80's vs 90's

[1987_Lakers]

Example... If 2/3 of the NBA made the playoffs in 1996 this is how the playoff picture would look like...

1996 NBA Playoff picture

East:
#1 - Chicago Bulls ...72-10
#2 - Orlando Magic ...60-22
#3 - Indiana Pacers ...52-30
#4 - Cleveland Cavaliers ...47-35
#5 - New York Knicks... 47-35
#6 - Atlanta Hawks... 46-36
#7 - Detroit Pistons... 46-36
#8 - Miami Heat ...42-40
#9 - Charlotte Hornets ...41-41
#10 - Washington Bullets ...39-43

West:
#1 - Seattle Supersonics ...64-18
#2 - San Antonio Spurs ...59-23
#3 - Utah Jazz... 55-27
#4 - Los Angeles Lakers ...53-29
#5 - Houston Rockets ...48-34
#6 - Portland Trail Blazers ...44-38
#7 - Phoenix Suns... 41-41
#8 - Sacramento Kings ...39-43
#9 - Golden State Warriors ...36-46
#10 - Denver Nuggets ...35-47

You see? If 2/3 of the NBA made the playoffs in 1996 SIX teams .500 and under would of made the playoffs.

This is why your "if these 80s were so great how come so many sub 500 teams made it to the playoffs" statement is flawed.

[Showtime80']

The whole "well sub-500" teams made the playoffs in the 80's is a silly one simply because 70% of the teams in the NBA made the playoffs from 1984(the year the NBA expanded the number of teams in the playoffs to 16) ti'll 1988 (When the league expanded to 25 teams). That would be like almost 22 teams making the playoffs now, go see if you don't have more than a couple of loosing records in the playoffs(specially in the East).

Number of teams that made the playoffs with loosing records from 1980 to 1983( when it was only 12 teams making the post-season)= 2.

Number of loosing teams that would've made the playoffs from 1984 ti'll 1988 if they had maintained the 12 team format= only 2!!! That's 4 loosing teams in 8 years!!!.

Now let's look at how many loosing teams you had making the playoffs from 91 ti'll 93' (the only period even comparable to the 1980's because the decline definetely started in 1994)

91'=1
92'=3(all from the East)
93'=1

That's 5 teams right there. Calculating how many it would've been had just 66% of the teams(that's 18 teams) made the playoffs during that time the number jumps to 9 teams!!!! That's unbelievable.

So you can't blame an entire decade for David Stern's error in allowing 16 teams to make the playoffs when the league had only 23 teams. It was beneficial from a business stand point because you had more stars and markets in the playoffs but it meant that a lot of loosing teams got in the playoffs.

Plus the 80's had the Lakers-Celtics/Magic vs Bird rivalry that trumped anything that happened in the 90's. You had the 2 greatest Finals in history in 1984 and 1988, tons of transcendant superstars that revitilized decrepit or struggling markets like:

Chicago-Jordan
Portland-Drexler
Houston-Hakeem
Atlanta-Nique
Detroit-Isiah
Utah-Stockton, Malone
Philly-Barkley
New York-King, Ewing
Denver-English
Dallas-Aguirre, Blackman
Milwaukee-Moncrief, Cummings

Most of these guys transformed their franchises through long tenures with those teams and became icons in those cities which is more than you can say for the "Big Money" generation of players that came in the 90's that were never able to fill the shoes of their 80's counterparts.

The 80' will ALWAYS be the Golden Age.

[1987_Lakers]

The whole "well sub-500" teams made the playoffs in the 80's is a silly one simply because 70% of the teams in the NBA made the playoffs from 1984(the year the NBA expanded the number of teams in the playoffs to 16) ti'll 1988 (When the league expanded to 25 teams). That would be like almost 22 teams making the playoffs now, go see if you don't have more than a couple of loosing records in the playoffs(specially in the East).

Number of teams that made the playoffs with loosing records from 1980 to 1983( when it was only 12 teams making the post-season)= 2.

Number of loosing teams that would've made the playoffs from 1984 ti'll 1988 if they had maintained the 12 team format= only 2!!! That's 4 loosing teams in 8 years!!!.

