To be honest, I like walking being obsolete, I hate the ticky tacky walking calls in college, where the guy just barely lifted his foot early, I'd rather they ignore that
NBA Finals thoughts
- Thread starter Sean Miller Fan
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Agree to a point. But again, you have 3-4 lines of 3 players each and 6 defenseman and a goalie. Versus in BB guys like Lebron, Irving and Love can play the entire game and they may only need 3-4 other players. Crosby and Malkin play 20-22 minutes each, sometime (PP) at the same time. So they aren't always out there.
Agree. Sometimes I think they even assume some crossovers and quick moves are "walks". I guess in any sport, I hate when refs call things that really have little to no effect on the play.
Try watching a replay of an old-time basketball game. Players are much better and much more athletic now. Basketball has changed much more than baseball. Today's basketball players on the average are much better than players of the 50s, 60s, and 70s. I wouldn't say today's baseball players are better than those of 40s, 50s, 60s.
Lists are fun. Give me better players than Curry and Durant. They are transcendent stars. The best volume shooter of all time and a 7 footer who has elite guard skills.
I don't need to watch replays. Overall, players are more athletic, bigger & stronger. But guys like Wilt, Oscar, Russell, West, Baylor, etc. would be stars today.
Baseball is hard to judge because of the steroid action, but there are some pretty good players from Latin America that never had a chance back then. Mays/Mantle/Koufax/Aaron, etc. would be stars today....but their teammates, overall, were often pretty dismal players. More good players today, despite the "dilution" from expansion.
If Oscar, Wilt, Russell, etc were born in the 90s and grew up with the same training and opportunities as today's players then I would agree. However, if you created a time machine and and warped them from their era to a team in the 2017 NBA, they'd be good players but not stars. Basketball has just gotten too athletic. Their games from that era wouldn't translate.
But like I said, if Wilt was born in 1990 and grew up in today's basketball environment, maybe he'd be the best ever.
But when you say "greatest players" you don't try to extrapolate as if, what if you where able to time travel and make Wilt and LeBron both 26 at the same time. You judge by the accomplishments of THEIR OWN time. It's not about what if you put Oscar Robertson on the floor vs. KD as they both where at a young age. It's about what they did vs. whoever else they had to play against in THAT TIME.
It doesn't matter if they would be stars today, they can only be judged by their own time frame. George Mikan was the greatest player of the '50s, He should be on any list of "greats" just based on whet he did against '50s players. I don't get this idea of trying to decipher how they would do against each other today if they where all young. it's unfair and stupid.
And I'd be willing to bet there are some no name 7-3 guys out there that are trying to face the basket and shoot 3s that would become stars if they learned to play Lew Alcindor style.
That's why deciding greatest isn't done that way, you decide by what they did vs. their own era. Wilt is actually the greatest scorer ever, 50.0ppg. It doesn't matter if he could do it today-he won't get the chance, it only matters that he did it when he was alive, and at that time he did it against the best competition in the world at the time.
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The thing about baseball, is all of the fitness, nutrition and even "supplements", you don't have guys throwing any harder now than Nolan Ryan did, or Gibson or Drysdale. The hand eye coordination is not necessarily any better with Mike Trout than Ted Williams. Mickey Mantle was hitting 500 foot HR's before Giancarlo Stanton. I think baseball is the one sport specifically you can translate through the ages and the superstars of the past would still be superstars of today.
Yea, I agree. I think if the stars of the 30s, 40s, and 50s time-traveled to today, their production would be similar and its the only sport like that.
Give Wilt Chamberlain today's training and you'd have a monster. He'd destroy every current NBA center.
But how do you decide "greatest of all time"? Sounds like that in your opinion it would have to be measured by whether they could dominate by today's standards? Like Wilt would have to average 50.0 ppg against today's players or he can't be goat? I doubt he could do it, but at the same time, it was impossible for him to ever have the chance.
You may be right but we'll never know. Basketball has just advanced so much. A time-traveling Wilt would be just a pretty good center today. A Wilt born in the 90s may be as you said.
Saw him play live...a freak. People think all he did was dunk, but he had a terrific turnaround jumper from the elbow....always banked it....a lost art. You didn't see those guys from the 50s & 60s play. I have, and there's not as wide a gap as you've assumed.
40 years ago most teams in major league baseball didn't even have one guy who regularly threw the ball 90 miles an hour. Today it isn't even unusual for high school kids to throw 90. The average MLB fastball today is probably 6-8 mph faster than it was in the heyday of Ryan, Gibson and Drysdale. And if you want to talk strictly relief pitchers, the average back end of the bullpen reliever probably throws the ball 10 miles an hour or more faster than the average guy did 30 or 40 years ago.
40 years ago you saw a guy who could throw as hard as Nolan Ryan once a season, when your team played Ryan. Today, every team in the league has multiple guys who throw the ball that hard.
