If you believe that handchecking doesn't impede a player then you definitely didn't watch the games back then. When they changed the rules to outlaw handchecking, the NBA explicitly named Derek Harper as an example and included videos of how he prevented guys from moving. I can provide tons of quotes where former players say how hard it was to move around the court due to hand checking but you'll just say that they are biased. Sweeping your hands into a guy that reaches works under the current rules because you can't touch.. In the days of legal handchecks you don't get that call. There was all kind of contact that was allowed that isn't allowed today. Do you know why guys usually turned their back when being handchecked? It's because that was the best chance to deal with the handcheck. Steph Curry might like to face up today but if a big guard has his hand on his hip he's not going to be able to do anything. He'd do the same thing and turn his back. That at least gives you the opportunity to spin away from the handcheck. You seem to believe that Steph Curry is a great athlete. He's got tremendous ball skills and he's the best shooter ever but he's not a great athlete. Regardless, the old rules allowed big strong guys to negate athleticism. There were plenty of freak athletes in prior decades who's athleticism was neutralized by the rules. The perfect example was Darrel Griffith. He was Dr. Dunkenstein with his 48 inch vertical and he had difficulty getting to the rim. There were guys that still went to the rim but they had to be able to take the punishment that they were going to receive. That's the amazing thing about Jordan, the Piston inflicted more punishment on him than anyone in the history of the game and he never stopped going to the rim. Steph Curry isn't really know for his durability. Who bowled over Rodman? Can you show me some cases of bigger guys overpowering him? In the '95 WCF, Hakeem torched Robinson but Rodman gave him trouble. Hakeem still scored because he was ungardable but if you watch the video, Hakeem didn't overpower Rodman. Hakeem mostly scored on dreamshakes and shots at the foul line. If Olajuwon could have overpowered Rodman then he would have. Here's Rodman defending both Barkley and Olajuwon. Do you see him getting overpowered? Barkley was famous for being able to back much larger players down under the hoop. He couldn't do that to Rodman. Also, take a look at the type shots that Hakeem is taking vs Rodman. He isn't overpowering him. Rodman was famous for being able to guard Shaq. O'Neil is probably the most unstoppable forces in the history of the game and Rodman was very effective against him. Not only didn't Shaq overpower Rodman, he was forced out farther than he was confortable on offense. Rodman was a famous Shaq stopper, there's lots of videos. Do you see Rodman getting overpowered? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6FcGH_jRTU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCX2bEBPABQ How about body builder Karl Malone? Rodman was really good against him too. Even though Malone was incredibly strong he couldn't overpower Rodman. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOMvw7vC2bI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWwI1_8WEco https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOMvw7vC2bI There's multiple examples of Rodman playing against super strong guys and holding his own during an era where physicality was at it's highest. If the idea that Rodman was strong is so ridiculous then it should be easy to provide some evidence to the contrary. See what you can come up with. As I've said, Rodman was incredibly quick, he was relentless and he was strong enough to battle the big men down low. He was also crazy and I'm sure that was a bit unsettling for opponents. You really didn't know what he was going to do. Players are going to adapt to the rules and do whatever will make them the most successful. The modern game favors speed and athleticism. The old rules favored size and strength. Any player trying to play under a different set of rules would be at a severe disadvantage. You're talking about two very different games that required different skills.
I was really confused by this too, they may not have seen Rodman play really. Rodman is one of the greatest defenders to ever play the game and he was incredibly strong. Few could "bowl him over" and if it ever appeared that way, he was probably just pulling the chair out from under them.
Y’all need to move this bish to the dish. Ain’t no one trying to hear about Rodman’s crazy ass right now James Harden is cooking up some black eye peas for the Grizzlies
Sorry, Rodman is my 2nd favorite player all time after Hakeem. His game being disparaged is a trigger for me.
I remember Derek Harper in a recent interview talking about the 1994 NBA Finals, and talking about how he and the other Knicks thought before the Finals started about how the Rockets were "soft". Well, "soft", I guess.....when you grab and hold as much as did the Knicks, sure. But I would have said, "OK, but which team won the championship, the soft team or the 'headlock' team?" Although I think the series would have been won by the same team in 5 or 6 games if the opponent hadn't been allowed to bring crowbars to the match.
