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Flashback: USA’s Dream Team, Aussie Boomers Scrap

By Clint Peterson

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Screenshot from YouTube of Shane Heal, USA Dream Team, Aussie Boomers, 1996 exhibition game

It might seem like it to the new crowd, but today’s crop isn’t the first set of Aussies to play elite level basketball on US soil. Or in Utah. Back in 1996 in Salt Lake City, the game on the Utah Jazz’s old mountain logo got chippy, the USA’s Dream Team, Aussie Boomers not willing to give any ground to the other in a match that featured a deceiving final score.

It got Charles Barkley miffed enough to pop off some fingers guns at the Aussie bench and pick a fight with Boomers point guard Shane Heal, after he nailed four threes — some of which were from the former NBA three-point line (the NBA’s three-point line was shortened from 1994-97).

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For many of the current generation of basketball enthusiasts, the original USA Dream Teams are nothing but the stuff of ancient lore and legend. But until 1992, America was only allowed to send amateur players to world competitions. Then, after a 1989 FIBA rule change, the United States was allowed to field their cream of the crop for the first time, in the face of rising competition from the rest of the world.

The Aussie Boomers were a collection of blue-collar, home-growns that no one knew. And they liked it like that.

Hat tip friend of PnB, Nathan Hand, for sending over this video of the Dream Team, Aussie Boomers scrappy exhibition game in advance of the 1996 Olympics, played in Salt Lake City, Utah in what was then the Delta Center.

The scuffle between Barkley and Shane “The Hammer” Heal starts at about the 4:20 mark.

The Aussies came to play, as is the Oz way. They don’t back down to anyone. Grit and resolve are eaten for midday snacks Down Under.

"“The thing with Barkley and I, it was just a dirty play. You just wouldn’t expect someone to make such a dirty play against someone that’s in the air, anywhere in the world,” says Heal. “He just took my legs out and I landed on my back. It was just a really dirty play … he just ran straight through my legs. You definitely don’t expect that and you don’t expect it from an NBA superstar.”Undaunted by the height and weight differential – his opponent stood six inches taller – Heal chased the American star back down the court, letting fly with a volley of verbal barbs, and bumped chests with Barkley. “When I got up and gave him a few choice words I remember him looking down and he said ‘What did you say?’ I didn’t know whether he couldn’t understand the accent or he couldn’t believe what I’d just called him.”The tough-talking Barkley would later conclude: “He’s a talkative little fellow. I told him that if I don’t take that off Americans I’m definitely not going to take it off foreigners.”Heal and his team-mates acknowledged they were playing against the world’s best but refused to back down from confrontation when necessary. “I guess the Australian way is that we weren’t going to kiss their arse – we were going there to test ourselves against the best. We weren’t going to treat them any differently than we did anybody else. We had respect for them but we certainly weren’t going to bow to them.”As stunned as the Aussies were by the physical nature of the clash, not even Heal expected the sight of Barkley mimicking a gunshot at him as the teams went to their huddle. “I was going from one end of the court to our bench and he was going from the other end to his bench and we ran into each other again and we grabbed each other by the singlets and he was a big man, mate, he was a very big man. I’m very lucky he didn’t hit me because I’d still be asleep today I reckon.”–The Guardian, The forgotten story of Shane Heal"

I’d encourage you to click the link and read the entire article after you’re through watching Karl Malone and John Stockton Dream Team highlights from the video.

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They’d clash again, the USA Dream Team, Aussie Boomers, in the semi-finals of the 1996 Olympics, and while Shane Heal would again go off, Barkley and company would best them yet again.

But it signaled to Australia that they could indeed raise basketballer that could compete on the world stage, and among the NBA’s elite. We’re seeing the generation that grew up on the Dream Team and Aussie Boomers now joining the world’s best in the United States.

What Shane Heal and Co. did that day for basketball in Australia should be remembered. The fruits their labor are a boon to basketball in the NBA and the Utah Jazz today.

Ed: We’d love to know if you attended this game in Salt Lake. Let us know in the comments, on Twitter, or Facebook

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