The Life of Flagg

phaedrus said:
If you've been paying attention to the NBA (or any professional sport) for awhile, you know there is a massive difference between the preparation and training players conduct today versus years past.

Players used to show up to training camp out of shape, having hardly played ball for months. Today, they are logging daily workouts year-round with personal trainers. It used to be newsworthy when MJ put on some muscle in the off-season, or Kobe took x number of jump shots every day. Now, those kinds of things are table stakes.

And it stands to reason. There are tens (hundreds, really) of millions of reasons for players to prove their worth. And they act like it.
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I know Lebron is a controversial subject on this board, but his longevity alone is a remarkable testament to some of the differences in players today. "Fitness" has a completely different definition than it used to.
 
We romanticize the past. Watching iso ball in the 90s (8 players would all go to one side, leaving the team star to go 1 on 1, over and over) wasn’t flowing bball, it was gym play. And while we remember the Bad Boys through roae colored glasses, the reality was watching Laimbeer just clobber skill players repeatedly wasn’t beautiful bball either. Now Showtime with the Lakers in the 80s was an exception - that was beautiful basketball.

But I do agree that the players have gotten too good for the current 3pt line, which is why the game is unbalanced now with too many long range shots. The solution is for the 3pt to go back again, but that would require widening the courts. I think that difficult decision will be made sometime in the future, due to necessity. 3 pt shots are fun, its just not good when they dominate the game so much.
 
Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15 said:
Players today are bigger, stronger, faster. They are better shooters, better defenders (within the context of the rules). They have longer careers, more stamina.

I guess if you want to criticize offensive sets compared to 25 years ago you can, but it's also based off data and statistics and maximizes efficiency.

You can say the NBA game isn't compelling to you. You can say that you miss physical defense. You can say three pointers are boring. Those are all subjective assessments.

But you'll be hard to find objective information to support a statement that NBA players were better in years past.
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In particular, the notion that talent is "diluted" today is especially weird. We've had the same number of NBA teams for the last 20+ years, but the talent pool, particularly the international talent pool, has only grown and grown. Today there are more elite basketball players than ever competing for the same number of roster spots.
 
Skydog said:
We romanticize the past. Watching iso ball in the 90s (8 players would all go to one side, leaving the team star to go 1 on 1, over and over) wasn’t flowing bball, it was gym play. And while we remember the Bad Boys through roae colored glasses, the reality was watching Laimbeer just clobber skill players repeatedly wasn’t beautiful bball either. Now Showtime with the Lakers in the 80s was an exception - that was beautiful basketball.

But I do agree that the players have gotten too good for the current 3pt line, which is why the game is unbalanced now with too many long range shots. The solution is for the 3pt to go back again, but that would require widening the courts. I think that difficult decision will be made sometime in the future, due to necessity. 3 pt shots are fun, its just not good when they dominate the game so much.
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Maybe the rules should be changed to make them worth only 2.5 points??
 
FosterCoachK82 said:
Yeah. I wouldn’t want half points but a 3point shot could be randomly scored as 2 or 3 points.
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Obviously, I was joking BUT there may be ways to be creative, like, maybe keep the 3-point shot but your team loses a point if you miss the 3-point shot. It would, at least, give the scorers more to do during the game.
 
Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15 said:
Players today are bigger, stronger, faster. They are better shooters, better defenders (within the context of the rules). They have longer careers, more stamina.

I guess if you want to criticize offensive sets compared to 25 years ago you can, but it's also based off data and statistics and maximizes efficiency.

You can say the NBA game isn't compelling to you. You can say that you miss physical defense. You can say three pointers are boring. Those are all subjective assessments.

But you'll be hard to find objective information to support a statement that NBA players were better in years past.
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I concede they are, on the whole, better athletes with better training. I only say the game has degenerated. Defense is largely grab and hold everywhere outside the paint. O is largely ISO garbage. No one can, by objective data, compare players of different generations. But I would put up Wilt, Russell, West, Baylor, O, Bird, Magic, Kareem, and Walton (before injuries) against any collection of top players today. Their skills were just as good and they understood the game, unlike today’s collection of runners, jumpers, and dunkers.
 
soflabluedevil said:
I concede they are, on the whole, better athletes with better training. I only say the game has degenerated. Defense is largely grab and hold everywhere outside the paint. O is largely ISO garbage. No one can, by objective data, compare players of different generations. But I would put up Wilt, Russell, West, Baylor, O, Bird, Magic, Kareem, and Walton (before injuries) against any collection of top players today. Their skills were just as good and they understood the game, unlike today’s collection of runners, jumpers, and dunkers.
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You should watch some Nuggets basketball.
 