I like Dennis as well, but we’re talking about the greatest of all time manipulating teams into losses in a various different ways.
This about it this way, for every 2 feet a ball goes further from the rim, there is 6.25 more feet to box out on the arc from baseline to baseline (2mr/2) - so if you have 20% of missed shots going and extra few feet that's a lot of opportunity for a guard to sneak in and grab a rebound. For the balls that fall 5 feet from the rim you only have to box out 16 feet on the arc which 3 guys can do. But at 7 feet, that grows to 22 feet and lets guards slip through more. Yes most of the rebounds still fall short, but the fact that so many do go 6, 7, 8, and even 9 feet out if a big guy is boxing out at 3 or 4 ft the ball can go over their head and you see that happen a lot. It's unfortunate they don't have rebounding distance for earlier eras, that's what you'd really need to prove this out. But increasing distance of a shot will increase the rebound distance and height. Ok it's hard to separate without the defensive 3 sec but since the discussion is around how a player like Curry would do in the past era, you're right to exclude it. The Rockets are a bad example because they are built like the modern basketball team. They had Olajuwon and 4 3 point shooters. That team would be able to hang a lot better with the Warriors. But Olajuwon had to follow Perkins out - otherwise it would be an illegal defense - if you take away the defensive 3 sec, you have to put the illegal defenses back in. I remember that was a problem for Olajuwon against Seattle. They did switch him onto Kemp though - after Perkins burned them. But I also remember that Kemp could get Olajuwon in foul trouble. With the prior version of the Rockets with Otis Thorpe would have problems though - because with 2 big men that could be exploited by 4 guys who can shoot 3's. So how would teams with 2 big men guard the Warriors? Would they camp on guy in the paint? How would Thorpe guard? And you forget that guys like Curry are extremely quick off the dribble. The contact isn't going to stop him. And I think that's where we fundamentally disagree. Let me ask you this: how do you think Allen Iverson - who wasn't know for a great jump shot - how did he score so much at the hole in half court steps? He was not a big guy nor very strong. But he was quick as heck and if Iverson could get through handchecks without having a great J that opponents had to respect, I'm confident Curry could too.
Yeah, all of the current technology is great but it doesn't go back historically, It's understandable, but frustrating at times. Some of the stats go back farther than others but it always seems like when I'm looking for something historically that it ends up being a category that only goes back 5 to 10 years. If you go back and read the two articles that I previously posted, you'll see that their analysis says that the shot distance doesn't effect the rebound distance. You are operating under an incorrect assumption. That's what I was pointing out by posting those two articles. I'm sure if those two analysis are incorrect and you're assumption is correct then someone has done that analysis and come to the same conclusion. See if you can find one. If you can't then I thnk that should tell you something. I don't believe that you fully understand the old illegal defense rules. The rules were to prevent teams from doubling a player without the ball. Here's some things that you may not be aware of. - You could do whatever you wanted on the strong side of the ball. The rule was that a player without the ball couldn't be double teamed by a WEAK SIDE defender. If the offense had two players on the strong side, then you could double the guy without the ball. That's why you so often saw 4 guys on the weak side. - If your man went to the weak side, then you (the defender) also had to go to the weak side. The weakside defender was allowed to come all the way to the 16' lane mark but could not be inside the 12' lane mark. - If you are on the weak side and your man went above the circle, you didn't have to follow him but you also couldn't be below the foul line. What would end up happeningis that teams would pull their bigs way out front and their defenders