re: How is today's NBA style of play different than 20, 25 years ago?

Two other major changes are pace and violence.

In the 80s, teams averaged over 100 possession per game. That stopped in 1990, and fell off a cliff to about 90/game in the Jordan era and beyond. We're only now climbing out of that hole, and we're up to 96/game. Still not the 80s, but better than the past two decades.

And there's a lot less fouling. Some of this is because people don't drive the lane as much. But teams committed about 25 fouls/game in the 80s, 22/game in the 90s, down to 20/game now. Also, there used to be fights, and those were awesome.