thing for the United States is you know there are gonna be jitters because all these guys feel the pressure of representing this team and getting that gold medal.”

“They make it look so easy. When they’re hot, they’re really hot. Anthony. Boy, how good has he been? United States are still on track to march to the finals. But trust me, Jim, the competition will get tougher.”

“Well, after 72 dates of competition, it all comes down to the number one seeds in each of the pools. And we’ve got number one United States going against number one Greece.”

“Greece are the European Champions. That’s how good these guys are that the USA are playing. And Baby Shaq, Schortsanitis, he is a huge human being. Up ahead to big man Schortsanitis for the dunk! And just like that, it’s 36-35!”

“The problem for the US team is they haven’t defended the pick-and-roll. What a lovely pass! What a pass! Oh my goodness me, that’s how it’s done. They’re being picked to bits. Diamantidis, a pass back inside to go to the hoop… he misses. That’s it. It’s Greece! They have defeated the United States! The United States have crashed and burned once again by the semifinal match.”

“Kobe Bryant today turning the NBA world on its head. Says he wants out, says he recants it and wants back.”

“Kobe again! Yessir!”

“Las Vegas, Nevada, the City of Lights. Ten teams coming to the city courting more than just Lady Luck. They are looking for something precious, looking forward to next summer. At stake, two spots in the upcoming Olympic Games.”

“I think… oh my God! Kobe Bryant! The windmill. Oh, and then the block at the other end by LeBron James! Here he is with Jason Kidd on the break. He put that off the board. LeBron James with the finish! Great teamwork and the slam! Kobe Bryant staying on it. And it’s called! Oh! Kobe Bryant will go to the line with a chance at a three-point play! A spectacular play by Kobe Bryant.”

“The way these guys have played together and… and the unselfishness, the ball movement. This is an unstoppable team. They finish with a perfect record in the FIBA Americas. And it’s all over. The gold medal belongs to the US. I think they should be happy and proud. They accomplished what they wanted to do. They’re headed for Beijing. And uh, world, look out. US is making a statement.”

“They are definitely hitting their stride. Now, maintaining that momentum almost a full year away, that’s going to be the key. You also have the unknown. Who is going to be there, who might not be there, and you can’t predict who’s going to have problems physically. Unfortunately, that is going to occur over the course of a long NBA season.”

“Here he comes! Dwayne Wade, another two! He’s got 55! Oh, Wade, what a play! Wow. Here he comes! Yes! Oh, baby, he did it again! And is that Wade over there? You see there as the arm gets extended back. Kara Lawson over there on the sideline telling us that is a shoulder injury.”

“Wade is rehabilitating his surgically repaired left knee back home in Chicago. The drills are basic, and the weight training is intense.”

“Wayde has gone from NBA champion to missing major playing time on the court. Now he’s not just trying to get back on the court. Wade is aiming for a spot on the US Olympic team this summer.”

Commissioner Stern

“We think we have a great American product, and we would like to market it on a global basis with as much, uh, class and success as we possibly can. I think then we ought to ban the African runners from the 10,000 meters, because they make it look so easy as well. This is about our best. This is wonderful for the sport of basketball.”

“With the ninth pick in the 1998 NBA Draft, the Milwaukee Bucks select Dirk Nowitzki from Würzburg, Germany. The San Antonio Spurs select Emanuel Ginóbili from Argentina. The Atlanta Hawks select Pau Gasol from FC Barcelona, Spain.”

Journalists

“A lot of them were not known as great team players. Kobe was individual. LeBron still hadn’t proven himself to anybody as being any kind of leader. All run by a coach who was from the army. And it was the challenge of their lives.”

“Basketballs at the Olympics, the gold medal was America’s to lose. It was news if it was even a close game. US basketball always was so dominant, and we had the big stats of the game. But, you know, also we came to the notion, ‘just because we’re Americans, we’re better.’ You know if you were from Europe or South America, well, you couldn’t be as good ’cause you weren’t American. And that wasn’t true. They had the same ability to… to gain expertise in basketball that we did.”

“People in the USA, sports fans, we took it for granted. ‘When it comes to the Olympics, it’s our game.’ ‘We invented it. We’re gonna win. It doesn’t matter who shows up.’ That’s what we thought.”

“American USA Basketball start to panic and says, ‘you know, we got to put together something that represents American basketball.’ And so who shows up in 1992? You know, when your opposition is asking for autographs before the game, you’ve got a little bit of an edge on them. They did the best they could, but they were totally overwhelmed. It brought back a little bit of glory for the USA. But, you know, the Dream Team wasn’t about patriotism. It wasn’t doing it for America. It’s really, ‘do it for the NBA.'”

