Why Kobe right to challenge legend of the Dream Team

Even President Barack Obama took time out of his busy re-election campaign to wade into last week’s debate-du-jour.

At half-time of the US basketball team’s Olympics warm-up victory over Brazil, the most prominent Chicago Bulls fan in the world took Kobe Bryant to task.

The LA Laker had created a nice little firestorm of publicity by claiming this current bunch of NBA stars — heading to London as gold medal favourites — would give the revered 1992 Dream Team a run for their money, an unprecedented gathering of talent which brought together, among others, the veteran superstars Larry Bird and Magic Johnson to play alongside the era-defining Michael Jordan who was well on the road to dominating the NBA.