BRAND was a beast it was sickening to see THOMAS in front of him . .Marion on his back and Diaw in the lane waiting for him . . . AND HE DIDN'T EVEN HAVE THE FRICKING BALL Pheonix should have been called for Defensive 3 seconds so many times it was sinful . . .. but as I say . .it comes down to how the series is called Rocket River
The fact that the NBA had to take such drastic measures to get these guys to play "watchable" basketball again simply points to the fact that there is STILL a talent/skill gap in the NBA today, vs. the NBA 15 years ago. Now, perhaps the new rules will help create players with games that are more tailored to it... and thus, skills such as shooting, dribbling, and SPEED will become much more valued than simple size alone. But, that's a caveat that didn't have to be made 20 years ago, and you still produced exciting players, and exciting games. Simply put... the NBA went thru a talent dearth (which happens every now and then), and they overreacted to try and speed up the game again, instead of just letting the new stars find themselves, and open up the game naturally.
If three people are focused on Brand, that leaves at least two teammates who should be wide open. If the Clippers can't get those guys the ball, that's their problem. It rewards teams that are good all-around, rather than just having one good player. It's why a team like Dallas with depth all over the place can beat a team like the Spurs, who's top three are probably better than Dallas' top three. As a fan of ball movement and team play instead of isolation basketball, I love that.
Diaw is valuable because he plays in a better, more creative system than Duncan. If you traded Diaw for Duncan on the Spurs, do you think they are nearly as good? If not, he's not as valuable.
Which is what the NBA's goal was... only once the individual players that the league was producing WEREN'T GOOD ENOUGH to carry/dominate a game on their own, night-in and night-out. Before Jordan, it was a pre-requisite that you should be able to hit open shots, pass when you're covered, make the easy play every time, and exploit defenses that take away your bread-and-butter.... nobody ever questioned these skill-sets in NBA players, unless you were a huge big-man with no atleticism. But MJ came over, and as Simmons said, made it seem pretty damn easy to flat-out take over games by yourself (which wasn't easy for anybody but him), make money and win championships, and it produced a whole slew of guys who attempted to do the same thing in HS, college, and once they got to the pros. Now, the superstar HS player thinks he's Jordan, doesn't develop his game much in the 2 years of college he plays, and comes into the NBA where he suddenly realizes that he won't be as good as Jordan... and because of his previous "non-development", he can't even be a solid role-player because he doesn't know how to play team basketball. As I said before... the new rules should help these kids continue to learn how to shoot, pass, and not try to become the star... its just sad that they had to "force" this by enforcing rules/changing the way the game is called, rather than it happening on its own (then again, it may not have ever happened on its own).
It is only better and more creative because of all of the rule changes. If they still had hand checking and illegal defense, is there any way that the Suns could have beaten the Clippers? I think not. Would Dallas be able to beat the Spurs? more likely, but probably still at a disadvantage. Thus, Diaws value stems from the rule changes, because the "better, more creative sytem" stems from the rule changes. The NBA has decided that they want a game that is besed entirely on guard play and outside shooting, and Dallas and Phoenix are in a position to take advantage of that. They might as well outlaw shotblocking and rebounding while they are at it though.
Detroit wins with rebounding and shotblocking, so it doesn't appear that the rules negate that style of play. Besides which, the league has been making rule changes since the start of the NBA. Everything from zone defenses to adding a 3 point shot to moving the line around, etc.
Does that come with a hatred of GOOD MAN TO MAN DEFENSE? Basically . . IMO . .this is a rule changes to limited the defensive ability of players. . .then . . . . cover for the weak defensive players . . basically This is the NBA version of every touch by the cornerback is Pass interference. you basically eviserate defense totally . . If you just want a shooting contest and lay up drills well .. that ain't fun either Rocket River esp since you gonna allot the three players on brand the hack him to hell
I think people forget that players have become much quicker and able to cover the floor is smaller and smaller amounts of time - making defense much better. It's not that Johnny can't shot, it's that in today's NBA, being a great shooter isn't enough....you have to be a phenomenal athlete capable of playing tremendous defense and possesing extra quickness. Those attributes are a premium, and the level of physical play as increased so heavily that combined with superior defenses you're going to see miss shots. I think the rule changes were necessary to reflect this dynamic change to give back to the offensive players and neutralize the quality of defenses. This will help increase the value of an offensive player with mediocre defense skills and lower the values of a fantastic defender with mediocre offensive skills (ala Bruce Bowen), thus shifting the game toward higher scoring.
Sure - I have no problem with help defense. The price you pay for having bad individual defenders is that you have to help, which leaves other people open. If the other team can't take advantage of that, that their problem. You're still better off with good individual defenders than not.
