The Other Dream Team Page #3

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and I don't have to wait in line?"

When he first went to shop in Safeway...

that there was no rations

on the vegetables and the fruits,

and he started crying.

You know, little by little,

you started reading

or hearing stories about

where he was coming from,

what he was coming from.

In 1989 when Sarunas came to the Warriors,

my perception of a European player

was pretty much a spot-up shooter,

strictly role player, not very creative.

Sarunas broke that impression

by being an all-around player.

More of a scorer than a shooter.

I think to this day,

I mean, I haven't played with a player

physically as strong as him at any position.

Suddenly, one morning

I am picking up Chicago Tribune

and look at the sports section

and here I read a man,

an NBA player,

"Russian, Sarunas Marciulionis,"

played so and so.

That definitely...

My high pressure jumped immediately.

When Sarunas came here,

I used to say to people, "Read the

sports pages, you'll learn a lot. "

Everyone thought, "Oh, he's Russian. "

He says, "I'm not Russian, I'm Lithuanian.

"I don't want to answer your questions

in Russian. Talk to me in Lithuanian. "

I mean, it was, it was just interesting.

So the sports became a barometer

for how people were thinking,

what was happening.

Mikhail Gorbachev starts to give signals

that it was all right for there to be

a degree of regional autonomy.

He had to widen the area of freedoms.

When Gorbachev

started with his perestroika,

I knew that this is the beginning.

This is the will of our people,

to be an independent nation.

Lithuania's push toward freedom,

toward independence

was in its way as essential

as the push against the Berlin Wall

and the fracturing of that wall.

The independence flag

is flying all over Lithuania.

Good evening.

Mikhail Gorbachev and Lithuania,

tonight they continue

their high-stakes poker game,

each trying to decide

if the other is bluffing.

The TVannouncer was saying

the Russians are surrounding

the TVstation and TVbuilding.

They showed the Russian soldiers

go in through

all the corridors and everything else.

Then all of a sudden, boom, and that was it.

The deadly crackdown brought forth images

of Beijing's Tiananmen or Prague '68

in its swiftness and disregard

for civilian lives.

Well, I've been following the situation

in Lithuania

and the other Baltic states closely.

The turn of events there

is deeply disturbing.

I think we should recognize Lithuania

and recognize it now.

We were glued to the television in Chicago.

Getting some information by phone

from Chicago relatives and friends.

Whatever it was needed.

I mean, push that button,

tell them, scream about this.

Landsbergis was possessed

of gigantic balls of brass.

And he played them musically

and well and loudly.

There's always this hangover phenomenon

after the great breakthrough.

You have your great narrative

of finally wriggling free and then,

okay, now what?

All of a sudden Lithuania is sitting there

with their independence

and it's a nation that's

completely bankrupt.

Sarunas asked me to become involved

with the basketball team.

Sarunas and I ended up going on these little

nickel-and-dime speeches

all over the Bay Area.

And we would show up to anybody's house

for a hundred,

a couple hundred bucks a whack

and send it back to Lithuania.

Well, one of the local beat writers,

George Shirk,

wrote a little story on our plight.

And that story was read

by some of the members

of the Grateful Dead.

And that's how that whole thing started.

The Grateful Dead were big basketball fans.

Garcia, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart,

Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh.

They're sitting around saying, "We can't

just let our friends down like this. "

I think his eyes just got big.

Might even be a contact high going on.

If you breathed in that room,

you were gonna get a little buzz.

No, I can't shoot. I can do anything else.

I can get in position, but I cannot shoot.

I can rebound.

We sit down and Jerry sits there,

and he, you know, lights up

what looked like a cigar.

It's hard to function in that environment,

to be honest with you.

I'm just trying to think straight, right?

He's like, "What you guys did in Lithuania

was inspirational

"and we're all about

freedom and celebration

"and that's what you guys are all about. "

Basically, "We want to help you guys. "

They had no money. They were broke.

They were kind of nurturing this

unauthorized farm team.

We said, "Why don't we fund them?"

So they cut us a big check

and they sent to Lithuania

a box of tie-dyed T-shirts

with Lithuanian colors.

Freedom. Let's go. Let's dance.

Let's have a great time

and let's make threes in transition.

It was basically just screaming loudly,

"Here we are. "

This was like the phoenix

coming out of the ashes.

The Lithuanian team rising from nothing

and just reaching,

it's like I felt this reaching,

reaching up over the obstacles

and just slam-dunking that basketball.

The only souvenir

worth having in Barcelona

was a Grateful Dead shirt, jacket, jersey.

Whatever you could get with

the Lithuania/Grateful Dead logo,

that was the thing to have.

These guys, I'm telling you,

they wear these things everywhere.

To press conferences, to shoot-around,

to everywhere we travel,

we kind of get known as "Team Tie-dye. "

"The Grateful Dead Freedom Team. "

You can feel this wave

of really cool optimism.

Like you're involved with something

that's bigger than just sports.

It's bigger than just rock 'n' roll.

It's bigger than just

the political side of things.

So that's the way we entered the Olympics.

When we left Seoul following the

closing ceremony of the 1988 games,

we could not possibly have imagined

how very different a set of circumstances

would greet us here in Barcelona.

The 1992 opening ceremony at Barcelona

is to me one of the cosmic turning points

of the 20th century.

A dramatic moment, Dick.

The entrance of the Unified team.

No more red uniforms.

No more hammer and sickle,

which was almost a crest

of athletic royalty.

All over the infield

as the Parade of Nations coalesced

were graphic signs of a world

that would never again be the same.

Basketball at Barcelona

was all about "The Dream Team. "

It wasn't about anything

other than "The Dream Team. "

Our "Dream Team" was glamorous.

If you in your mind

had a dream summer vacation,

that's what this was.

And mix in a little basketball

with the greatest players in the world.

If you were one of those

rare Americans in 1992

who was in some way put off

by the whole "Dream Team" ethic,

then it was an easy choice

who you were gonna root for

because there was this

other team with a very hip,

very sort of counterculture

American connection.

And you're rooting for the Grateful Dead.

You can't beat that.

We won in the quarterfinals against Brazil

and we qualified for semifinals.

And that's where we're gonna face

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