People think today's league is diluted because more people play in it, but I would bet the worst players today are much, much better than the worst players in any other era, not just because of increased athleticism like some people try to argue, but because they are in a higher percentile in their own generation.
The 80's and 90's made basketball very popular, and during that time kids in the USA all grew up wanting to be the next Magic and Mike. Coaches started going overseas to spread the game. Now the NBA has more than 60 international players (don't know the actual count) from countries where basketball was barely played before the 80's. That's 5 teams of NBA players who wouldn't have been playing basketball before the 80's, just from overseas.
In the 60's there was also much less money in the league than there is today. That means less questionable parenting with people trying to earn their retirements by training their kids to play basketball from an early age and less people thinking they could devote themselves and make a living playing basketball.
Ignoring all these other arguments here is the population of the United States:
You can bet with the rate at which basketball is growing in Europe, SA, China and Africa, there will be more tons more top-level international players, and the increase of franchises will not come near reflecting that.
What is actually diluted is the fans knowledge of each player, so they assume teams are less talented because they don't really know every player on every team like would have been able to if they had followed in the 60's.[/img]