I was putting together an all afterlife team in my head when I realized something….

[Kblaze8855]

High level pro basketball is young as hell. You can barely even fill out a lineup with players who no longer exist. You have to rely on tragedy for floor spacing because almost nobody Who could shoot his old enough to be gone yet.

Instead of delving deeply into the available players and depressing myself thinking of who left early, I would like to ask you how close you think basketball is to its final form.

We are like…where the MLB was in the 50s. It feels like we have done just about all the development possible but in 50 years this is gonna also be considered the primitive era. Or the beginnings of what they will consider modern ball.

But what is reasonably left to justify what will no doubt be that future opinion?

4 point line?

The total elimination of positions to the point they don’t even have names?

Is there a tactic we aren’t seeing yet?

Will rules change to formally legalize the carry like they did traveling?

Will your primary ball handler being 6’6” be considered undersized?

It’s a foregone conclusion that your grandkids will think everybody in the NBA right now was probably garbage.

What do you think the justification will be?

[FKAri]

Hard to say how much better but it will almost certainly be better. In some aspects things have gotten worse and could continue to get worse(player development infrastructure and scouting prioritizing potential over current skills). However, we'll continue to improve overall barring unforeseen setbacks.

Markets like the South America opening up leading to a bigger talent pool.

Better sports science, better analytics.

Player skill and team play has lots of room for improvement and the only way to bring the level up is for the most physically gifted athletes to train harder and smarter and I think the NBA kid boom is playing a part in that.

Shooting is the one skill that I'm most confident will continue to improve because of the current cultural shift and the fact that the age groups most affected by it are just about to enter the league. It's also the easiest to train and benefits every type of player: Big, small, role player or star.

Guard play will continue to advance more rapidly than big men regardless of rules because the level of competition for those spots will always be more fierce.

[warriorfan]

in the far far future it will be five guys all 6’6’’ to 6’8’’ super athletic players switching everything and playing positionless basketball. every once in awhile you might see some potential game breakers like wemby / wilt / shaq and some teams will have to find a counter

it’s actually almost that now I guess but with a few outlier small guys

[Xiao Yao You]

in the far far future it will be five guys all 6’6’’ to 6’8’’ super athletic players switching everything and playing positionless basketball. every once in awhile you might see some potential game breakers like wemby / wilt / shaq and some teams will have to find a counter

it’s actually almost that now I guess but with a few outlier small guys

it's not though. The best teams still play at least one true big

[Kblaze8855]

Hard to say how much better but it will almost certainly be better. In some aspects things have gotten worse and could continue to get worse(player development infrastructure and scouting prioritizing potential over current skills). However, we'll continue to improve overall barring unforeseen setbacks.

Markets like the South America opening up leading to a bigger talent pool.

Better sports science, better analytics.

Player skill and team play has lots of room for improvement and the only way to bring the level up is for the most physically gifted athletes to train harder and smarter and I think the NBA kid boom is playing a part in that.

Shooting is the one skill that I'm most confident will continue to improve because of the current cultural shift and the fact that the age groups most affected by it are just about to enter the league. It's also the easiest to train and benefits every type of player: Big, small, role player or star.

Guard play will continue to advance more rapidly than big men regardless of rules because the level of competition for those spots will always be more fierce.

The number of kids enamored with shooting has gone through the roof so I can see a generation from now having more consistent long range shooting from more people but I feel like the NBA is such a small pool to concentrate the best players the total shooting doesn’t have much room to improve. there are 150 starters. If there are 4 million shooters in 40 years instead of 2.5 now will the 150 be noticeably better?

[Kblaze8855]

in the far far future it will be five guys all 6’6’’ to 6’8’’ super athletic players switching everything and playing positionless basketball. every once in awhile you might see some potential game breakers like wemby / wilt / shaq and some teams will have to find a counter

it’s actually almost that now I guess but with a few outlier small guys

pat Riley said in the 80s that in 30 years every team would have a magic Johnson. Now he didn’t mean every team would have somebody as good as magic but that everyone would have a player that size who has guard skills. He isn’t quite right, but he’s righter than he was the last time I thought about that quote, which was probably 10-15 years ago.

[iamgine]

The number of kids enamored with shooting has gone through the roof so I can see a generation from now having more consistent long range shooting from more people but I feel like the NBA is such a small pool to concentrate the best players the total shooting doesn’t have much room to improve. there are 150 starters. If there are 4 million shooters in 40 years instead of 2.5 now will the 150 be noticeably better?

Of course. We'll see Deandre Aytons and Walker Kesslers who shoots like Brook Lopez.

[FKAri]

in the far far future it will be five guys all 6’6’’ to 6’8’’ super athletic players switching everything and playing positionless basketball. every once in awhile you might see some potential game breakers like wemby / wilt / shaq and some teams will have to find a counter

it’s actually almost that now I guess but with a few outlier small guys

I think so too.

The number of kids enamored with shooting has gone through the roof so I can see a generation from now having more consistent long range shooting from more people but I feel like the NBA is such a small pool to concentrate the best players the total shooting doesn’t have much room to improve. there are 150 starters. If there are 4 million shooters in 40 years instead of 2.5 now will the 150 be noticeably better?

I look at it like this. Every guy in the league right now wasn't shooting at age 10 as much as they would have if they were 10 years old right now.

[Dbrog]

Somewhere Antoine Walker is shimmying in a corner