would camp at the free throw line. Those defenders at the foul line were free to double the ball but once they started to double, they couldn't stop. That turned into a game of 1 guy in isolation and he's trying to either force those guys at the foul line to double (and then you hoped you could hit their uncovered man cutting) or that they'd start to double and then stop and go back to cover their man and that would be an illegal defense call. The point of that is that Olajuwon didn't have to follow Perkins out to the 3 point line. If Perkins had the ball then you were perfectly free to leave him ungarded, there was no rule against it. If Perkins didn't have the ball and was on the strong side then you didn't have to follow him, you could do whatever you wanted to do. If Perkins was on the weakside, then Olajuwon (or any other big man) only had to go to the FT line. For most any center, it wasn't difficult to get over and cut off a drive if you were camped at the FT line. For Hakeem, it was especially easy because of his athleticism. Olajuwon guarded Kemp really well in the half court. Kemp would just elevate over most players to get his shot off. He couldn't do that against Hakeem. The problem that Hakeem had with Kemp is that Seattle was a very large team (6'10" Schrempf at SF and a pair of '6'5" guards that could rebound). Kemp would often allow those guys to rebound and he'd leak out on the break. That was an issue for Houston because Hakeem was obviously our primary rebounder. That meant when Seattle was able to secure a rebound that one of our guards or Ellie was going to have to try and pick up Kemp in transition where he was a force.. I'm his younger days, Hakeem tried to block every shot and often got in foul trouble. By the '90s, he was older and wiser and would pick and choose which shots to go after. He really didn't get into much foul trouble in the '90s. That and he just got smarter about how to play with fouls once he got 4 or 5. Not under the old rules. As I pointed out above, you couldn't pull guys out more than the foul line. Also, if we're talking about GSW, they usually don't have 4 guys that can shoot 3s on the floor. They have Curry and Thompson who are elite all-time 3 point shooters and Durant who is a good 3 point shooter. After that they don't really have that much 3 point shooting. In big moments usually two of Draymond, Looney and Iggy are on the floor. Teams are more than happy to leave them open. When Cousins returns, I think you see teams leave him uncovered beyond the arc and allow him to launch all the shots that he wants until he proves that he's making his shots that day. If you're talking about their normal lineup, then Olajuwon guards Looney and Thorpe guards Green. If you go to the death lineup then one guards Green and one guards Iggy. The more interesting question to ask about that hypothetical time travel matchup is who guards Olajuwon and Thorpe inside for GSW? Quckness is great under todays rules. Under the old rules, big guards would rough up Curry. Curry's a pretty frail guy. If a Gary Payton or Derek Harper is allowed to hold and grab him, he's not going by anyone. Iverson didn't score a large number of his points at the rim and much of what he did score at the rim was on transition. Sure there's some highlights of times he flashed open and crossed guys over and then drove but that didn't happen that much. Iverson scored his points by playing huge minutes and taking a ton of shots. He was incredibly inefficient. He was incredibly athletic and strong for his size but he was the king of the crazy contested shots from all over the floor. In Iverson's MVP season (2001 I believe his TS% was 51%. So, to answer your question, Iverson's secret to scoring was Volume, Volume, Volume. Iverson actually averaged 27.8 FG/G one season. That's 3.8 more attempts per game than Westbrook has ever attempted. Think about that.
I once sat next to a Nike Executive that knew Michael Jordan pretty well on a flight to London. I asked him to tell me some stories about MJ, and other athletes that he dealt with. He said that MJ told him that Rodman was the most freakish athlete he ever met. The guy would party all night, not get any sleep, and show up to practice or a game and dominate everyone.
