What NBA Era WASN'T a "Weak, Watered-Down" Era?

[andgar923]

Best era ever was early-mid 90s.

Why?

It was the transitional period between the old school fundamentally tough era, and the newer more athletic one. This is when both styles combined, an era that still had the old school rules with old school mentality, but cats were bigger, badder, more athletic, and teams had employed the Pistons' defense and took it to another level.

Because of this era, the league began to get watered down.

Rules were changed, players got younger and less experienced, quality of play overall deteriorated. And then we get into the now..... great individual players and athletes, but no IQ, watered down rules, lack of overall intensity and toughness, and bad TEAM play.

[Deuce Bigalow]

Best era ever was early-mid 90s.

Why?

It was the transitional period between the old school fundamentally tough era, and the newer more athletic one. This is when both styles combined, an era that still had the old school rules with old school mentality, but cats were bigger, badder, more athletic, and teams had employed the Pistons' defense and took it to another level.

Because of this era, the league began to get watered down.

Rules were changed, players got younger and less experienced, quality of play overall deteriorated. And then we get into the now..... great individual players and athletes, but no IQ, watered down rules, lack of overall intensity and toughness, and bad TEAM play.

No it wasn't

the '80s was the best era
Lakers, Celtics, Sixers, and Pistons
Magic, Bird, Kareem, Michael

'90s the 'franchises' got old
Lakers were old - Kareem retired in '89, Magic done after '91
Celtics were old - Bird back problems in '90s
Pistons got old a year after the '90s started
Sixers got old - Dr J and Moses retied in the late '80s

'90's could be one of the worst eras in terms of competition

[andgar923]

No it wasn't

the '80s was the best era
Lakers, Celtics, Sixers, and Pistons
Magic, Bird, Kareem, Michael

'90s the 'franchises' got old
Lakers were old - Kareem retired in '89, Magic done after '91
Celtics were old - Bird back problems in '90s
Pistons got old a year after the '90s started
Sixers got old - Dr J and Moses retied in the late '80s

'90's could be one of the worst eras in terms of competition

But new teams and players emerged.

it wasn't as dominated by a select elite anymore, which imo it made the league more competitive.

Besides... the players from the 80s cared more about drinking and getting high on coke. They had bad nutrition and diets, with horrible workout regimens. These bad habits changed, and modern science and training evolved.

So you had the best of the old with the best of the new.

I still say that the 80s was better than the late 90s and early 00-mid 00 tho, because the overall play was just better even with all of their faults. But that can't be said about the early-mid 90s.

[andgar923]

No it wasn't

the '80s was the best era
Lakers, Celtics, Sixers, and Pistons
Magic, Bird, Kareem, Michael

'90s the 'franchises' got old
Lakers were old - Kareem retired in '89, Magic done after '91
Celtics were old - Bird back problems in '90s
Pistons got old a year after the '90s started
Sixers got old - Dr J and Moses retied in the late '80s

'90's could be one of the worst eras in terms of competition

I didn't say all of the 90s, I meant a part of the 90s.

While it was a brief moment, that moment was the best overall.

The 80s also saw expansion, so that argument is nulled.

[Deuce Bigalow]

But new teams and players emerged.

it wasn't as dominated by a select elite anymore, which imo it made the league more competitive.

Besides... the players from the 80s cared more about drinking and getting high on coke. They had bad nutrition and diets, with horrible workout regimens. These bad habits changed, and modern science and training evolved.

So you had the best of the old with the best of the new.

I still say that the 80s was better than the late 90s and early 00-mid 00 tho, because the overall play was just better even with all of their faults. But that can't be said about the early-mid 90s.

All the great teams died off, and only one great team rose up - Bulls, who else? Suns? lol, Cavs? lol

[tommyhtc]

Since very few here truly witnessed the 70s and the 60s,

I don't think we should come up with conclusions just by watching 5 minute footages.

[Owl]

1960's... there's no such thing as a "watered down" 9 team league. Limited coverage means nobody knows anything about it, thus it is easiest just to shrug it off with a "weak" label and not worry about it. A lot of talent crammed into a small amount of teams that decade.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvMq-eX_pNw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWVi0EtJcZg

Not "watered down" which refers to expansion. But the the reason you could water down the league was that the number of good players increased. The potential pool of pro basketball players increased with the US's increasing population, and particularly more people became dedicated to to playing basketball as it became more popular/visible/viable. Since the 80's the expansion of the game globally has further enhanced the pool of potential NBA players.

