Biggest difference between today's NBA vs yesteryear

Au contraire, star system reffing used to be much WORSE than today.

There have been so many eras and mini-eras 'then-and-now' becomes difficult to get a handle on.

Our coach (indirectly) led to the dark ages of the NBA with his Ring-Winning clothesline of Superman Rambis. After Lakes blew the series by worrying about fighting and now performing Riles rolled up his sleeves and we ended up with the Bad Boys and those horrendous Knixies of the 90s.

BTW - - was there ever a player who intimidated everyone from the refs to his opponents more than Wilt?

 

It affected shooting in the same way that "no hand checking" affects the ability of the Grizzlies to play defense.

In other words, physical teams could be even MORE physical and force the refs to either let it slide or make the call.

Imagine the Grizzlies with hand checking, 2 hands on shooters, and more lax rules on high impact contact. That's the difference... the rules AND how they were enforced.

Rules in the NBA are subjective... if your team has the reputation and "forces" the issue, the definition of "impeding" becomes very, very different for the really "physical" teams.

 

Basically, this is it. Players/Teams were cheating and refs were not good enough to stop it. NBA players and teams will push the limits of enforcement of the rules. It got out of hand in the 90's so the NBA nipped it in the bud. I don't think that 80's offenses would be very efficient against 2010's defenses.

I remember Mark Cuban saying that they discovered one ref had never called a defensive 3 second call so any time it was that refs responsibility to call the defensive 3 seconds, the Mavs would just camp a guy in the paint. The NBA is all about how much can I cheat without getting caught.

The NBA is trying to stop flopping, but they seem unwilling to call only the worst of the worst flops a flop. Hand checking was an easy fix to prevent guys from cheating.

 

The physicality level of the game has changed, especially in the 4/5 positions. Today's players are soft by comparison.

Athleticism better now?...nope. Maybe an argument could be made on an overall roster basis, top to bottom...but better athletes than Wilt? Oscar? Dr. J? Nope, not even close.

 

mid to late 80's to 2000's was the golden era.. NBA has slowly been getting worse and worse

 

Again, alot of posters are missing, this aspect, those two are elite level guys ... we are talking about difference at the beginning to the end of the bench. Which I think the player are slightly more athletic now than at any point in NBA history on average, like most other sports.

For the mere fact that there are more children participating in athletic development programs and are being scouted and trained to play professionally before they are even out of high school. I'm not even touch difference in training and supplements. The average person, like the average player in these leagues are much larger than there were in the 50s and 60s, even in the 70s and 80s, some cases. If you look at sport, like tennis, the Williams sisters could be more dominant in earlier decades than they are now. I say the same thing for most elite level home run hitters and powerful pitchers, now.

 

In some areas, I believe the game was still somewhat primitive and unrefined from about the 50s to late 70s, I've watched some of the older games. They could be physical, but not as much as people are exaggerating on this board, in hindsight the only decade were I would say physicality was more substantial was around the 90s. The games started become lower scoring, defensive slug fests. Most people keep forgetting that nine times out of ten we are talking about elite level teams, like Chicago, Houston, or New York, and not Golden State, Dallas, or Milwaukee. Also, even when the rules did moderately change, the defenses have actually gotten better and a bit more complicated and exotic. While, also continuing to post up record setting numbers of points allowed per game, especially San Antonio. In the last 15 years or so, I've seen some great defensive teams on the court and remember this is with all the special rules being geared to helping offenses. I laughed at the comment that was made about there not being a thing known as defensive specialists or primary 3 pointers. They existed, but there weren't as many as there are now. As I've mentioned like a broken record, before the 80s, especially only had about 4-6 really good teams (total), 4-7 mediocre teams, and rest of them were horrible. Both conferences were littered with teams under .500 with decent playoff seed, especially in the West. I think people keep forgetting how bad the West was from about 1980-87. Though, I think everyone was infatuated with the league's top-level teams, Lakers and Celtics.

