“We would have had a field day” – Patrick Ewing claimed Dream Team would've beaten 2012 Team USA 10 times in a row

It’s always interesting to hear what the 1992 Dream Team legends had to say about other star-studded Team USA squads. Back in 2012, Dream Team center Patrick Ewing was asked to do so and his comments were no surprise at all.

The 2012 Team USA also went unbeaten in the Olympics. Like the Dream Team, it was also stacked by future Hall of Famers such as Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant, among others.

However, Ewing didn’t see that unit standing a chance against the Dream Team. Ewing believed the Dream Team would have dominated the 2012 Team USA without breaking a sweat.

“They’re a lot smaller than we were,” Ewing, one of 11 Hall of Famers on the Dream Team, said of the 2012 Team USA on NBA TV at the time. “(They) kind of light in the middle. Myself and David Robinson, we would have had a field day.”

While it is common for legends to toot their own horn, Ewing made it clear that he wasn’t diminishing the amount of talent that the 2012 Team USA had. The former New York Knicks center did not directly say it, but he acknowledged that the 2012 squad could have held its own against its predecessors.

However, Ewing was certain every game between the Dream Team and the 2012 Team USA would have the same outcome. He confidently predicted that the original Olympic super team would win even if they faced each other 10 times in a row.

“I’m not saying we would have creamed them,” Ewing further assessed. “Best out of 10, I’d say we’d have beaten them 10 out of 10.”

Four years later, Ewing found himself talking about the same hypothetical matchup at the peak of the 2016 Olympics. Team USA assembled a younger team at the time, putting together current stars such as Jimmy Butler, DeMarcus Cousins, Paul George, Kyrie Irving, among others.

For Ewing, that wouldn’t have changed a thing once they went head-to-head with the ’92 Dream Team. Moreover, Ewing was convinced that no other Team USA squad could beat them.

“They’d get a win. That’s it,” Ewing told The Ringer in 2016. “Maybe they could come close, but none of them could beat us.”

The way Ewing saw it, the only players who could match the Dream Team were the Dream Team players themselves. That’s exactly the reason why their team practices became legendary.

“The practices were more fun than the games,” he added. “No one could beat us. We could only beat ourselves. You had me going against David [Robinson]; Michael [Jordan] going against Magic [Johnson] or Clyde [Drexler]. We pushed ourselves and made ourselves better just by the fact that we were playing against each other every day.”

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In recent Olympic tournaments, Team USA has successfully formed an array of iconic lineups. In fact, Team USA went 8-0 in three consecutive Olympics (2008 to 2016).

However, many, Ewing included, still consider the original Dream Team as the gold standard.

Their argument presents a good point. They don’t just measure the Dream Team against other Team USA squads based on talent, stats and records. Instead, they often point to the overall impact and massive popularity surge the game of basketball has seen after the 1992 Olympics.

Related: Patrick Ewing took responsibility for deciding the Knicks’ 1994 playoff fate: “If we’re going to lose, let me lose it”