by: Mandy Westgate, Barcelona Games Bureau, 6:30 PM EST
U.S. Olympic Training Center, Denver: Often called the greatest basketball team ever assembled the 1992 U.S. Olympic 'Dream Team' is about to shed one of it's 12 players amid growing concern over the teams depth and shot-blocking ability.
"I think we have had plenty of time to review the breadth of Christian's NBA career in addition to what he added to our 1992 gold medal run in Barcelona... I would classify those contributions as nauseating", said Co-Captain Larry Bird.
"He did an excellent job in practice of prepping David Robinson and Karl Malone for the type of slow, white, incapable defense that we would eventually see from Croatia and Lithuania - I mean it's kind of hard for Patrick Ewing to pretend he is Danko Cveticanin or Aluydas Pazdrazdis", informed Clyde Drexler.
"I've never heard of him", said a confused Michael Jordan as he joined John Stockton for a pre-practice warm-up on the stationary bikes.
"The decision to shake up the team was a difficult one", said Larry Wilkens, who was recently promoted to head coach of the 92' squad after the passing of Chuck Daly. "We did a secret ballot of all 19 members of the roster including coaches to see if we should go through with the tough decision of cutting Laettner". He continued, "The results were clear: 18 for removal and one vote for 'not sure'. We think the 'not sure' vote may have been Laettner".
Laettner's .864 free throw percentage in 1997 with the Atlanta Hawks placed him in the top 20 of free throw shooters for that season; one small accomplishment to offset the torture he administered to home fans of the 6 teams he played for over 13 mediocre seasons .
Possible replacements for Laettner include Dominique Wilkins, Shawn Kemp, and a 9 year old Dwight Howard.
David Stern recently requested that all highlights and inspirational videos from the Barcelona games be modified so that Laettner's likeness is no longer associated with the team. NBA film editor Mark Warner said that "easiest job I ever had, I didn't have to change a thing".