Now, the game actually has parity for many reasons, one I believe is because there's more talent in the league, now. Given that game has expanded internationally and even in this country, alone has to count for something. Players much better conditioned now, OVERALL (LEAGUE AS A WHOLE, not just STAR PLAYERS).


The mid-range game is good point to bring up, but there's a few problems, alot of posters are forgetting. Joe Joe pointed it out, teams are now are more geared and better able to shut down mid-range shooters, which means having guys who can get to rim are alot more important in today's game than it was then, because the quality of centers has gone down. So, you have to have someone to get to the basket. Posters will say its, because the rules benefit players now. But in reality, there weren't quite as many point guards, like Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, Tony Parker, and Chris Paul (pre-injury). I'll even throw in guards, Penny Hardaway, Michael Carter-Williams, or Michael Ray Richardson, point guards are not supposed to be able to play above rim, like that. I think in a few years, most point guards will easily be 6,4-6,6 and have explosive leaping ability. Great breakaway speed and excellent leaping ability. Also, the amount of free throw attempts topped out in the late 90s and early 2000s. So, it's fallacy to say more fouls are being called as an empty statement. Because, players were getting alot of free throw attempts in the past.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/fta_top_10.html

 

Technology.

Players have always flopped, but with the ability to capture plays, we're more exposed to it.

Rule changes will be constantly tinkered with to appease viewership.

Skills/Fundamentals is heavily influenced by making highlights.

It's no coincidence that we have more and more GM's looking at players through the prism of analytics with the progress in computation.

The changes in way the game is played and the changes in the way the game is followed is technology driven, imo.

 

Depends on what era "Yesteryear" is referring to. If were talking about the 90's and early 00's compared to today, the 3 obvious differences are (all caused by rule changes):

1) League is a lot more perimeter oriented
2) Increase in 3pt shooting
3) Less physical (curtailing of hand-checking, defensive 3 seconds etc..)

Athleticism, Basketball IQ, Defense and Offense complexity arguments are all subjective.

Athleticism = Seeing Duncan, Dirk, Marion, Ginobilli competing and still dominating your average players in this league at their age really does not convince me that today's NBA is a lot more athletic than the 90's. It doesn't stick out to me. You can perhaps say they are better conditioned with the increase in sports science, but the 90's and early 00's were already quite advanced in maximizing the athleticism of individuals.

Basketball IQ = Saying that today's average player or Yesteryear's average player's basketball IQ is also subjective. When i compare, that doesn't stick out as a difference.

Defense and Offense complexity = Saying today's defense and offense complexity compared to Yesteryear's (90's and 00's) is also very subjective. In the 90's and 00's, the complexity of defensive and offense schemes were already very advanced in relation to their rules. It got to a point where the team's were cheating especially on the defensive end which made scoring in the league difficult and at historical lows. This prompted the league to make several major changes in the rules with the objective and to open up the game and to increase scoring for spectators.

Today, we can see scoring is increasing, pace is increasing, teams are starting to adopt the 3ball, more guard penetration just as what the rule changes were intended to do....but has teams in the league got to a point where their schemes are maximized to take advantage of today's rules? Or are they in some ways still stuck in the old way of thinking?

 

[rQUOTEr]Charles Oakley: Current NBA is 'hard to watch'

The NBA isn't what it used to be. Just ask Charles Oakley.

Oakley was honored by the Raptors on Friday, but the power forward who also played for Chicago, New York, Washington and Houston in a career that stretched from 1985-2004 had little good to say about today's game.

"Who do I like watching? It's hard to watch," he said. "I don't know, it's just, it's a different game. It's some good games and a lot of bad games. More bad games than good games these days."

Oakley, who had a brief stint as an assistant in Charlotte from 2010-11, said that experience informed his perspective.

"Everybody says the game has changed, instead of talking about the guys I got a chance to see 'em first hand," he said. "It was kind of bad."

Oakley -- who knew a thing or two about toughness during his playing days -- said, in part, players' mindsets have changed.

"The mind is not -- you don't have to be strong to play this game no more," he said.