Now let's look at how many loosing teams you had making the playoffs from 91 ti'll 93' (the only period even comparable to the 1980's because the decline definetely started in 1994)

91'=1
92'=3(all from the East)
93'=1

That's 5 teams right there. Calculating how many it would've been had just 66% of the teams(that's 18 teams) made the playoffs during that time the number jumps to 9 teams!!!! That's unbelievable.

So you can't blame an entire decade for David Stern's error in allowing 16 teams to make the playoffs when the league had only 23 teams. It was beneficial from a business stand point because you had more stars and markets in the playoffs but it meant that a lot of loosing teams got in the playoffs.

Plus the 80's had the Lakers-Celtics/Magic vs Bird rivalry that trumped anything that happened in the 90's. You had the 2 greatest Finals in history in 1984 and 1988, tons of transcendant superstars that revitilized decrepit or struggling markets like:

Chicago-Jordan
Portland-Drexler
Houston-Hakeem
Atlanta-Nique
Detroit-Isiah
Utah-Stockton, Malone
Philly-Barkley
New York-King, Ewing
Denver-English
Dallas-Aguirre, Blackman
Milwaukee-Moncrief, Cummings

Most of these guys transformed their franchises through long tenures with those teams and became icons in those cities which is more than you can say for the "Big Money" generation of players that came in the 90's that were never able to fill the shoes of their 80's counterparts.

The 80' will ALWAYS be the Golden Age.

[Showtime80']

Guy, a team with only 7 more wins than the 81' Rockets won the title in 95', now that wouldn't have happened in the 1980's! Not to mention the 94' Rockets and 99' Spurs, teams that are generally regarded as some of the worst champions in league history not to mention the last 28 years.

Check out the teams that won in the 80's sometime. All time champions to say the least.

And you really want to talk about the 21st century, with absolutely dreadful teams like the Nets in 02 and 03 and the Cavs in 07 makin the Finals!!! This decade has only had 1 team that you could even put in the same conversation with ANY of the 10 title teams from the 80's and that is the 2001 Lakers, that's it.

[Solid Snake]

I'm trying to sim some games too but every time I click "play game" it just goes to the default error page whether I use IE or Firefox.

[L.Kizzle]

Here's a good way to see which decade was really better between the '80s and the '90s. Instead of comparing players that played big parts in both decade (MJ/Dream/Drexler/Chuck ect) compare players who didn't cross between the two ('80s and '90s) decades.


1980s
Sidney Moncrief
Adrian Dantley
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Julius Erving
George Gervin
Bernard King
Alex English
Dennis Johnson
Bob Lanier
Maurice Cheeks
Ralph Sampson


1990s
David Robinson
Gary Payton
Dikembe Mutombo
Shaquille O'Neal
Jason Kidd
Grant Hill
Alonzo Mourning
Tim Hardaway
Anfernee Hardaway
Shawn Kemp


Then you have the guys who crossed both decades
Magic Johnson
Larry Bird
Isiah Thomas
Dominique Wilkins
Clyde Drexler
Akeem Olajuwon
Michael Jordan
Charles Barkley
John Stockton
Patrick Ewing
Karl Malone
Scottie Pippen
Kevin Johnson

[72-10]

hmm what a game that would be...

admittedly when you are given the entire decade of the 80s compared to the entire decade of the 90s, the 80s should come out on top simply because the 90s had more weak spots, and the weak spots in the 80s were few and far between. However, I would contend that many of the seasons in the 90s match up with seasons in the 80s. Obviously most of these are from the early 90s. I think that the "Golden Era" of basketball could be defined as anywhere from 1983-1993... to 1983-1998.

And the 1993 Finals could be argued as the greatest Finals in history.

[guy]

Guy, a team with only 7 more wins than the 81' Rockets won the title in 95', now that wouldn't have happened in the 1980's! Not to mention the 94' Rockets and 99' Spurs, teams that are generally regarded as some of the worst champions in league history not to mention the last 28 years.

Check out the teams that won in the 80's sometime. All time champions to say the least.

And you really want to talk about the 21st century, with absolutely dreadful teams like the Nets in 02 and 03 and the Cavs in 07 makin the Finals!!! This decade has only had 1 team that you could even put in the same conversation with ANY of the 10 title teams from the 80's and that is the 2001 Lakers, that's it.

