Did euros actually ruin defense in the NBA?

[90sgoat]

I didn't realize Arenas made this statement:



I think this was a good breakdown and I'll just comment on it.

First of all, I kind of agree with Arenas, that the current NBA looked at Euroleage in the 90s and early 00s and tried to make the NBA more like that.

It's also true, that even as europeans, we looked at the NBA and the Euroleague and we thought the Euroleague was just one long 3 point spam fest, drive-and-kick.

Completely true, Euroleague was boring and soft in the 90s, and as an early 00s player, Agent Zero is going to have that as his reference.

Where Arenas is completely wrong though is blaming the euro players.

Arenas says that euros couldn't hang in the 90s and 00s before rule changes, couldn't play d, didn't have the athleticism.

This is completely false.

Sabonis
Schrempf
Smits
Radja
Divac
Marciulionis

None of those guys struggled physically with the 90s. Not in the least. Those guys were just as tough as any american. Even someone little known as Dino Radja was a 20-10 guy in the NBA.

Smits and Sabonis were probably the toughest covers that Shaq had. Shaq is even on quote saying Rik Smits was the toughest he played against because he was big, strong and tough.

If you want to talk guards, sure, that was always the weak point of euros, but why bring it up then, there has never been a lot of euro guards in the NBA. You had a bunch of big wings like Stojakovich and Turkoglu and Kukoc, but almost no point guards or shooting guards.

Nah, it's not the euros that eliminated defense in the NBA, but yes, the Euroleague in the 90s might be to blame for that, sure, but in the end, it's on the NBA and not paying attention, because what happened to Euroleague was that as NBA players returned home to Europe, they brought with them that physicality, the focus on weightlifting etc and euro clubs bought into that and today Euroleague is a lot more physical than the NBA.

[ImKobe]

You can credit D'Antoni for that, and he brought a lot of those concepts from Europe to the NBA that eventually led to the 7-seconds-or-less offense which heavily influenced today's NBA. Rule changes allowed all that to happen though.

It's hard to defend 3s under the current rules, so the poor defense has more to do with the style of play and rule changes than the players themselves.

[fsvr54]

It's weird to talk about 90s Euros and not mention Kukoc, the second most famous one.

[90sgoat]

It's weird to talk about 90s Euros and not mention Kukoc, the second most famous one.

I picked out the euros who were physical and exactly not Kukoc, because Kukoc came to be the stereotype of the overrated soft euro.

[Im Still Ballin]

You're omitting an important detail: European teams (and Argentina) were kicking Team USA's ass in the early-to-mid '00s. They could shoot and pass better. Jerry Colangelo and the NBA took notice.

[CurryOverLebron]

https://www.basketball-reference.com/awards/dpoy.html

After Gobert wins his 4th DPOY this year, 6 of last 12 DPOY winners will have been Europeans (Gasol, Giannis, Gobert). 7 of last 12 if we count American born Joakim Noah as European since he's got French and Swedish citizenship.

[WhiteKyrie]

I don’t think it’s just euros, even though traditionally, they can’t play defense at all. Especially on the NBA level with more space and athleticism and speed, and now lack of physicality to even help them in that regard because American players can no longer handle physicality, well, the vast majority of them.

But I think also it’s a Gen Z thing. All they care about is looking fancy, with “a bag” which really is a lot of traveling and carrying and unnecessary inefficient movements to score. Nobody takes pride in defense.

I am now 38 years old and go play pick up, I should be getting fried on the court and totally locked up but I still have my way with the Zoomers. They don’t play defense at all.

Gilbert here, as he usually does, is both smart and crazy and dumb all at the same time. What he saying is totally accurate. Like 100%, but he goes to extremes with his point to where it loses any credibility. There’s a litany of dumb Gen Z black kids that can’t play defense as well, even if they are athletic.

[FultzNationRISE]

Kind of a weird accusation coming from Dilbert, who was a trashcan on defense himself.

[tpols]

Its a dumb argument because the best defenders of the past ie mostly centers would totally have their defensive ability mitigated by today's spacing and shooting where you can drag them out of the paint 30 feet from the rim something they didn't have to do at all in their eras. Their defense would get stretched like a rubber band.

