Exactly he crushed all those guys badly. The only one on par was Shaq bc of size not skill and yes the dream shake was unreal. He needed drexler to win championships but carried some bad teams. Haven't watched since the 2000s.
Interesting Question for NBA fans...
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20 years ago? You've got to be kidding. It's been at least 30.
I believe it. Nobody can watch videos of pre-1980s hoops and tell me that players of the past were better. They just weren't Look at this basketball footage from the 1950s
St. John's was undefeated and looks like a bad high school team. It's just not comparable to basketball today.
LeBron does everything Magic does only better. And I'll take Kevin Durant over Bird every single day of the week.
I know it's not apples to apples but if you put 2007 LeBron stats in the NBA in 1985 here's how he stacks up:
Points - 2nd
Rebounds - 20th
Assists - 12th
Steals - 13th
Usage - 2nd
Win shares - 1st
Plus/Minus - 1st
VORP - 1st
That’s my guess too/
The floor spacing is going to hurt the true post players
80s would be a good game based on skill level
80’s or 90’s. Both had iconic players who hated to lose and played as a team. The 80’s was beautiful to watch..,
I think that’s some nostalgia kicking in
40 years ago I hated nostalgia. Now I kind of like it. I might as well admit it.
He won the first one without Drexler. Shooting guard for that first championship over Penny and Shaq was Vernon Maxwell. But that second championship team was pretty stacked with Hakeem and Drexler plus guys like Sam Cassell, Robert Horry, Kenny Smith, and Otis Thorpe.
Yeah, he says that. But he's being an old man yelling for the kids to get off his lawn.
John Paxson had seasons where he shot over 40% on threes. The 60-61 Celtics won the NBA championship while shooting 39.8% from the field. Hall of Famer Bob Cousy shot 37.1% that season (and 37.5% for his career). Hall of Famer KC Jones shot 33.8% that season (and 38.7% for his career). Hell, Hall of Famer Bill Russel, as a center, shot 42.6% that year (and 44.0% for his career).
The notion that in a league where the Hall of Famers shot the ball like that a guy who could shoot like John Paxson wouldn't have been able to make a team is ridiculous. Put him on the championship winning 60-61 Celtics and he is the best shooter on the team. And whomever was second best wouldn't have even been close.
There are few statements more BS than an athlete saying "these new guys are nothing like the old ones!"
Bill Russell got to play in an era where his height was remarkable. There were, what, 3 seven footers in the entire league and 2 of them could barely even play basketball? GTFOH disrespecting a guy like Paxson who played for 11 years as an average height guard with below average athleticism. That's a baller.
Now, Russell would be eye to eye with several guards and wings. He'd have to guard Embiid starting at the 3P line. Not saying that Russell wouldn't still be great if he played today, but comparing the level of competition of 1960 NBA to 2021 is like comparing Mario Golf to the US Open at Pebble Beach.
I found Kevin Garnett's attitude really refreshing.
Kevin Garnett says players from his generation couldn't play in the modern NBA
Wow, actual praise for the current NBA from a former player
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I found Kevin Garnett's attitude really refreshing.
Kevin Garnett says players from his generation couldn't play in the modern NBA
Wow, actual praise for the current NBA from a former player
I always try to assume normalizing weight training across generations, since that didn't get professionalized in most sports until the late 1970s or early 1980s, and nutrition (1990s or even later). And just because certain strategies - like taking open 3s instead of contested 2s, or running the spread offense in football - didn't exist in prior generations that those things couldn't be learned or used by earlier players.
Generally, I strongly believe that the truly great players would be great in any generation. But if someone is going to disrespect the talent of a non-star contributor, that only flows in one direction and it's the opposite direction that Russell thinks.
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Yes, this, absolutely. A guy like Bill Russell with modern training and everything that comes with it is still a great player. But the depth of talent today is vastly superior to what it was 20 or 30 years ago, and even more so when talking about the 60s when Russell was at his peak.
Yeah especially when it comes to big men. I can remember all of the unathletic stiffs who rode the bench as the 2nd and 3rd centers in the 80s and 90s. There was a role for those guys because anyone over 6'10" was a rarity and big men didn't need to play away from the basket. That's been the biggest change over the last 25 years...the lack of back to the basket post play and the emergence of guys 6'10" and up who can shoot from long range. Truthfully I preferred it the old way where the center matchups took top billing.
This, absolutely. A dude like JaVale McGee probably would have been an All Star in the 90s or earlier. Now he's merely a nice reserve.
Yeah, almost everyone on the court today can shoot the basketball. And that certainly wasn't true in the past. As I said, you had Hall of Famers from back in the day who shot in the mid to high 30% range for their careers. Now, you would want those guys to be shooting percentages like that (if not better) from three, not on all their shots.
There are 129 players so far this year with enough shot attempts to qualify for the shooting percentage league leaders. Cousy's 37.1% from 60-61 is better than exactly one of them. Jones' 33.8% would be in last place, by a mile. Even Russell's 42.6% would have him tied with Lonzo Ball for 109th. And he was a center!
That's also why rebound numbers were so much higher in earlier eras. Lot of bad shooting lol.
A few years ago I read an article by a retired baseball player downplaying a current player. The article removed the names so you had to guess who it was. All the answers were off by about 50 years. It was Ty Cobb talking about Joe DiMaggio. Some things never change.
You guys are taking this too literally. I don't think there is any way in the world a team of guys from the 60s, just as they were, could beat today's players. Things evolve so much, you can only compare players to their contemporaries. I think the best players from the 60s and 80s were much more dominant than the guys today are against their competition. That's all.
Heck, if 1920s Babe Ruth showed up today, he'd probably be put on waivers. Or at least not be allowed out of sight of a strength and conditioning coach.
This is the general long term trend, sure.
But you can't put it down to a decade always being better than the one previous to it especially when two go up against each other. Overall I'd put the 60s above the 70s. Give me Wilt, Russell, Elgin, Jerry, Oscar over the NBA/ABA dark years of cocaine, with Kareem bravely trying to carry the torch of good basketball. Or I'd probably take an 80s all star team over a 90s one.
But non-adjoining ones, sure. At that point the gap is too big.
Though they're better shooters and ball handlers, players aren't just getting bigger though. The peak height of the NBA was 1986 and has declined about 2" since. Not sure about standing reach though, probably declined only 1" or maybe even a little less. Overall today's players are more skilled and analytically savvy, but there are certain skills (fake passes and post play come to mind) that have declined.
Another Russell quote, talking about his rebounding records: "you only get those one at a time.".
I guess he doesn't respect scoring records since the start of the 3 point shot. But yes, bad shooting numbers lead to good rebounding numbers.
Bill Russell (among others) certainly does think that. That's kind of what this whole discussion is about.
I don't know Russell any better than I know SMF. I heard him say some things to Jordan where I thought he was just poking him. I'm not sure how serious he actually was.
But even if you assume he was just joking (and I'm not sure why you would), we have seen so many former athletes say the exact same kinds of things where they clearly are not joking.
That's what makes the Garnett quotes from above so different. Most former players don't think that way.
I didn't read it, I saw it on tv. He was chuckling, so I don't know how serious he was. But I know a lot of former players think that way, that's why I mentioned the Ty Cobb story.
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