But not with the rebounders and shotblockers that we used to see in the NBA. They have the 6'9" lanky rebounders and shotblockers like Tayshawn Prince, Ben Wallace and Antonio McDyess, not the Patrick Ewing, David Robinson hold down the paint types. Even with that, they aren't really a very good rebounding team, in fact they are in the bottom third in the regular season and the middle of the pack in the postseason. The closest the Pistons come to a classic center is Rasheed Wallace, which is quite a long way from a classic center. The rules encourage this because the one thing above all else they are designed to take away from is a back to the basket post game. Of the four teams left in the playoffs, three have their primary big man scorers as jumpshooters, and the fourth has Shaq playing second fiddle to DWade.
I'll agree that players are bigger and stronger today... but to say that they're still as fundamentally sounds as the players who entered this league 20 years ago is being a bit too optimistic. I still see plenty of missed wide-open shots that were a given to go in way back when... I also still see players try to shoot over three individuals (simply because they're the "star"), rather than try to make the simple pass, easy play, and get the basket. (this is also a product of the mass media that exists today, where scoring makes you more big bucks than actually winning... they're as much a culprit as anyone in promoting BAD basketball). I agree what you said about the rule changes... and I agree somewhat that it almost had to be done... I just wish that some of these players coming in (who are bigger, faster, stronger than the players 20 years ago) would also posses the skills to play good team basketball, without basically being given an "order" to do so by above. Who knows... in 20 years, the late 90's, early 2000's basketball may simply be known as the "dead-ball" era... the game will be unrecognizable, and skinny white guys will rule the game again.
I think the new rules are bringing back the midrange game. There is a whole new generation of players shooting the 10-15 footers, and that needed to happen. Before it was all low post or 3 pointer.......the midrange game was only a select few like Sam I am .....now, there are many players shooting from that distance, and it is helping a lot. DD
Perhaps that's due to the players and not the rules? Even if the rules were different, who do you project to be dominant big men in the league? 15 years ago, you didn't have a lot of players with the size and range of Rasheed Wallace - how many players did you have with the size to play inside but the shooting to play outside? That's part of the new generation of athletes.
Those players existed, but the rules did not make them so valuable. Sam Perkins was a big man that liked to stay outside and shoot jumpers, and he had a long career as a journeyman. Donyell Marshall, same deal. Back then, it was suicide to have your big men floating around the three point line unless you had a post up guard that was fulfilling the same purpose for which other teams were using their bigs. Having a bunch of guards running around like the Suns was a no-win gimmick offense that only a guy like Don Nelson would run. How many NBA finalists in the '90s didn't have a back to the basket post game? How many that also didn't have Jordan?
But it was suicide because a Sam Perkins wasn't going to be able to guard an Olajuwon or Karl Malone or whatnot, and had no inside game (unlike a Rasheed Wallace). Where do you see that 1990's type of inside player these days? I'm saying that's its not as much the rules that are causing the shift to the outside shooting big men, but the fact there aren't that many dominant low post players these days, no matter what the rules. It's just one of those phases the NBA goes through. Players like Yao, current older Shaq, J Oneal, etc just aren't in the same class as Robinson, Olajuwon, Ewing, young Shaq, etc - no matter what the rules are. The guys in that class (Duncan may be the only one right now) do just fine with the current rules.
People who complain that the zone rule somehow contaminates the purity of man defense need to be reminded that the "purest" basketball game did not have the illegal defense rule. Why is good man defense the ONLY acceptable form of good defense? Why can't a good zone defense be appreciated as good fundamental basketball? It's like saying that the only acceptable good shot is the face up jump shot.
Maybe the players are not in that class anymore because of the rules. Yao looks totally dominant against teams that cover him with a single defender and waits to send a double until he puts the ball on the floor. The reason he looks like less than a Ewing is because he almost always has a guard in his lap while his man is behind him. Of course the big men of today look worse, because the rules are designed to make them that way. Even Duncan does not seem as dominant on offense as he was under the old rules. In addition to hurting inside play, the rules increase the effectiveness of perimeter play. That makes the relative value of a post player drop even more. A dominant center is always going to have some value, but in the past, a team would not count a matchup as even if they are sending Brad Miller or Boris Diaw against Yao.
I'm pretty sure we would all LOVE the new rules, if we didn't have a team that is pretty much based around a young player that would have been DOMINANT with the old rules. Yao WOULD have ended up changing the game, had the NBA still had illegal defenses, and not amped up the ticky-tack stuff. He would have been allowed to post-up from the get-go, fronting defenses wouldn't have had a shot, and when they did double team him... his supreme passing skills would have made the highlights almost every night. Taking it one step further... nobody even realized that the new rules neutralized the big man, until they saw how it was able to contain a 7'6 bohemith, who had amazing range/touch around the basket, and was a pretty hard target to miss. But, alas, the rules changed... and the new and improved Yao has adapted to become a 26-27 ppg scorer, which is extremely good, but not as amazing as it could have been.