"I don't know what it is. They just roll you out there like a basketball. That's why ... you see the same teams in the finals or winning 55 games. Strong teams, strong-minded coach. Just the players, they don't think it, they don't know how to play together," he said. "So that's one of things I see the weakness is: Communication, the guys don't love the game. They play the game, but they don't play with their heart."

http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/0...akley-says-current-nbaers-dont-love-the-game/[/rQUOTEr]

 

Oakley could help toughen us up in Houston. I would like to see him as an assistant coach with the Rockets.

 

I don't pay much attention to former players commenting how bad "today's NBA" is. Every old man thinks the current generation is not as good as theirs.

 

Programmers nowadays are so spoiled and lack fundamentals. They are too focused on the glamour of fancy UIs/UXs running on today's latest gadgets. They aren't as good as us old school guys who had to write in assembly on 8086's with 640 kbs of RAM.

 

Overall athleticism has definitely increased, especially in terms of speed. This is especially true of guards, namely point guards. Centers not so much. Looking back at film of Hakeem or even Ewing in their prime makes me realize how athletic and versatile bigmen could be.

It seems every other team has a point guard who is a blur and impossible to stay in front when guarding (especially when picks are involved).

Three point shooters have improved tremendously.

Midrange game has deteriorated big-time. Post-game has somewhat deteriorated as well. Big dominant centers used to be able to win games via brute sheer force on both ends of the floor. Not quite as much anymore.

Rules which used to favor hard-nosed physical basketball has morphed into a more touch-foul league, as Stern attempted to make the game more aesthetically appealing to the masses.

What used to be a good hard foul in the 90's is now a guaranteed flagrant today.

Free throws are so ridiculously over-awarded these days that many players with atrocious shooting percentages still are able to have a dominant and "efficient" output on offense.

Back in the day you had superstars who shot well and got to the line a lot - Jordan, Shaq, Grant Hill, etc.

Now you see a lot of Westbrook and Rose type players, though you still have guys like LeBron and Durant who fit the old mold.

 

no hand-checking helps this, too, and lack of great centers guarding the paint as well. but we could say no illegal defense offsets that. Speaking of which, I'll say that team defense has made huge strides.

btw: I'm surprised "Use of Three Pointers" isn't in the poll. That's a huge difference; imo, this is a sign of how drafting 3 and D players has helped defense. The three has given them a bigger role, and helped land them roles on more teams.

 

Oakley has it right...ask any of the retired players, they are the ones that should know.

Today's game is laughable compared to "yesteryear" in terms of physicality. Things they consider "flagrant" today were just good hard fouls in the not too distant past.

There isn't a single player today who could begin to guard Wilt. He could easily surpass his old scoring records today. People marvel at Westbrook..*ell Oscar averaged a triple double...before the rules were changed to help the offence.

Its a different game and players, coaches, GM's, all adapt to what they think fans want to see and what the rules will allow.

 

... and they never heard of punch cards!

 

LeBron ruined the league


now every basketball player wants to be tatted up head to toe, dont have a jump shot(john wall), and never wants to take on a challenge.. winning a ring the right way

 

To the people who don't think athletes are more athletic today, just take a look at the world records for track and field. I'm not going to type each event, because it will take too long, but these are the years the world record was set in each track and field event:


2009
2009
1999
2012
1999
1998
1999
1999
1996
2004
2005
2010
2010
2007
2010
2010
2007
2011
2011
2012
2014
2014
1998
2004
2012
1992
1993
2014
1991
1994
1990
1986
1986
1996
2012
2008
2000
1994
2007
2008
2015
1992
1992
2011
2014
2012
2014
1993
2006
2014
2005




32 records set from 2000 to now.

17 records set in the 90's.

2 records still stand from the 80's.

0 records from before that.





And those are the top athletes. So yes, overall, even the top athletes have improved, although some of the top athletes from the recent past (like the 90's) are comparable to now.



But the real area where athleticism has increased isn't at the top. The best of the best from the 90's to now are comparable. But the real increase has come in terms of quantity.

There are many MORE athletically skilled players competing now compared to in the past. From top to bottom, there is more athleticism in sports.

 

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