“This next wave that comes along, inspired by the Dream Team, they were more competitive, and they were a greater threat to USA Basketball.”

“If you look at the environment hovering over the 2004 Olympics, that was the first Summer Games after 9/11, and with the invasion of Iraq, now there’s this sense that America is acting unilaterally and is starting to become an unwelcome guest around the world. So there were legitimate safety and security concerns. And all these players who had already participated in ’96 and 2000 didn’t feel the need to go back and do that again.”

“The NBA put a lot of pressure on in terms of adding some future stars. Dwayne Wade, Carmelo Anthony, and LeBron James.”

“Not only America thought we’re gonna win, we weren’t paying attention, we thought we’re gonna win so much. Most of the reporters were at other venues. We were covering skeet shooting and track and field swimming. Nobody was even paying attention.”

“Nobody brought more baggage to Team USA than Kobe Bryant. He had been ostracized by the league. He came into this at a point of his career where it could have gone either way. He had run Shaquille O’Neal, a beloved figure, out of LA. They thought he snitched out Shaq’s personal life to the police. They thought he was selfish.”

“He had demanded a trade in the parking lot of a Ralphs grocery store in Newport Beach.”

“2007 is an interesting point in his career. He’s taken a hit. And so Kobe is fighting to regain his place. He’s fighting to restore his name as well. He had to prove that he was a team player. He had to prove that he was a good guy. He had to prove himself to everybody in the world.”

“Kobe did an interview, and he talked about talking with a couple of his NBA friends. And the reporters, we laughed. ‘Cause we knew he didn’t have any friends. Kobe had never taken the steps to ingratiate himself with the players around the league, so they’re still eyeing him a little warily.”

“In fact, the first meeting for the 2008 Olympics, he sat by himself.”

“I came up to Kobe at the first practice, and I see him. He said, ‘I’m glad you’re here. You’re gonna see something.’ ‘You’re gonna see the USA be great again.’ ‘This is my challenge. This is bigger than anything I’ve ever done.’ This was the start of the second chapter in the life of Kobe Bryant.”

“They dove for loose balls. They got big rebounds. They played defense. They were in people’s faces. And all of that started with Kobe Bryant.”

Chris Collins

“Coach K being a West Point grad, he loves his country. He loves serving his country. So much of what he talked about, there were always so many parallels to his time in the military. So that ran deep with him.”

“For me, the Olympics and basketball was always very important because of what my dad went through in 1972. Growing up, every Olympic cycle, there were always stories every four years about that game in Munich.”

Argentinian Team

“They’re great players. They’re the best team. In terms of individual players, they’re the best. But this is a team sport. So you play five-on-five. You don’t play one-on-one. It’s not tennis.”

Pardon the Interruption

“Still stinging from their bronze-medal showing in Athens last summer, USA Basketball has revamped itself and has turned over power to Jerry Colangelo. Almost everything Jerry Colangelo touches works. Particularly start-up projects. He was involved with a start-up project that became the Chicago Bulls in 1966. He then went out west to Arizona, and he started up three out of the four teams out there. Colangelo will pick them without a committee. You don’t think that’s too much power? Probably. This guy gets it done. You trust him? I do. I do trust him.”

Doug Collins

“I remember the game against Puerto Rico. And we looked at each other, and we go, ‘uh-oh, this team is in trouble.'”

“You have to put a team together. It can’t be fantasy basketball. It can be All-Stars, but they have to fit roles.”

George W. Bush

“My fellow citizens, at this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people, and to defend the world from grave danger.”

David Letterman

“Finally, these men A, are on line to buy tickets, B, have traveled far to see the games, C, just defeated the United States Men’s Basketball Team.”

Reporter

“Melo, what happened out there?”

“Do you have a sense that people are saying, ‘well, this might be the team that can’t win the gold?'”

“Melo, what happened out there, you think?”

“Are you saying you want to be traded?”

Basketball Fans

“LeBron is the most dominant player in the game this year right now. The most dominant player in the game.”

“Who do you want at the end of the game?”

“Kobe. Absolutely.”

“I say LeBron James.”

“Who has more assists per game? Who has more rebounds per game? Who has more steals per game?”

“Look at that boy’s stats, man. Google ‘most valuable player.'”

George Karl

“The money and the greed of the NBA, is that having an effect upon our competitive nature? Yeah. You could write that.”

Mike D’Antoni

“Basketball took off to another level after that worldwide. The international game was improving by leaps and bounds. It was a jolt.”

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