Durant you may be able to make a case, but it really doesn't matter because your list was ridiculous when it left out anyone before 1980.
Is that true? I'm sincerely asking; I'm not a baseball guy. Does every team have multiple 100+MPH throwers? I thought that kind of heat was still exceedingly rare. Like, I would have guessed single digits for the entire MLB. I would not have guessed 60+.
He made some very good points.
Most pitchers today throw in the mid-90's. 100 mph is still very impressive, but not as big of a deal as it used to be.
Eh, less "lost art" and more "way of the Dodo." 40% from 3 is as good as 60% from 2. Dunks, layups, free throws, threes. You better have a DAMN good reason before you shoot anything else. The NBA gets that and it's why Harden and Curry types are taking over. Teams finally learned that the midrange jumper is an awful shot.
Yeah, I buy that. I was curious about the precise claim of multiple guys on every team that could match Nolan Ryan. Not a big deal if there was some hyperbole. I was honestly curious and not debating the general point.
Nolan Ryan didn't throw all his fastballs over 100 miles an hour either. When someone says that Ryan threw 100 or 101 or whatever, that was his top end. That wasn't where his fastball "sat". His fastball "sat" in the high 90s. As an example, look at Aroldis Chapman. Chapman's been clocked at 102 this season (he was as high as 105 last year), but his average fastball this season is 98.2 (last year it was 100.9). So far this season there have been eight different pitchers who have been clocked at 101 or greater.
And don't get me wrong, the high 90s is really bringing it. But in Ryan's day the list of players that threw that hard had one name on it, Nolan Ryan. So far this season there have been eight pitchers over 100 mph. There are 31 pitchers whose fastball averages 97+ so far this season. The 50th highest average fastball is 96.4. The average major league fastball so far this season is 92.99 mph. 40 years ago that number would have been in the mid-80s.
I'm glad someone here finally understands that. The contested 18-19 footer is the worst shot in basketball, and should never be taken unless the clock is running down. Shooting 33% from three is the same as shooting 50% from two. Any shooter who is over 40% from 3 should have a green light anytime he's open.
I've never heard this. Is pitching really that much better now? If so, that's something I never really thought about or considered
So you don't really follow baseball?
Perhaps the biggest change in baseball due to the rise of the relief pitcher is that guys throw closer to their maximum velocity much more often than they did in the past. In the past, when a starting pitcher thought there was a good chance that he was going to throw nine innings he knew he had to pace himself so that he had something left in the tank when he was throwing his 120th or 130th or 140th pitch of the game. Today, starters know they aren't going to be around to throw pitch number 120, so they don't have to save as much. And then you bring in a reliever who knows he's only going to throw one inning, and in many cases even less than one inning, so there is no need to hold anything back at all.
If Aroldis Chapman knew he was going to throw 120 pitches in a game he wouldn't be trying to throw the ball 100 mph or more on almost every fastball. Because he would know that if he did that he would never last more than a few innings. But he knows he isn't going to pitch that much, so he knows that there is no reason to hold anything back while he is in there. Felipe Rivero for the Pirates is the same way. He's pretty regularly over 100 on his fastball as a reliever, but when he was a starter in the minors he didn't throw the ball that hard. Because he knew that if he did he wouldn't last long. As a reliever he doesn't have to worry about lasting long.
And for the record, that doesn't mean that pitching overall is that much better now. Major league hitters will hit 100 mph fastballs all day long if they are straight. If the pitcher can't make the ball move throwing the ball harder isn't enough. Now when you get a guy who can throw the ball that hard and they can get good movement on it you really have something.
Well the big difference for sure is the constant facing of fresh 95+ MPH fastballs with now Starters basically going 6-7 innings followed by a steady stream of relievers bring 95 mile an hour of heat. But that is the sport moreso than the player.
Ok, yeah. Eight guys who can hit triple digits is in line with what I thought. Not exactly 60 guys with NR heat, but fastballs are faster today than decades ago.
Once again, Nolan Ryan didn't throw 100 mph on all his fastballs, or even anywhere close to all his fastballs. There are 31 pitchers averaging 97+ on their fastball this season. The 50th pitcher on the average fastball list is at 96.4. That is the kind of numbers you'd see from Ryan if you had the numbers for all his pitches like you do for guys today. Anyone who thinks that the average Ryan fastball was over 100 mph is seriously delusional.
As a result of the changes in pitching that you've described elsewhere (and I already understood), a modern pitcher's average fastball is much closer to the max velocity he can throw because he doesn't have to save himself. Ryan had 100+ MPH stuff, but couldn't throw that every time. Their are, apparently, eight guys with 100+MPH stuff today. I would call that about single digit guys with NR type of heat.
The specific point that every team has multiple guys with heat like NR doesn't appear to be precisely true. The larger point that pitchers throw faster fastballs today is well taken.
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