Older heads what was the preception of the 2000s era NBA?

[Professor Emeritus]

Now do you think this is specific to basketball in America?

Because in most other countries, in most other sports...the best athletes do not come from a white collar background.

I mean I would agree that these days, the AAU stuff has practically ruined high school basketball - which is where I suspect most of the blue collar kids showed off and developed their skills in the past. And the kids who get put on those AAU teams, or high profile academies, tend to come from better situations...or they are identified and sponsored at a very young age.

In America anyway, it's probably like this for basketball, soccer and to a lesser degree, even baseball now.

In other words, youth sports are now under the "money talks and BS walks" umbrella.

To that I say to youth sports: "Welcome to rest of American society. Put your coat on the rack and lemme show you around the place."

This is the answer.

Every American sport that relies on early development has become more and more biased towards the middle class and wealthy, who have the resources to get their kids into that development early. Basketball, baseball, soccer, hockey, tennis, they all are much harder for poor/working-class kids to become elite in nowadays.

Football is an exception because you can get away with not playing football until middle school / high school and still make it big at most positions. But I'll bet quarterbacks are heavily weighted towards better-off kids too. And if they find a way to start developing elite wide recievers, linebacks, and defensive ends in elementary school, then we'll start seeing those positions become tougher for the poor to crack as well.

 

[mastermind]

The Knicks/Nuggets fight was the last proper nba brawl.

 

[NigerianDonDada]

What happened is exactly what's happening in this thread.. You had one set of fans who hated the way the game was played and the other who had been waiting to see it played like this all their life. And both people are correct

MJ retired and although MJ is NOW seen as an a$$hole, drinking, partying, wilding, cussing MJ... Back then he was safe as Disney.. He played the right way even though he was so ruthless and people inside, knew it. To the public, MJ winning those last 3 was just heaven. Perfect.. Black, white, fan, league, perfect...


Soon as he retired, all the names you listed in this thread started being the forefront. fukk a suit, XXXXXL tees and baggy jeans... Cornrows with designs, baggy uniforms, cussing, flashy, gunning shots, iso ball, tatts, 360 windmills, all of it.. Black people really loved it. Street ball was coming to the NBA. The streets was shining. Everybody had a throwback jersey. And 1 tourneys. Killer crossovers.. Stuart Scott highlights on sportscenter in the am. Jadakiss sneaker videos. Fights, gang members, beating up fans,


White people were in shock. This ain't Mike. We don't want our kids acting like this. What the fukk is this palming shyt? Where's the beautiful game? Oh my god they're beating up fans????


NBA ratings went down, the MASSES were sick of the new NBA. But the masses of america are what? Black america was buying up everything NBA. We wasn't even talking NFL like that. All the rappers was around NBA players. All the NBA players were all up in the videos.. Hell, putting out rap albums. NBA said no no no no no and put in so many damn rules to shut that shyt down, you'd think it was a conspiracy. But they had to protect their brand and so they did.

But nah.. It wasn't one way over the other. It was a mix of all that, that lead to the NBA saying "get these nikkas up out of here"

what a time. Back when the streets and courts were still filled with nikkas hooping all day. Inner cities HS basketball scene across the US was I miss that era Hip Hop everywhere

 

[Greenhornet]

Big facts breh. Your point about every team having some wild ass dude....there just seemed to be unique personalites back then even with the role players. Teams had different styles and narratives. Teams had real beef. Just a great era

from antoine walker to ricky davis, rasheed wallace, marbury, white chocolate, bruce bowen, monta ellis and most of the warriors team, ben wallace, ben gordon who is one of my favorites of all time... you can go on and on every team

 

[Greenhornet]

ooo I remember that too. Cacs were NOT fukking with the NBA in the early 00s lol.

 

[Stuntone]

I don't think people missed Jordan much and I was a big fan. All his 2 retirements and that Wizards stint, we were cool with him leaving. Plus that Lakers 3pt was amazing to see. The Spurs dominance, the Piston 2 chips. McGrady and AI. White chocolate. There was a lot of great individual play. Vince Carter slam dunk Championship was crazy and pretty ruin the dunk contest forever.

Blazers were really fun to watch.

Bron Melo and Wade all came into the league like grown men.

And then Fantasy League started and people really started watching more.

Chris Paul pretty much dismantling the Spurs is so underrated.

Arenas was cooking. I was in DC so that was really fun to watch



Personally the best Basketball was from 2008 Bostons KG, Pierce, Rondo, Ray Championship to Kobe 2 FMVPs thru the Heatles Years to the Lebron vs Warriors . From about 2006 to 2016 was my favorite period in the NBA.

 

[The Devil's Advocate]

This article is in line with what you guys are saying Guess this was one of the real reasons NBC let the NBA go @-DMP- @FAH1223 @SchoolboyC @10bandz.

Was the NBA too black for NBC?

