It all started with three franchise players who can carry the team. Then they made sure to keep or add perfect role players to the mix: Anthony, Haslem, Miller, Battier, and now Chalmers is becoming a great role player. That's exactly how the good recent team USA teams have been built v. the weak teams that were all star teams.
Now that I think about it, team USA has changed the NBA forever I think. Supposedly many of the elite players in the NBA formed real friendships from playing together on team USA and that's a big reason why they want to play together.
I think this might be the thing that the old timers like Magic and Bird are forgetting when they say "We wanted to beat each other, not play with each other"... If team USA would have had NBA players playing together in 1980s then those guys may have become friends and wanted to play together, it's only natural. Now that I think about it, watching Bird, Magic, Jordan, Barkley, and the other greats playing on the first Dream Team, you could kind of see the friendships and chemistry etc. forming, it's only natural. That may be the difference and I think team USA has changed the NBA and will continue to do so. What do you think?