I would say the 95 Rockets winning a title in the 80s is more likely then the 81 Rockets making the Finals in the 90s, but both aren't very likely at all. The 95 Rockets had to deal with chemistry issues, including a mid-season trade for Drexler, and some injuries. Hakeem missed 10 games, in which the Rockets went 3-7, they also missed 9 games from the combination of Drexler and Otis Thorpe, who were traded for each other. Its highly doubtful that the Rockets don't win at least 50 games if they don't miss there 1st and 2nd best players for that many games. And I've never heard of people calling the 94 Rockets and 99 Spurs as some of the worse champions of all time.

And yes I'll agree with the last part. The Nets and Cavs teams that made the finals this decade sucked, but thats mostly because of the lopsided conferences. Maybe in the 00s, the 81 Rockets could've made it to the Finals if they were in the East, but they also probably wouldn't be a sub .500 team, so I would still say a sub .500 team would not ever make it to the Finals in this decade.

[Showtime80']

The 1992 and 97 Finals were better than 93' when the Bulls had series' leads of 2-0 and 3-1 at different stages of those Finals. Only 2 games were remotely interesting and the two main guys and teams liked each other too much for the series to ever get to the intense level of those 80's Finals. Magic was elbowing Isiah in the face by the fourth game of 88' for God's sake.

The 1984 Finals were on another stratosphere. Lakers/Celtics, Magic/Bird, unbelievable supporting casts with Kareem, Worthy, McAdoo, Scott, Wilkes against Parish, DJ, McHale, Maxwell, Ainge etc... No other series in history had as many hof'ers and all-stars near or at their peak. The racial aspect of Black versus White. LA flash versus Boston blue collar attitude. The series went down to the last minute of game 7 in the historic Boston Garden and it brought the NBA into the national spotlight. No series before or since had the same impact.

I remember NBC did a poll of the "greatest Finals ever" a few years ago when they still had the games and the 84' Finals were the undesputed king of the hill with the 69' Finals coming in second.

[1987_Lakers]

The 1992 and 97 Finals were better than 93' when the Bulls had series' leads of 2-0 and 3-1 at different stages of those Finals. Only 2 games were remotely interesting and the two main guys and teams liked each other too much for the series to ever get to the intense level of those 80's Finals. Magic was elbowing Isiah in the face by the fourth game of 88' for God's sake.

The 1984 Finals were on another stratosphere. Lakers/Celtics, Magic/Bird, unbelievable supporting casts with Kareem, Worthy, McAdoo, Scott, Wilkes against Parish, DJ, McHale, Maxwell, Ainge etc... No other series in history had as many hof'ers and all-stars near or at their peak. The racial aspect of Black versus White. LA flash versus Boston blue collar attitude. The series went down to the last minute of game 7 in the historic Boston Garden and it brought the NBA into the national spotlight. No series before or since had the same impact.

I remember NBC did a poll of the "greatest Finals ever" a few years ago when they still had the games and the 84' Finals were the undesputed king of the hill with the 69' Finals coming in second.

Agreed. Even though the lakers lost... the 1984 NBA Finals were without a doubt the greatest Finals in NBA History. Not only did the series go to 7 games but there were also 2 games that went to OT.

[DOUBLE DRIBBLE]

How do you compare eras? I mean really?


I lol everytime some d0uchbag tries to bash this era (2000's) The NBA hasn't been as popular than it is now. You have some of the best basketball players ever right now playing in the league.... and people still hate.


All of the best international players come to the NBA all of these kids skipping college because they are talented enough to do so..... I think it is all the older people that grew up during other eras that are the haters. Lot of people are jealous of these multi skilled young men that are tearing it up in the League and making all this money...


I'd put this squad up against any other squad from any other era and I think they could hold their own.

PG - Steve Nash
SG - Kobe
SF - Lebron
PF - Duncan
C - KG

[Chicago76]

How do you compare eras? I mean really?

A lot of very reputable Bill James-type statheads who also serve as consultants for NBA franchises have looked into this question and answered it.

Basically, you compare the production of everyone in the league at a certain year and track it for the next year. If you look at everyone who played last year, and track production for next year, the guys playing last year should still get about 98% of total "everything" (pts, reb, ast, etc) the following year if the league level is constant. You will rarely see 100% due to aging of vets.

If it's below 98%, that means the league is getting better, and vets are getting replaced by better talent more quickly. If it's above 98%, that means the vets are able to stick around longer, because the incoming talent isn't good enough to knock them out. If you look at this over 30 years, you can get a good picture of when the league was at its best. The answer is that the league was better in the mid/late 80s than at any time in history. The second best era was the early 60s before all of the expansion. The worst era was the mid 70s before the ABA and NBA merged. The second worst was the early 00s.

The current era is about equal to the early 90s. So sure, the game is more popular now globally, but that doesn't make it any better. McDonalds is more popular than a lot of places, but the food isn't very good. Stars are the same in any era, but the biggest difference between the 1980s, 1990s and today, was the depth of talent in the 80s. I'll take a top 10 list at any position from the 1985 and compare it to any position in 1995. 1985 wins out or is even at every position. A good example of the 1980s vs. today is Mark Price vs. Steve Nash. Nash is marginally better than Price was. The difference is that Price was thought of as a top 5 PG while Nash was always in the MVP conversation.

The talent might catch up to expansion in the next 6 or 7 years to make another greatest era, but that hasn't happened yet.

[guy]

A lot of very reputable Bill James-type statheads who also serve as consultants for NBA franchises have looked into this question and answered it.

Basically, you compare the production of everyone in the league at a certain year and track it for the next year. If you look at everyone who played last year, and track production for next year, the guys playing last year should still get about 98% of total "everything" (pts, reb, ast, etc) the following year if the league level is constant. You will rarely see 100% due to aging of vets.

[B]If it's below 98%, that means the league is getting better, and vets are getting replaced by better talent more quickly. If it's above 98%, that means the vets are able to stick around longer, because the incoming talent isn't good enough to knock them out. If you look at this over 30 years, you can get a good picture of when the league was at its best. The answer is that the league was better in the mid/late 80s than at any time in history. The second best era was the early 60s before all of the expansion. The worst era was the mid 70s before the ABA and NBA merged. The second worst was the early 00s.

The current era is about equal to the early 90s. So sure, the game is more popular now globally, but that doesn't make it any better. McDonalds is more popular than a lot of places, but the food isn't very good. Stars are the same in any era, but the biggest difference between the 1980s, 1990s and today, was the depth of talent in the 80s. I'll take a top 10 list at any position from the 1985 and compare it to any position in 1995. 1985 wins out or is even at every position. A good example of the 1980s vs. today is Mark Price vs. Steve Nash. Nash is marginally better than Price was. The difference is that Price was thought of as a top 5 PG while Nash was always in the MVP conversation.

The talent might catch up to expansion in the next 6 or 7 years to make another greatest era, but that hasn't happened yet.

So basically the rookies have to be responsible for over 2% of the league's production for the league to look like its getting better? Well that would never work cause rookies today aren't expected to do nearly as much as before because of the age they come in. I really don't think you can say the league is getting better or worse by judging what players are doing as rookies. Maybe by doing that for players who have played up to 3-4 years, but not just their first season.

[Silverbullit]

A more accurate comparison between decades would be to compare not only the elite players but the role/bench players too.

Otherwise the thread title should be changed to 80's elite vs 90's elite.

[1987_Lakers]

A more accurate comparison between decades would be to compare not only the elite players but the role/bench players too.

Otherwise the thread title should be changed to 80's elite vs 90's elite.

That would also go to the 80's.

Just look at the roster for the Lakers/Celtics in the 80's and compare it to the roster from the Bulls of the 90's. It's a no brainer. The Lakers/Celtics were deeper than the Bulls. The Lakers and Celtics were deep in every position while the Bulls never had an descent Center. Just compare Luc Longley/ Bill Cartwright to Kareem and Parish. It's no contest. Look at the bench for both teams the Lakers and Celtics had guys like Michael Cooper, Bob McAdoo, Mychal Thompson, Bill Walton, Scott Wedman, Gerald Henderson. While the Bulls had Steve Kerr, Bill Wennington, Toni Kukoc. There is no question the Lakers/Celtics were deeper.