This era of rim protection sucks

[dankok8]

Holy. Micku just buried half of the posters on here...

[Mr. Woke]

TLDR;

THIS ERA ****IN' SUCKS ON DEFENSE!

Y'ALL ACTIN LIKE LEBRON IS BETTER THAN MJ FOR DUNKING ON AN INJURED 6'9 BAM! LEBRON IS A'IGHT, BUT TRY DUNKING ON MOURNING, EWING AND SHAQ WHERE THEY CLOTHESLINE YOU AND IT'S A COMMON FOUL! HOW CAN HE BE THE GOAT WHEN HE CAN'T SHOOT?! AND THE RULES ARE MADE EASIER FOR HIM TO DOMINANT BECAUSE EVERYONE MISSED JORDAN! BEEN IN THE LEAGUE FOR 20 YEARS AND STILL CHASING MJ. HE BETTER CHASE THAT HAIR OFF CUZ THAT ARTIFICIAL HAIR IS GARBAGE LIKE THIS ERA! MJ STILL HAVE THE BEST PER AND MORE RINGS! EVERYTHING POST 05-06 ON STATS SHOULD BE ASTERISK! 6'8 SMALL FORWARDS CALLING THEMSELVES CENTERS! BITCH PLEEEEEASE! THERE'LL BE BETTER PLAYER THAN MJ! HIS NAME HIS ALEX CARUSO BITCHES!

Goat debate is over with. Laterz hoop fans.

Take off the nostalgia goggles.

You are living in the past.

[SATAN]

Holy. Micku just tickled my confirmation bias...

We know

[Micku]

He's one of the greatest of all time. An athletic freak with an impressive skill set. Do I really need to explain it? If he were born earlier his game would be for that era. Don't see why he wouldn't still have the same dedication. People act like the 90s were a completely different game altogether. The blind assumption that there's no way a player of today could play well in another era is idiotic quite frankly.

I think LeBron James could play in any era and dominant regardless. His finishing at the rim ability has stayed relatively unchanged throughout the years.

The only thing that I disagree with is the efficiency of the star players. Star players are star players regardless of the era. We seen this I think constantly with Kobe, Kareem and even LeBron and MJ. Like MJ efficiency at the rim was super low in 97, but I wonder what's his efficiency at the rim was in the 80s. It didn't really matter if the rules the changed for star players, but it's how you play the game. Rules could influence it, but it depends with the teams at the time. The late 90s and the 10s are different in terms of style. late 90s are slower pace and a lot more iso. It stayed that way till like late 00s. 10s has a lot of isos too, but the spacing is more spread out and not a lot of post action. More movement tho. Like the Rockets are nothing but isos. But the Lakers have more fluid movement and balance. Same thing as Miami. The game was played differently in offense and defense. That was I wanted to show in the post . The rules changing and the style. I wanted to pinpoint at the source of it. Starting from the late 80s all the way till now. But I knew ppl would be so caught up in LeBron vs MJ in the tldr section and ignore the entire body of work.

Basically, this thread is about style and rules and the effects of it. Like the 80s are different from the 90s. The 2000s are different from the 10s. I went through point by point separating the eras, what the fans and the league wanted to do in each era.

Y'all can debate about LBJ vs MJ if you want tho. That isn't the main point of the thread, lol. I know it's a fun topic to debate anyway. Have at it.

[Micku]

An awful lot of it is just the difference between a guy going one on one vs a team that was built to defend post bigs and today where people only go to the basket to begin with if theres a lane for a layup or a dunk. Guys pass out of even remotely contested shots at the rim for threes. Not all the time...but you see it 5-10 times a game. Guys dont want to even be in the paint if they cant score easily....leads to higher at the rim numbers over time im sure.

Not a lot of Duncan on Zo one on one action.

Guys wanna dunk it or kick it out.

I think you're right about that.
But I feel like it's more than that. There's a lot more spacing involved in today's game, which allows more opportunity to get to the basket. And more teams are playing small ball for the quickness and the ability to switch instead of camping at the paint like they used to. With the better spacing, I feel like this creates a better passing opportunities that they don't have to force the issue. But the effectiveness is really surprising in hindsight tho. Almost 10% better at the rim than in the 00s. And a full 10% better than the late 90s. Very shocking to find out that.

[dankok8]

We know

You must be part of the "1-9 without Pippen" group of experts.

[SATAN]

You must be part of the "1-9 without Pippen" group of experts.

Absolutely.

[SATAN]

I think LeBron James could play in any era and dominant regardless. His finishing at the rim ability has stayed relatively unchanged throughout the years.

The only thing that I disagree with is the efficiency of the star players. Star players are star players regardless of the era. We seen this I think constantly with Kobe, Kareem and even LeBron and MJ. Like MJ efficiency at the rim was super low in 97, but I wonder what's his efficiency at the rim was in the 80s. It didn't really matter if the rules the changed for star players, but it's how you play the game. Rules could influence it, but it depends with the teams at the time. The late 90s and the 10s are different in terms of style. late 90s are slower pace and a lot more iso. It stayed that way till like late 00s. 10s has a lot of isos too, but the spacing is more spread out and not a lot of post action. More movement tho. Like the Rockets are nothing but isos. But the Lakers have more fluid movement and balance. Same thing as Miami. The game was played differently in offense and defense. That was I wanted to show in the post . The rules changing and the style. I wanted to pinpoint at the source of it. Starting from the late 80s all the way till now. But I knew ppl would be so caught up in LeBron vs MJ in the tldr section and ignore the entire body of work.