A September 25, 2001 piece by Variety writer John Dempsey on the upcoming NBA television negotiations featured a stunning series of quotes:


Less shocking, but more bold than Dempsey’s quote was this statement:

That's crazy.. I was basing my answer purely off what I saw outside... Numbers matched that perfectly. We LOVED that shyt

 

[Braman]

A lot of thoughts:

-First, this thread gets a major alert. Gonna be a lot of white boys in hiding giving their revisionist opinion. To that point…

-You gotta realize ratings and ‘perception’ means white eyes. So when you see ‘ratings were bad’, that has NOTHING to do with how we as fans—BLACK fans—-viewed the game. Ie menace to society probably has bad reviews and ratings, but that’s completely irrelevant to us

- Even more when yo see folk talking analytics and iso ball. At that time we knew nothing of the sort. It’d be like 20 years from now people saying ‘lol look, they didn’t even have a 4 point shot’

So for black folk, the league was GREAT back then bc it was a mirror of the streets/rap/culture. You’d have the Source for rap, Slam for hoops. Also street ball took off at that time and players went to the Rucker. Ball was life and not just on the internet. There was a higher percentage of fans that actually…hooped

-AFTER streetball blew up. and the internet and international players took off, that’s when ‘the game’ lost a huge connection with ‘the culture’. That’s why so much hoops convo is weird now bc you assume you’re talking to a black man who plays/played ball but you’re talking to some nerd who never played. And those nerds dictate the media coverage which dictates the culture of hoops. Hoops gentrification

-I’d also argue we were a smarter fan base bc players went to college and we could get familiar wit them. What replaced that is fans who dont even know the players (see above) and replace actual hoops knowledge with debates

 

[The Devil's Advocate]

I agree the problem is nasty ass cacs. But that thinking fell to middle class white America (who are racist as well, but maybe more subconsiuosy or silently) as well.

So Stern realized the last time that was the perception, the league almost went broke and become defunct. He had to take action. He didn't have Magic, Bird and Jordan to save him this time. He had stars, but they all had issues for the bad. He was saved this time by taking action and LeBron and Wade falling into his lap.

This is why I give credit to Adam Silver too. He did walk into a fortunate situation, but at the end of the day, the game still appeals to most of America even if social media has made highlight culture more prevalent. He also doesn't try and appease racist cacs, he's made it clear the leagues view on social justice and this wouldn't be possible if the league wasn't increasing profits all the time because you know that's the only way those rich old cac owners would allow that message. This isn't even mentioning international growth.

You're right. It had to be done. And for real the NBA leads the big 4 in being a partnership with the players. But for people to say it was a bad era.. That was probably the blackest era of basketball in history. We all saw it live. We'll never see it again. But it was legendary and it did a lot to change the game, good and bad.

But for a brief moment in history, the NBA was Rucker Park and I'm glad I was there for it.

 

[SchoolboyC]

This is the answer.

Every American sport that relies on early development has become more and more biased towards the middle class and wealthy, who have the resources to get their kids into that development early. Basketball, baseball, soccer, hockey, tennis, they all are much harder for poor/working-class kids to become elite in nowadays.

Football is an exception because you can get away with not playing football until middle school / high school and still make it big at most positions. But I'll bet quarterbacks are heavily weighted towards better-off kids too. And if they find a way to start developing elite wide recievers, linebacks, and defensive ends in elementary school, then we'll start seeing those positions become tougher for the poor to crack as well.

In the draft this year I believe all of the lottery picks except Jalen Williams had at least one parent that was either a pro athlete or D1

 

[stepbackj34spud]

My favorite era of basketball ever

 

[badboys11]

Badboy Detroit Pistons played thug basketball and were bad for the game

Michael Jordan is an all time great, but his teams would get washed by the 80s Lakers Celtics 76ers and even the bucks. One man team against expansion era talent

Houston Rockets almost lost the league to hockey and the oj Simpson car chase

Second three peat Jordan thrived amongst weaker competition in a league diluted by expansion

Spurs were boring

Shaq couldn't hit free throws and Kobe shot the ball too much. Kobe without Shaq is Eddie jones

Lebron cries too much

KD is a bytch

Now they shoot too many 3s and the players get along with each other. They should wanna kill anyone with the nerve to lace up against them We need thug basketball back, those were the glory days.

The league has always had people talking down on the game since I first started watching. Did I forget how all the players were supposedly drug addicts back in the day? U either fukk with the NBA or you don't.

2000s basketball was classic just like the other eras, and it deserves to be celebrated. Prime tmac, Iverson, Vince, Kobe, Duncan, Shaq, young wade Bron dirk etc...unreal to watch happen in real time

 

[Playaz Eyez]

A lot of these posts just reminds me of how sanitized everything currently is in general. Like the fun is deliberately being sucked out of it and the people responsible for it swear that’s not the case. Like when Madden changed up either in 2010 or 2011 to “be more realistic” and all that meant was they slowed everything down and started removing certain staples from the game. Sports, wrestling, sitcoms, music, etc. I’m glad my foundational years were when they were. Got to enjoy so much stuff and (unfortunately) in real time watch it’s decline.

 

[Canada Goose]

Euro as fukk Sacramento Kings, (I can keep going)

"I got more foreign shooters than the Sacramento Kings" - Lloyd Banks

 

[tjwettem]

Stars were evenly dispersed through the league, some really really good teams during that era.

The eastern conference was way weaker than the west during those years overall but the eastern conference playoffs were always entertaining.

The western conference playoffs is what makes that era so special imo. We got to see some truly epic matchups, and real rivalries develop during that time period. The level of competition out west was incredible.

Random, but nba live 05 might be one of best video game soundtracks ever, and the slam dunk contest alone made the game worth the purchase.