[tpols]

You can credit D'Antoni for that, and he brought a lot of those concepts from Europe to the NBA that eventually led to the 7-seconds-or-less offense which heavily influenced today's NBA. Rule changes allowed all that to happen though.

It's hard to defend 3s under the current rules, so the poor defense has more to do with the style of play and rule changes than the players themselves.

It's hard to defend 3s in general when 80% of your lineup can hit them and back in the day only 10-20% could. If you watch the tape dudes in the 90s did not physically guard the 3pt line at all. They literally sagged off everybody but the top 5% of snipers like Reggie or Price or Petrovic types. And even they got shots off at a great rate with great efficiency despite being a twig.

[90sgoat]

It's hard to defend 3s in general when 80% of your lineup can hit them and back in the day only 10-20% could. If you watch the tape dudes in the 90s did not physically guard the 3pt line at all. They literally sagged off everybody but the top 5% of snipers like Reggie or Price or Petrovic types. And even they got shots off at a great rate with great efficiency despite being a twig.

It's moreso the rules, the defensive 3 seconds.

NBA players don't hit 3s in FIBA like in the NBA.

I really think the NBA misinterpreted the Euroleague and its FIBA success. It wasn't because of the Euroleague, but because the NBA didn't bother practising for the FIBA games and thought that AAU players would be able to force their way through.

It's the AAU that is to blame for NBA players declining, not euros. The Dream Teams that had the college generation of NBA players didn't struggle in FIBA, because their fundamentals were on point and they could play team defense.

[WhiteKyrie]

It's the AAU that is to blame for NBA players declining, not euros. The Dream Teams that had the college generation of NBA players didn't struggle in FIBA, because their fundamentals were on point and they could play team defense.

****ing bingo, and not just team defense, individual defense, and team offense. Meaning guys had to learn how to play an actual offenses. The offenses in NBA is nothing but spam pick and roll and glorified AAU ball, playing in college developed you for professionals because you could develop skills, yes, there are skill sets that aren’t just ball in hand, that teach you to play off the ball in a team structured offense. International players know how to do that, and they can work Americans, who on an individual level are infinitely more talented and better. This is precisely why we have been losing the past several years and it’s getting worse with the Gen Z. Very astute observations. Kobe Bryant, who went directly to the pros, immediately had to learn how to play in the former old-school style of actual NBA offenses. He predicted this decline several years before his passing. The few teams that have been consistently good have run actual offenses, making it difficult for everybody to be guarded. The golden state warriors that were the closest thing to a dynasty that we’ve seen in a while, ran hard to guard team offenses, it took them into the stratosphere with the level of talent. They had executing it.

[90sgoat]

Yeah and I think people underestimate how early the AAU made an impact in the NBA.

I remember thinking in the early 00s that skills had declined massively from the 90s. Players stopped being able to hit open midrange shots, because they all needed to be fading back on their jump shots, big guys who would rather dribble the ball than play back to basket. Point guards who would dribble the ball up and shoot without anyone touching the ball. This was unheard of before the 00s.

We saw this with Kevin Garnett, Chris Webber, Allen Iverson, Tracy McGrady. Those were the good ones, but we forget all the overrated ones like Arenas, Baron Davis, Steve Francis, Jermaine O'Neal, Melo, etc. Big talents that never became real team leaders, because they were unable or too selfish to play in a team system.

Those guys never took over from the 80s generation like they should have and because we missed out on Grant Hill and Penny, then the NBA was lacking true stars. It should have been Shaq, Webber, Penny, Kidd, Hill, that were supposed to be the new generation, but only Shaq and Kidd really panned out.

[1987_Lakers]

Nobody in the 90's was looking at the euroleague thinking "we should adapt this style". That came in the 00's.

[90sgoat]

Nobody in the 90's was looking at the euroleague thinking "we should adapt this style". That came in the 00's.

Arenas says it is because of David Stern wanting the game to go global, to make it easier for euros to hang.

I think there might be something to it, but not really, because the rule changes primarily favored american small guards and of course Steve Nash.