1990s NBA teams vs Current teams.

[NYC Rebel]

you would honestly take the 2012 dream team over one of these teams (Since you said top 3) 92, 96, 08???

They could keep up with those squads with their shooting prowess man. Never saw outside shooting like that from one team in my life

 

[NYC Rebel]

Defense is better because of technological advancements where you can use technology to scout a player and build a scheme around stopping said player. In the 80s and 90s you had booklets or slides. Now you got ipads, bball sites with player data, blu rays on player tendencies etc.. The technology has made it better.

I don't think players are better shooters today then what they were 20 years ago, it's just more of an emphasis was placed on shooting (especially corner 3s ) now then 20 years ago.

Case in point, look at the 3pt shooters in the 95 3pt contest and compare them to the shooters in the 2015(prob the best collection of shooters in the contest in a long time) contest do you think 2015 would blow them out of the water on some wash shyt?

1995
Glen Rice
Reggie Miller
Scott Burrell (lol)
Chuck Person
Steve Kerr
Nick Anderson
Dana Barros
Dan Majerle

These guys would kill in the league from 3, just kill. These guys were snipers and miller is 2nd best shooter ever behind ray and steve has the highest 3pt% ever.

2015
Curry
Kyrie
Klay
Wesely Matthews
Korver
Marco B
Reddikk
Harden

I don't think today's shooters are better. Game is schemed differently to take more advantage of their shooting

 

[Whitty Hutton]

You put those teams in today settings, they would have adapted.

Pretty much. There's a whole lot of writing that I'm far too impatient to read, but this is it in the simplist of terms. If all your competition is jacking up 50 3's a game and making a good chunk of those wouldn't everybody adjust to that and practice that part of the game more? I don't see why them single bar hemet wearing QBs from yesteryear couldn't have godly numbers in today's NFL if their gameplan and focus was on throwing the ball 55 times a game

 

[Jplaya2023]

They could keep up with those squads with their shooting prowess man. Never saw outside shooting like that from one team in my life

I don't know Reb, those squads (sans 08) had the bigs to asbolutely destroy the 12 team in the paint. 08 had better perimeter players as well.

i think 12 loses to all 3 teams by a good margin. Shooting 3s is nice but when you can't stop anyone inside you would have to make upwards of 65% to compete. With the perimeter defenders like bron, jordan, pippen, wade, kobe, etc.. it would be hard to shoot like that.

Looking at the 16 team, they might have better shooting with steph, klay, harden, kd, and cp3 then 12

 

[Jplaya2023]

I don't think today's shooters are better. Game is schemed differently to take more advantage of their shooting

I can agree with that. But you have guys here that think that these guys are much better shooters which is crazy to me.

 

[sportscribe]

Harden is a consensus top 3 player now?

This season he was; finished 2nd in MVP voting. A lot of people on this very board (wrongly) stating he deserved MVP.

He is probably the best 2 guard in the league today.

 

[jeh]

I.agree, but a lot of people don't want to change/get with the time. Every time I talk ball with my uncles
"Walt Frazier this"
Lew Alcindor that"
"Dr. J"
Yeah there great, and they influenced a lot of players. But this our era unc, we respect them old heads, but lol guys like Tim Duncan are beasts too .

"Yeah he aight but hes not such and such"

I be like

 

[Long Live The Kane]

The problem with this hypothesis is, this landscape DID exist in the 90s - the scoring system is exactly the same - we're not entering murky waters with a juxtaposition of today and the 1950s (where the 3-pt line didn't exist). If philosophies changed by trending towards maximizing PPP by playing the percentages (in the same cycle), by using the same tools that teams in the 90s had use of, how isn't it better?

Because ultimately, it's all cause and effect. ..there's nothing just inherently "better" about teams today..they play the way they play because of an ongoing never ending chess game of coaching strategy and current trends in the league ...lIke it says in the OP, today's offenses are a response to the defensive schemes popularized by thibbs...schemes that A: wouldn't even had been legal in the 90s ...and B: arose as a response to post Jordan rule changes that made stopping perimeter scorers tougher... none of this shyt happens in a vaccum...teams in the 90s played a style that was most effective at the time, based on the trends of the game ...it's saying today's style is better than 90's fashion based on today's sensibilities.

 

[MJ Truth]

No love for Stan Van? Putting Shard at the 4 is really where this jumped off in my opinion, since he was a much better shooter than Marion.

He had to go against Tom Thibodeau's defense with the Celtics, all them corner 3s are basically a result of having to deal with Tom's defense.

No love for Don Nelson?

 

[SchoolboyC]

This season he was; finished 2nd in MVP voting. A lot of people on this very board (wrongly) stating he deserved MVP.

He is probably the best 2 guard in the league today.

MVP voting and how you rank amongst the other players aren't mutually exclusive.

Joakim Noah was top 5 in MVP voting last season, but who in their right mind thought he was a top 10 player, let alone top 5.

 

[Jplaya2023]

And the Bulls eventually lost to a team that was better at making the 3, and the team that beat them eventually lost to a team that was better at making the 3.

The irony of this post is the bulls lost partly because they couldn't matchup with orlando (they were starting a "stretch 4" as you love and he couldn't defend and there were matchup nightmares all over the court). Then the next year they get a guy who couldn't shoot outside 10 feet and they swept that same team

 

[MJ Truth]

I've already said big men were better, and MJ is obviously the best player ever, but at the end of the day if you just look at how teams are constructed and how they play today, they are better. People are too caught up with nostalgia to really examine what's going on, and nobody has been able to explain how a team that makes 2 threes a game while playing at a faster pace, would be able to beat another team playing at a slower pace that makes 10+ a night.

I agree we're in a golden era which is why I made the thread, it gets old hearing people shyt on the current league because of their fond memories. It's no different then people acting like the 60s Celtics would have beaten the 90s Bulls.

Are the actual players better or is the philosophy, particularly coaching philosophies based around shooting, just different and more effective?

 

[DosCadenaz]

Think a former poster of the years is ignorant brehs

I do.

 

[sportscribe]

MVP voting and how you rank amongst the other players aren't mutually exclusive.

Joakim Noah was top 5 in MVP voting last season, but who in their right mind thought he was a top 10 player, let alone top 5.

I'm not sure you know what mutually exclusive means. If they weren't mutually exclusive, then MVP voting and how the players rank in the league would be congruous - and they are.

James Harden certainly played like an MVP candidate this season.

 

[SchoolboyC]

I'm not sure you know what mutually exclusive means. If they weren't mutually exclusive, then MVP voting and how the players rank in the league would be congruent - and they are.

James Harden certainly played like an MVP candidate this season.

So you think Harden is better than LeBron, Westbrook & AD?