soflabluedevil said:
I concede they are, on the whole, better athletes with better training. I only say the game has degenerated. Defense is largely grab and hold everywhere outside the paint. O is largely ISO garbage. No one can, by objective data, compare players of different generations. But I would put up Wilt, Russell, West, Baylor, O, Bird, Magic, Kareem, and Walton (before injuries) against any collection of top players today. Their skills were just as good and they understood the game, unlike today’s collection of runners, jumpers, and dunkers.
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The older players were "Skinny Minnies" compared to the players today. Training of all kinds has made a huge difference.
 
soflabluedevil said:
I concede they are, on the whole, better athletes with better training. I only say the game has degenerated. Defense is largely grab and hold everywhere outside the paint. O is largely ISO garbage. No one can, by objective data, compare players of different generations. But I would put up Wilt, Russell, West, Baylor, O, Bird, Magic, Kareem, and Walton (before injuries) against any collection of top players today. Their skills were just as good and they understood the game, unlike today’s collection of runners, jumpers, and dunkers.
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Obviously if those players were coming up and playing now, they would develop different skill sets more in line with the modern game, they would have more modern weight training and nutrition etc. That goes without saying.

With that being said, though, a guy like Bill Russell -- an all time great of course -- could never get on an NBA court today. He was a 6'9" 215 pound player who couldn't/didn't play at all facing the basket. Very few ball skills offensively. He'd be a small forward today in terms of his size and frame and he just couldn't handle the ball or shoot nearly well enough to play that position. Who knows if he could move his feet well enough to defend perimeter players, as he never had to do that in his era.
 
Skydog said:
The solution is for the 3pt to go back again, but that would require widening the courts.
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An alternate solution that wouldn't require changing the dimensions of the court would be to eliminate the corner three by getting rid of the asymmetry in the arc. Just have the arc follow its natural path to the sideline instead of cutting to the baseline. You could pair that with pushing the arc back, too, although the defensive advantage of not having to the defend the corner three anymore might make that unnecessary.
 
crote said:
An alternate solution that wouldn't require changing the dimensions of the court would be to eliminate the corner three by getting rid of the asymmetry in the arc. Just have the arc follow its natural path to the sideline instead of cutting to the baseline. You could pair that with pushing the arc back, too, although the defensive advantage of not having to the defend the corner three anymore might make that unnecessary.
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Said the same thing in Post 81 of the NBA thread in December 🤣

Just keeping track of how threads drift back to the same ground

How about Cooper Flagg?
 
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tommy said:
Obviously if those players were coming up and playing now, they would develop different skill sets more in line with the modern game, they would have more modern weight training and nutrition etc. That goes without saying.

With that being said, though, a guy like Bill Russell -- an all time great of course -- could never get on an NBA court today. He was a 6'9" 215 pound player who couldn't/didn't play at all facing the basket. Very few ball skills offensively. He'd be a small forward today in terms of his size and frame and he just couldn't handle the ball or shoot nearly well enough to play that position. Who knows if he could move his feet well enough to defend perimeter players, as he never had to do that in his era.
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Russell was probably the best athlete in the league, even better than Wilt. He was a tremendous and quick to elevate jumper, long arms, best timing and anticipation for blocking shots of anyone who ever played. He was much stronger physically than his frame appeared and the fastest big man up and down the court when he needed to be. He dominated games by defense and rebounding. To say he couldn’t play today is unfathomable. He would not be put 28’ from the basket to launch 3 pt shots. He would be inside. To claim that the muscle men of today would push him around when he was the only guy who could defend the strongest guy of all time, Wilt, is laughable.
 
soflabluedevil said:
Russell was probably the best athlete in the league, even better than Wilt. He was a tremendous and quick to elevate jumper, long arms, best timing and anticipation for blocking shots of anyone who ever played. He was much stronger physically than his frame appeared and the fastest big man up and down the court when he needed to be. He dominated games by defense and rebounding. To say he couldn’t play today is unfathomable. He would not be put 28’ from the basket to launch 3 pt shots. He would be inside. To claim that the muscle men of today would push him around when he was the only guy who could defend the strongest guy of all time, Wilt, is laughable.
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Most of what you say about Russell also can be said about Wilt. To think or say they could not play in today's game is beyond ridiculous.
 
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