This is not a theoretical argument about if Jerry West had grown up with today's coaching and resources and tapes and youtube and nutrition. If he had then yes he could have been better.

And yes I said nutrition. And yes many americans are fat (though I'd imagine fewer than before are are underfed as a percentage of population). But that doesn't mean that generally the standards of elite athletes (not all, but on average) in terms of taking care of themselves and diet-wise has gone down. Given that teams and even players can afford dieticians and various other helpful resources they can play effectively to an age which players from the 60's simply couldn't. It's not to criticize those older players but they had less medical support, worse travel and often ate at greasy spoons (certainly through the 50's) so inevitably they were on the whole in worse shape. Obviously there exceptions but on the whole this seems true to me.

In the '67 NBA season, the Lakers fielded a team that had Jerry West and Elgin Baylor, who were in their near-primes, and who averaged 29 ppg and 27 ppg respectively. They also had HOFer Gail Goodrich. Then they had Archie Clark, who would average 20 ppg and be an all-star guard the very next season. At PF, they had Rudy Larusso, who would average 22 ppg the very next season. On their bench, they had Walt Hazzard (Abdul-Rahman) who was lost to the expansion draft the next season, and would average 24 ppg that season. And, in addition to 6-10 journeyman center Darrell Imhoff, who averaged a 10-13 that season, they had TWO seven-footers, Mel Counts (who was a good outside shooter and could also play PF), and Henry Finkel.


With all of that talent, they could only go 36-45. Now, Baylor and West were the "Lebron and Wade" of their era. Can you imagine a PRIME Lebron and Wade, with a boatload of surrounding talent...going 36-45????

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/LAL/1968.html
West only played 51 games and by that point was by a substantial distance their best player (probably the leagues best guard at both ends by that point), Baylor was never a high fg% guy or elite defender and by this point (after significant injuries) was slipping off. Goodrich wasn't the player he would become at this point. I suspect the ppg "the next season" guys would be overrated simply by taking them by that measure because 1 you're using a single season and 2) the league was rapidly expanding at that point (66 Chicago added, 67 Clippers, Sonics added, 68 Bucks and Suns added, plus in 67 the ABA started).

In a recent interview by David Feherty, Bill Russell recalled the story of a conversation he had with Michael Jordan a few years ago. He told Jordan that MJ's series winning assist to John Paxson in the '93 Finals would not have happened in the 60's. When Jordan asked him why, Russell responded, that Paxson would have been watching the game from the stands. When MJ continued to question Russell, Russell said, no offense to Paxson, but he would not have been the 100th best player in the league in the 60's, and therefore would not have made an NBA roster back then.

Because like in the 90's they would first drop it into the post to Horace Grant who would get the assist.

[rodman91]

can we stop being delusional about the past?

this was bob cousy who was putting up 20 points and 18 points in the 60s and he was dribbling like this:

John Paxson along with any decent 90s guard would have ShIetted on him

[chips93]

I keep seeing this crap pop up when people try to discredit older players. So I want to get some kind of consensus here so we all know what kind of people we're dealing with. What era in basketball history WASN'T "weak" or "watered-down"?

the era that my favorite player played in

duh!

[Owl]

No it wasn't

the '80s was the best era
Lakers, Celtics, Sixers, and Pistons
Magic, Bird, Kareem, Michael

'90s the 'franchises' got old
Lakers were old - Kareem retired in '89, Magic done after '91
Celtics were old - Bird back problems in '90s
Pistons got old a year after the '90s started
Sixers got old - Dr J and Moses retied in the late '80s

'90's could be one of the worst eras in terms of competition

What do you mean by competition? That there were more teams with a good chance of winning the title. Yes. Though at any one time Boston and LA were likely champs with Milwaukee and Philly strong for periods and later the Pistons. But measuring league quality by number of title contenders makes no sense all that measure is the degree of equality amongst the leagues top few teams. It does not indicate the overall level of talent.

Dr J was falling off from '82 and wasn't Dr J by 85 so that sounds more like an argument for a weak '80s. Moses Malone "reti[r]ed" in 1995. Now admittedly he wasn't the same player in the '90s as he was in the early '80s but getting your facts wrong does undermine your credibility.

Looking at the centres of the '90s I'd take '90s over '80s looking at the point guards, I'd take '90s over '80s. The idea that the league got dramatically worse in the '90s doesn't make any sense (given the number of players who played both periods and whose numbers didn't leap up).

[guy]

I keep seeing this crap pop up when people try to discredit older players. So I want to get some kind of consensus here so we all know what kind of people we're dealing with. What era in basketball history WASN'T "weak" or "watered-down"?