I haven't read any of these really long posts but if y'all are talking about how Harden would have fared in other era's ... then I think it's easy enough to point out that Harden's biggest strength is , well his strength. He would have been just as great . His game translates
Couple of things - on rebounding I did read the analysis but found it flawed. The analysis I looked at only looked at shots taken from 15-17 feet I believe and looked at the difference there. But that assuming there is a linear relationship which there isn't. The difference in velocity the ball has when it hits the rim is very small compared from 15 to 17 feet. So things like arc and the shooter will have more impact and the noise will cut out the difference. But the difference between a 15 foot jumped and a 22 foot jumper is significant. First of all, a 3 point shot is likely to have a flatter trajectory than a 15 foot jumper. The flatter the shot the more likely it's going to rebound far since it has more horizontal velocity than vertical. So the 3 point shot is moving faster and it's flatter - so if they did the analysis with 3 point shots I think it would have come out a lot differently. Just looking at that narrow of a range is a bad way too look at the data. And we know that there are a lot lot more 3 point shots now than mid-range. Second earlier you said that the reason guards get more rebounds now is because there are less big men. But that contradicts your earlier statement around rebounding being around positioning and not how high you can jump using the 6'7" Dennis Rodman as an example. You can't have it both ways - which one is it? On illegal defenses - I concede it's just not my expertise - I never understood the damn rules around it. I just know that Perkins gave us fits because he'd get those wide open jumpers. And Thorpe had some trouble on both ends of the court against that team. It's hard to remember though as it was over 20 years ago ya know. But I don't think Derek Harper would out muscle Curry. Curry is one inch shorter and 5 lbs heavier than Harper. If anything Curry is stronger than Harper and would be able to get past him. And he's has a bigger advantage over Payton. Today's guards are stronger and heavier, and while Curry may look slight and weak in today's NBA, that's not true when you go back to the 90's where he would have the advantage over those guys - being both a bit stronger and definitely quicker. **looking at historic NBA data, the 2013 season matches the 1993-94 season closely. It was after that 94-95 season that scoring, shooting, and pace started to drop to record lows in 98-99. The NBA rule changes didn't improve shooting percentage - in fact they dropped until the 2003-2004 season. The game was had low pace, low shooting, and low points - below even mid-90's. It appears that zone defenses initially had a negative impact on offenses. With the hand-checking rules being removed in 2004-2005 there was some marginal changes - but the more dramatic change was in pace from changing the shot clock resets on fouls to only 14s. Shooting didn't improve to mid-90's level until 2010 and 2014. Then scoring exploded. So it doesn't seem that hand-checking had the dramatic impact everyone is claiming.,
You're misreading the articles. Neither Article limits shots to any length. There's nothing in the Grantland article that mentions any limitations on shot length. In fact, if you watch the videos in the article they are all 3 point shots. In the other article, you may have been mislead because the "averages" that they showed didn't go out to 20+ feet. If you look at their formulas though (bottom of the article), you'll clearly see that they include 3 point shots. The flaw in your logic is that while you are correct that a longer shot can come off the rim at a higher speed, the difference isn't usually enough to prevent NBA players from being able to rebound it near the basket. Both articles clearly state that. The Grantland article is using the data from the SportsVU cameras. That's actual data, not an estimation. It may not make sense to you but you can't really argue with actual data. You're using size and jumping ability interchangeably but they are differentt things. Boxing out negates a great deal of jumping ability but you size is still an advantage. If you and I are standing in the lane fighting for position and you're 6 inches taller than me that's an advantage. I can have a 42 inch vertical and it's not really going to help me because I won't be able to use it because of the contact of getting position. If you have a size disadvantage, then you'll have to make it up with positioning, strength, understanding of where missed shots will go and quickness. Rodman was at a disadvantage size wise but he was strong enough to keep from getting overpowered and then used all of the other attributes that I just mentioned to corral rebounds. When Perkins was with Seattle, he averaged 11 or 12 points per game. Against Houston he averaged between 11 and 14 points. I know it seemed like he was always great against us but he was right about his average. I think the point that you're missing is that you don't have to be stronger than your opponent to impede them with a handcheck. You can slow down much stronger guys with a handcheck. We're not talking about arm wrestling. It's not equal for both guys, the defender has a huge advantage. One guy is using his hand on the other guys hip while that guy tries to dribble a basketball. That's not an equal situation. The guy using his hand has a huge advantage and all he has to do is to impede the guys progress, he doesn't have to stop him completely. It's not about who's stronger than who (even if you believe that Curry is stronger than Harper or Payton). You can be stronger than me but if I can put my hand on your hip and push you when you start trying to handle the ball and go around me, that's a huge advantage. So you just verified that scoring "dropped until the 2003-2004 season". Do you know when they outlawed handchecking ? Hand checking was outlawed starting in the 2004-2005 season. You just proved my point. Thanks. No handchecking allowed players to have space and to get to the rim. It didn't take the current players and suddenty change their skillsets. The guys in the league had skills that were favored by the old rules didn't suddenly change their game because of the rules. It was the next generation of players who came up under those rules who focused on things that the new rules benefitted. Specifically, 3 point shooting.
