Charles Barkley was an exceptional player. Having debuted in 1986, by the year 1992, he was a seasoned warrior who had fought countless high stake battles. Though he was leaving the Philadelphia 76ers, he was headed to even better things.
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Barkley was chosen to play alongside the likes of Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. This was the first time a contingency of NBA players played in the Olympics since the ban.
Team USA arrived in Barcelona and was greeted with rockstar treatment. The fame of Jordan, Bird, and Magic far exceeded boundaries. They were global icons. And though Charles Barkley was not on the same level, he was still an immensely popular athlete just like all the other players on the Dream Team.
However, their popularity gathered the wrong attention. The kind that forces you to hire multiple armed guards.
Charles Barkley revealed the threats against the Dream Team
As per the Fox Sports‘ 1992 Dream Team fact file, the Dream team did face death threats in Barcelona. The threats were quite significant and taken seriously.
The Dream Team, to maintain safety, decided to stay outside of the Olympic village in a fancy hotel with $900 rooms. They were guarded by multiple men equipped with Uzis. Charles Barkley revealed how he could find so many such guards around the hotel.
Chuck: ““In our hotel, you had to have a picture ID to get in there and we went to the pool on the roof of the hotel, there was like 10 guys standing around with Uzis,” Barkley said. “So it was kind of funny, it was like: girl in bikini; dude with an Uzi; girl in bikini; guy with Uzi. People thought we didn’t want to stay in the Olympic Village because we wanted to be big shots but it was because we were getting death threats. They had told us this would be considered great by one of these terrorist groups if they could take out the Dream Team.”
Chuck broke the curfew
Due to obvious reasons, the Dream Team wasn’t allowed to go out of their room in Hotel Ambassador in Barcelona. While for the first few days everyone gambled and partied together inside the hotel, things soon got too monotonous for Chuck.
He decided to leave the room to cope with cabin fever. So, Barkley roamed the streets of Barcelona surrounded by hordes of fans.