The people that try to defend older eras are the ones that say the later eras were weak and watered-down primarily due to expansion. You have it the other way around. Of course, they are wrong cause they don't take into account that as the league expanded the talent pool and popularity of the game expanded as well. If they had come up in an earlier era, Michael Jordan probably sticks to baseball, Charles Barkley may never get the chance to come up in a racist South, and foreign players like Hakeem Olajuwon and Dirk Nowitzki may have never even picked up a basketball. These factors are completely ignored by people that bring this up.

[Psileas]

Not "watered down" which refers to expansion. But the the reason you could water down the league was that the number of good players increased. The potential pool of pro basketball players increased with the US's increasing population, and particularly more people became dedicated to to playing basketball as it became more popular/visible/viable. Since the 80's the expansion of the game globally has further enhanced the pool of potential NBA players.

Funnily enough, not anyone makes a case for today's era, despite the validity of this argument. Going by popularity of basketball, the deepest era ever is nowadays and will likely continue to be what will be called "nowadays", except if global population for some reason decreases or the popularity of basketball decreases. No other era before the 2000's boasted any countries that could beat/challenge the US - regardless of how good teams the Americans bring to tournaments, the era when any team would succumb to them by 30+ points almost by default is gone since the early-mid 90's. In no other era have that many people globally played/cared about basketball.

[guy]

In the '67 NBA season, the Lakers fielded a team that had Jerry West and Elgin Baylor, who were in their near-primes, and who averaged 29 ppg and 27 ppg respectively. They also had HOFer Gail Goodrich. Then they had Archie Clark, who would average 20 ppg and be an all-star guard the very next season. At PF, they had Rudy Larusso, who would average 22 ppg the very next season. On their bench, they had Walt Hazzard (Abdul-Rahman) who was lost to the expansion draft the next season, and would average 24 ppg that season. And, in addition to 6-10 journeyman center Darrell Imhoff, who averaged a 10-13 that season, they had TWO seven-footers, Mel Counts (who was a good outside shooter and could also play PF), and Henry Finkel.


With all of that talent, they could only go 36-45. Now, Baylor and West were the "Lebron and Wade" of their era. Can you imagine a PRIME Lebron and Wade, with a boatload of surrounding talent...going 36-45????

I don't understand why you bring up stats and accolades to try to compare the quality of eras. In any basketball game today, not just in the NBA, there will be players putting up big stats. ISH can start up their own league right now, and someone can put up 30 ppg. Stats don't say ANYTHING. There will always be big stats by individuals just because of the simple fact that someone has to put numbers up.

Accolades don't mean much either because they haven't really added much to awards/honors of that era. They've added new awards/honors such as Finals MVP, DPOY, and All-NBA third team but they are usually just dismissed when compared to earlier eras since they didn't exist. However, despite the league almost quadrupling in size as a result of the talent pool and popularity significantly increasing in size since the early 60s, there's still only 1 MVP, 5 All-NBA first team members, 5 All-NBA second team members, 24 All-Stars, 5 HOF members inducted every year, and most importantly just 1 champion. And I'm not saying they should add to awards/honors cause thats obviously huge overkill, but using accolades from across eras isn't exactly an apples to apples comparison given how much things have changed.

[guy]

In a recent interview by David Feherty, Bill Russell recalled the story of a conversation he had with Michael Jordan a few years ago. He told Jordan that MJ's series winning assist to John Paxson in the '93 Finals would not have happened in the 60's. When Jordan asked him why, Russell responded, that Paxson would have been watching the game from the stands. When MJ continued to question Russell, Russell said, no offense to Paxson, but he would not have been the 100th best player in the league in the 60's, and therefore would not have made an NBA roster back then.

This is hilarious. Russell also said Wilt would average 60-70 ppg in the 90s. Older players deserve more credit then they get from certain people but they don't help their case when they say deluded stuff like this.

[LamarOdom]

Barea is 5'7!!? Cousy was 6'2... Cous would be too much to handle, would Destroy 'Bron in the post.

"HALP!@"

"WHRE"S HASLEM"

*clank
*whistle

"Bron u okay bro? I was on the bench... That's where players like me belong in 4th quarters, why the hell do you keep lookin for me to bail you out!?"

Hahaha cmon bro get over the fact that LeBron screwed the Cavs i mean who needs LeBron the Cavs got Luuuuuuuuuke Walton!

Oh yeah it's almost 2 years ago LeBron left you the Cavs hate is (getting) pathetic.