Basically, this thread is about style and rules and the effects of it. Like the 80s are different from the 90s. The 2000s are different from the 10s. I went through point by point separating the eras, what the fans and the league wanted to do in each era.

Y'all can debate about LBJ vs MJ if you want tho. That isn't the main point of the thread, lol. I know it's a fun topic to debate anyway. Have at it.

Oh fair enough, my bad. I kinda skimmed through but I have watched basketball since the 80s anyway. After seeing the last post in caps I thought it was just another LeBron bashing thread. Will give it all a proper read. Did you actually type all of this out or is it copy and pasted from somewhere?

[Micku]

Oh fair enough, my bad. I kinda skimmed through but I have watched basketball since the 80s anyway. After seeing the last post in caps I thought it was just another LeBron bashing thread. Will give it all a proper read. Did you actually type all of this out or is it copy and pasted from somewhere?

I actually typed all it out. I was thinking about it for a couple of days.

TL;DR was more of a troll to see who would read the body work or not. I know it's a lot.

I might post it on other sites, but take out the TL;DR.

[Axe]

You must be part of the "1-9 without Pippen" group of experts.

His usual pathetic shtick in this board is to beg attention from posters he doesn't agree with. He can't be taken too seriously.

[SATAN]

Can you please stop stalking me and ruining the thread? This is a thread for serious knowledgeable discussion. For fans of the game of basketball, not fans of the internet.

Sorry about him Micku, he's a little slow. As you were, gents.

[Baller789]

He's one of the greatest of all time. An athletic freak with an impressive skill set. Do I really need to explain it? If he were born earlier his game would be for that era. Don't see why he wouldn't still have the same dedication. People act like the 90s were a completely different game altogether. The blind assumption that there's no way a player of today could play well in another era is idiotic quite frankly.

He also wouldnt have access to more advanced training, medicine and nutrition. Or even PEDs if possible.

It goes both ways.

[Micku]

Handchecking is lazy defense.

You play defense with your feet, not with your hands lol.

I won't say it's lazy defense. It's probably more effective defense when dedicating where the player is suppose to go. I believe colleges and international play have it? I dunno for sure.

Handchecking has been gutted a few times throughout the decades, even from the 80s. It was to the point where you couldn't handcheck above the FT line before it was eliminated entirely. So, you could only dedicate so much of where you want the offense to go, but you can still direct it. It was more effective in the 80-90s because teams took more shots at the midrange than the 3pt shot. And removing hand checking in general helped to increase scoring and the pacing, which is what the league wanted.

But it isn't a reason why there is a high FG% at the rim compared to the 90s and 00s. Or it isn't the only reason. It's a combination of how the game is played now with b-ball IQ, small ball, the league gutting how effective centers could defend, and the league clamping down on the hard fouls, which influence the psychological.

The league wanted the game to be less physical to increase ratings. As I said before, they wanted to emulate the 80s success. Everybody apparently missed it after nearly a decade of slow pace, grit and grind b-ball in the late 90s and early 00s. I think the problem with that is that there wasn't enough talent in the league to do so and the b-ball IQ wasn't there, so they wanted to influence it via rules. To create easier opportunities to do so.

One of the fears when doing zone and doing these rule changing is the volume of 3pt shot. They had to do more spacing. But then, analytics came in along with the Suns and GSW, and we have a 3pt craze. It stretches out the big man, and since no there is no more Shaq, Hakeem, and other big men of the 90s to punish it, we went small ball. And here we are.

[Smoke117]

The way the game is now this shouldn't be surprising. These days you want Centers who are multi faceted. Fact of the matter is the most of the guys who are good defensively in the paint are awful shooters and if you can't shoot you aren't going to play anymore. The game has just become a shoot out where defense is an outlier in general. They really should bring back hand checking.

[Mr. Woke]

I won't say it's lazy defense. It's probably more effective defense when dedicating where the player is suppose to go. I believe colleges and international play have it? I dunno for sure.

Handchecking has been gutted a few times throughout the decades, even from the 80s. It was to the point where you couldn't handcheck above the FT line before it was eliminated entirely. So, you could only dedicate so much of where you want the offense to go, but you can still direct it. It was more effective in the 80-90s because teams took more shots at the midrange than the 3pt shot. And removing hand checking in general helped to increase scoring and the pacing, which is what the league wanted.

But it isn't a reason why there is a high FG% at the rim compared to the 90s and 00s. Or it isn't the only reason. It's a combination of how the game is played now with b-ball IQ, small ball, the league gutting how effective centers could defend, and the league clamping down on the hard fouls, which influence the psychological.

The league wanted the game to be less physical to increase ratings. As I said before, they wanted to emulate the 80s success. Everybody apparently missed it after nearly a decade of slow pace, grit and grind b-ball in the late 90s and early 00s. I think the problem with that is that there wasn't enough talent in the league to do so and the b-ball IQ wasn't there, so they wanted to influence it via rules. To create easier opportunities to do so.

One of the fears when doing zone and doing these rule changing is the volume of 3pt shot. They had to do more spacing. But then, analytics came in along with the Suns and GSW, and we have a 3pt craze. It stretches out the big man, and since no there is no more Shaq, Hakeem, and other big men of the 90s to punish it, we went small ball. And here we are.

Handchecking has no place in the NBA.

It should be eliminated.