re: My nostalgia for Larry Bird- Magic Johnson era NBA basketball has reached absurd levels

quote:

---

Because you have more shooters on the floor and there is more space it's easier to attack the rim

---

This plus handchecking and rewarding any contact or flop with free throws has made offense easier/lazier than ever.

quote:

---

With analytics dominating offensive philosophy your defenses are geared toward taking away the initial 3

---

Very good observation. That was one of the things that killed the Twolves. They were very good perimeter defenders but Dallas would go old school and flatten the defense. ( that swarming Doncic also didn’t work) Once Doncic pinned a guy on his arse, it was over

quote:

---

basketball, zone defense hasn’t improved defenses at all, it’s just made an entire generation of players significantly worse at man defense and inherently lazier on the court. These boys can’t play defense more than a few feet from the rim and have no low or high post defensive skills, just hang out near the rim and pray you can alter a shot enough to get an easy rebound. Even with zone defenses you still see guards regularly drive from half court directly to the rim with no resistance. There is no variety in offensive skills today either. It’s all 3s or dunks/layups. How many guys can reliably hit a 10-14 foot jumper? And don’t give me that shite about “oh well for efficiency” yeah no that’s bullshite. You know what makes you a great player and great team? Being able to reliably score from everywhere on the court and being able to defend any part of the court.

---

quote:

---

Yea it almost killed the NBA so bad the TV ratings were more than double what they are now.

---

We’re basing this on NBA Finals ratings?

How were the 90’s gross????

And there
It is.

These guys that think the so called “ new” NBA is better are just brainwashed. They will never change their stance…

quote:

---

An analogy would be the people you’re talking about are interested in the look and color of a car while people from our generation prefer to know what’s under the hood and how it works.

---

Bingo

I’ve told the story about seeing Vince Carter as a 17 year old at a basketball camp where he was draining 3s from the timeline and I mean 80% of em, unguarded of course. Then he starts shooting them left handed and making em. You didn’t see Vince Carter doing that in the NBA even though when he was in Toronto he could’ve if he wanted to so this narrative that only just recently players became skilled and found deep range is false. Another example is Terry Mills, a little known big who went from taking 2 to 4 threes per year to taking over 400 and this was in the 90s. So this other narrative that only recently bigs learned to shoot is also false. So when you see this crap pushed by people like you know who, it’s BS they don’t actually know what they’re talking about, they’re just parroting something they heard or read somewhere.

quote:

---

I’ve told the story about seeing Vince Carter as a 17 year old at a basketball camp where he was draining 3s from the timeline and I mean 80% of em, unguarded of course. Then he starts shooting them left handed and making em. You didn’t see Vince Carter doing that in the NBA even though when he was in Toronto he could’ve if he wanted to so this narrative that only just recently players became skilled and found deep range is false. Another example is Terry Mills, a little known big who went from taking 2 to 4 threes per year to taking over 400 and this was in the 90s. So this other narrative that only recently bigs learned to shoot is also false. So when you see this crap pushed by people like you know who, it’s BS they don’t actually know what they’re talking about, they’re just parroting something they heard or read somewhere.

---

cool anecdotes. Thankfully we have a whole lot of data that says modern shooters are basically better than ever.