imo, no one is better than Jordan. But we don't have to defend that by overrated hand-checking. League has made a concerted effort to maintain a balance, but you can't just say "building a wall" with eradication of illegal defense wasn't a major piece of the balancing act. imo, that's complete disrespect to defensive coaches in the league. DRtg was not that great in Jordan's era. That was due to illegal defense and poor defenders vs the last 20 yrs. Hand-checking has little effect on the Jordans, Hardens and Lebrons, but building a wall does. btw: I can show you several Illegal Defenses (not called) by the Bad Boys "Jordan Rules" tactics. Refs were letting them cheat, much like they let Seattle double Hakeem. Also, Jordan's attacks really are in the mid-post, wing area. Hand checks are still allowed there. It was the wall being built behind Durant, Lebron and Kobe in that area that hampered them. Also, pre-Triangle, Jordan did PnR's from mid-range...even today, Harden is constantly pushed, hand-checked when going around picks. Kobe even laughs at the idea that hand-checks mattered vs building a wall between him and the basket. There's quotes of Jordan, Duncan, Garnett, Kobe all stating that...and the League ORtgs back it up.
HP, Most any player from prior era say that the handcheck rule being eliminated was huge. Go listen to the Hubie Brown video that I posted. If you disagree then fine but those guys have much more expertise than you do. There were tons of double teams that weren't called.What does that have to do with anything? George Karl had Seattle play a zone and dared the refs to call it every possession. They got away with it all but once or twice a game. That's just one other thing that made it harder to score back then, The difference was that teams were using those illegal double teams on post players, not on perimeter guys. Jordan attacked from the top of the key. Later in his career he became a great post up player but in the Jordan Rules days, he was mostly driving. Jordan didn't pick and roll much, he preferred iso because he was unguardable. You can build all the walls that you like but if none of those players can touch the offensive player he's still at an advantage. Under the old rules, all they needed to do is to impede you from getting to the rim too quickly. Hand checking provided that. If you could slow the player down then there was always going to be a double team waiting for him. Of course, under the old rules, everyone was going to get a shot in on the ball handler too. They got rid of the illegal defense rule and instituted defensive 3 seconds in the '01-02 season. Scoring didn't improve. They outlawed hand checks in the '03-04 season and scoring increased.
HP, BTW, regarding Kobe's opinons on hand checking : Bryant said that the hand-check rule that was introduced nearly a decade ago during the 2004-05 season has made it easier for less-talented players to succeed. Bryant said Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni is at least partially responsible for the shift in style of play across the league. "I like the contact," Bryant said. "As a defensive player, if you enjoy playing defense, that's what you want. You want to be able to put your hands on a guy. You want to be able to hand check a little bit. The truth is, it makes the game [where] players have to be more skillful. Nowadays, literally anybody can get out there and get to the basket and you can't touch anybody. Back then, if guys put their hands on you, you had to have the skill to be able to go both ways, change direction, post up, you had to have a mid-range game because you didn't want to go all the way to the basket because you would get knocked ass over tea kettle. So I think playing the game back then required much more skill." http://www.espn.com/los-angeles/nba...e-bryant-los-angeles-lakers-calls-nba-finesse Not sure where you got your info but that sure doesn't sound llike Kobe laughing at handchecking mattering.
Grantland article shows this - which seems to indicate that indeed distance does affect rebound distance. Also in 2004-2005 they implemented a change that fouls reset the clock only to 14 seconds that helped scoring a bit. But eliminating the hand checking rule didn't seem to impact fg very much at all. In fact, it took 10 years before efg returned to mid-90's level.
And the best part about Harden is not only is he in his prime -- where is his peak? Turns out it wasn't his MVP year, as we can see the 2018-19 version is better. Where do the improvements end? What if he keeps getting better? Unreal to even think about.
It's more complicated than that. Hand-checking was banned over a few years in the late 90's (first the back court then up to the free throw line) and then allowed back in 2001 and then banned again for good in '03-'04 - but the stats don't tell a tale that it had a major impact. Instead it appears phasing out illegal defenses in the late 90's had far more impact:
