Do you consider the current era in the NBA a weak era?

[MavsSuperFan]

With the lack of dominant big men nowadays, do you consider the current era weak? Would the Heat be able to win in the early-mid 2000s, the 90s, or the 80s?

I mean look at the best big men nowadays, Hibbert, Lopez, Bynum, D12, etc. Personally I think even Ewing and Robinson would crush any of them.

[KG215]

I do think that it's a little weak in the sense that the superstar/top players level isn't anything that special right now. LeBron would be the best, or top 3 at worst, player in almost any era; and Durant would be a great player (probably top 5 or so in most) in any era. Chris Paul, too, probably, but I'm not sure there's many other eras he's arguably the 3rd best player in the league. And after that, you've got players like older, past or at the end of their primes Wade and Kobe, Carmelo, Westbrook, Parker, 37 year old Duncan, Harden, etc. rounding out the top 10 or so.

I mean it was just 10 or so years ago when we had Shaq, Duncan, Kobe, Garnett, and Dirk in their primes and/or at their peak at roughly the same time. And it's not like the 90's when you had Jordan, Hakeem, Shaq, Ewing, Robinson, Barkley, and Malone at the top of the league.

Now, that doesn't mean it's automatically much weaker than those eras, but the top-end talent isn't as good as it's been throughout history. You'd probably have to go back to the pre-merger 70's to find weaker top-end talent. After LeBron, Durant, and maybe Chris Paul, you've got a bunch of players in the top 5-10 that wouldn't be anywhere close to that in most eras.

[wakencdukest]

It's only a weak era for big men.

[MavsSuperFan]

It's only a weak era for big men.

Big men > guards imo. A team with a great front court > Team with great perimeter players.

[TonyMontana]

The only real superstars in the NBA are LeBron and Durant.

Ten years ago, they would be the only two current NBA players to make any top 10 list.

Unless you have LeBron or Durant your best bet to win is to put together a tough gritty team that dominates the paint. Seeing as how LeBrons team sucks in the paint and Durants is eh you can still win a championship.

If Miami ever gets a real bigman though, noone has a chance.

[JimmyMcAdocious]

Watered down, perhaps.

[razzredazzre]

yea

[wakencdukest]

Big men > guards imo. A team with a great front court > Team with great perimeter players.

I agree. But, I think that a lot of people these days want to see more perimeter oriented small ball and iso, with the bigs being stretched out to the 3 point line. I miss back to the basket post play.

[tpols]

Can you imagine if the Heat had to go through

Shaq/Kobe Lakers
Webber/Bibby/Peja/Divac Kings
(Prime)Duncan/parker/manu Spurs
Dirk/Finley/Nash/Jamison Mavs
Hell even peak KG/Cassell/Sprewell Wolves were scary in 04 against a dominant Lakers team before the implosion.

East has been weak forever(except for a small stretch from 08 to 10/11ish) but West 8-10 years ago is stronger than if you combined seeds today for east/west into one 8 team bracket.

[kamil]

Easiest road to victory for LeBron* imaginable;

Rose, Deng, Heinrich, Rondo, Bynum, Granger, Amare, Westbrook, Kobe, Gasol, Love, Melo and Davis.

All seriously injured or having limited play and not even mentioning Dwight's bad back.

This is a far bigger asterisk for a championship than the shortened season.

The pathetic part? LeBron* still struggled and had TWO seven game series and was down 3-2 going into Game 6 in the Finals. And TonyMontana calls this guy greater than MJ?

[livinglegend]

Easiest road to victory for LeBron* imaginable;

Rose, Deng, Heinrich, Rondo, Bynum, Granger, Amare, Westbrook, Kobe, Gasol, Love, Melo and Davis.

All seriously injured or having limited play and not even mentioning Dwight's bad back.

This is a far bigger asterisk for a championship than the shortened season.

The pathetic part? LeBron* still struggled and had TWO seven game series and was down 3-2 going into Game 6 in the Finals. And TonyMontana calls this guy greater than MJ?

You forgot to mention Wade. When Wade was healthy, Heat won 27 streak gms.

[SCdac]

Agree with KG215 for the most part.

Furthermore, the lack of elite big men makes the league different... because their scoring is such a different brand of scoring than swingmen. Players lack fundamentals (Dwight) or they want to shoot threes (Love), but there is still hope (Monroe, etc).

Now that Duncan, Kobe, and Dirk are getting older, I think the Western Conference is going to continue coming down to earth relative to what we're all used to.

[kamil]

You forgot to mention Wade. When Wade was healthy, Heat won 27 streak gms.

I'm not including Wade cuz he still showed up bigtime in certain games during the finals. The fact that he's playing at all is reason enough to NOT include him on the list. The struggles LeBron* is showing discredits him from being GOAT though, the dude should be steamrolling through the competition with his supposed 'greatness' and the stacked team. Even against a badly crippled Bulls team the Heat didn't do all that well, where the Bulls were hanging around in almost every game... against mostly their BENCH players right before two seven game series and barely... BARELY getting by in game 6 in the finals.

You can't call this guy the GOAT, its just downright stupid.

[Young X]

The east is terrible.

[Ne 1]

Weakest for superstars, weakest era for bigs and the East was probably historically weaker than ever this year.