Where does the myth of physical 90s NBA basketball come from?

[Bergmaniac]

The early 90s were very different in playstyle than the late 90s, during the decade there was a pretty dramatic shift towards slower pace, bigger focus on defence and more physicality. The 2004 Pistons were the peak of this trend.

[Tim_Hardawayy]

The early 90s were very different in playstyle than the late 90s, during the decade there was a pretty dramatic shift towards slower pace, bigger focus on defence and more physicality. The 2004 Pistons were the peak of this trend.

This is accurate, I'd say Riley really helped cause a lot of it first with his Knicks going against MJ, and then bringing that style to Miami while Van Gundy continued his legacy in New York. It depends a lot on which teams are playing.

Watch on YouTube

Heat Lakers from 96/97, watching this clip there's numerous physical plays down low that would have gotten whistles in today's game that they just allowed back then.

Also if it weren't for his poor free throw shooting I could see Shaq averaging close to 40 in today's game, but more importantly, he might be routinely fouling out entire team's frontlines. The way the game is played currently they'd almost have to change some of the rules if there was a modern day Shaq.

[og15]

These threads are a bit annoying, because instead of appreciating and discussing with critique, but also appreciation, different eras, it's about trying to find gotcha's against those who have a stylistic or, yes, nostalgic preference for a specific period.

If you look at league scoring by year, you'll see. The 80's pistons teams were undeniably physical, but they were an outlier. Teams didn't really start to copy that style until the late 80's and spilled over into the 90's. In the 89/90 season, teams were still scoring 107 ppg. By 98/99, scoring bottomed out at 91.6. They cut down on the flagrant fouls, but they just let guys be physical and push and hold all over the place. That continued into the 2000's and that 04 pistons team was only allowing 84 ppg. Ever since, the league has been pushing "freedom of movement" and really cut down on the constant bumping and grabbing. By the end of the 2000's, teams were back to scoring 100ppg. It really took off when teams started to realize that you could get a lot of open 3 looks off penetration with that "freedom of movement" .

To be totally fair to the players, that specific season was due to the lockout season when they had to condense games, had basically no training camp, and half the league was out of shape, it wasn't truly representative of the league, but the lower scoring was still happening. The average ppg in the 90's was still >100 ppg.

Freedom of movement was meant as going back to the NBA's roots, not actually changing anything. The NBA didn't have to legislate it as much (had a hand check ban in the 70's) in the 60's, 70's, 80's and even mostly early 90's for most teams, because there was no egregious utilization. They saw the league as losing freedom of movement as the 90's went on and really peaking in the 00's and the aim was recovering the free flowing game they previously had.

The freedom of movement before meant teams could get a lot of open shots, play with pace, move the ball, etc, they just weren't shooting three's, and yes, it took the NBA a while to get on the higher 3PT shooting wagon.

90's basketball was just a progression of teams trying to copy what seemed to work for others. Bulls are dominating, they are a slowed paced deliberate half court team, okay, let's do that. Pistons had beat the Bulls early with physical type basketball, okay, let's try and copy that mold, etc.

One of the biggest factors in the 00's was that 90's teams built rosters where spacing was less critical because you could exploit defense to get spacing. Then you take away illegal defense and allow modified zone, so now teams don't have to guard your PF or SF who can't shoot or do anything on offense and just defends and rebounds, so where is that space? Gone. So now you have a lot of rosters built with those kinds of players, and then teams start adjusting to guarding differently, and that made offense start to get worse every year after that change.

[SlimShady83]

Bring back the 90's

[FarBeyondDriven]

yawn. All you have to do is go look at the scores in the Finals for your answer but OP is clearly disingenuous and not interested in anything that goes against his bias. Scores were regularly in the 80s (or lower) and 90s. When the game gained popularity after Magic and Bird saved it and MJ made it global, there were more (not better) longer athletes. Since the court stayed the same dimensions it basically shrunk the court taking away passing lanes and making it very difficult for any except the very best to score one on one. Every team had bigs and shot-blockers and most 4s were two-way players and usually great defenders.

The poor ratings due to low-scoring games, combined with MJ retiring made the NBA think they needed more offense so they began allowing offensive players to carry the ball which opened things up quite a bit. Then they began looking the other way and allowed moving screens which gave more one on one opportunities when bigs switched onto scorers and gave shooters separation they needed to get shots off. It's gone way too far and now the league is an unwatchable joke with zero defense and an explosion of offensive numbers based off that more than any increase in skill.

[SlimShady83]

<I deleted>

[durden_tyler]

Obviously you had the Bad Boys Pistons in the late 80s who were infamous for hard fouls. The league changed the flagrant foul rules in 90-91 to remedy this.

When you watch 90s games in full, it isn't any more physical than what you see today. Especially when looking at the playoffs. Modern playoff games have so much contact in them.

A more physical era than the 90a was clearly the 2000s. The 2004 Pistons teams were so physical that the NBA had to implement rule changes to fix it. They manhandled their opponents. Shouldn't the 2000s be known as the physical era given that it was WAY more physical than the 90s?

Where did this myth of physical 90s basketball come from? Watching the games, it's just completely false. I was actually shocked at how little contact there was when watching those games. Is this just BS perpetuated by dumb/salty ex-players, then parroted by their nostalgic fans who hate anything new?

It's more that the physicality these days is not allowed at all. Soft teams for a softer genaration of players (and fans). In the 90s some/most of those phyiscal plays were allowed.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

I think the idea of the brutal 90s is associated to all the Miami vs NYK encounters and this image in particular.

[Pantsman]

It wasn’t really a myth. It was more physical. Hand checking was allowed. But it was a much less skillful league.

[theonlyclutch]

It wasn’t really a myth. It was more physical. Hand checking was allowed. But it was a much less skillful league.

I really don't know what people are looking at when they say there's no hand checking in the league anymore...

Giannis sure gets plenty handsy with Wemby in this possession alone...

[prophet_of_rage]

Another quality thread.
There is so much coping from Lebron fans lately.

It's OKAY... he's still an all time great.

And yes, the 90s were more physical, the lane was more packed and there
were less three pointers, nothing keeping bigs from camping near the rim to block perimeter players and way more action from big scorers than perimeter players. There's a green light for jacking up threes as well, which we haven't had in the 90s.

That's something that you'll have to deal with. It's ridiculous to think that we just fabricated this when
all of the players talk about it. Get annoyed all that you want, but the truth is the truth.

You'd be annoyed too if you saw the game get soft as charmin after cherishing the aggression and tenacity behind
quality defense instead of players just trying to avoid contact.

You'd also get annoyed if the commissioner purposefully created rules to make scoring accessible, stating so himself, and then
watched players get easy layups. It annoyed the hell out of me. Now, I just don't care to watch as often.

It annoys us because we used to love the game and it looks more like a mockery at times, like it or not.
That's our perspective. Once again- you can deal with it. That's the "myth"

They did the same thing in the 90s after the Rockets-Knicks finaks cratered the ratings. Hell they shortened the three point line.

I watched since the late 70s until today. There was more fighting allowed and flagrant fouls were reviewed differently. They were relatively new.

But there is also a myth of the 90s. The 90s is split between pre Jordan retirement 1 when offence was still high and free wheeling and post retirement when Knicks defence was briefly allowed (94-95 handcheck changed to elbow check) and then thecShaq era of 96 on when teams needed bodies to throw at him.

You also had more featured post ups which led to more bump and grind but todays players have to do more running, jumping and movement without benefit of hands on touching in a larger area of the court.

So the definition of physical has to be discussed. Bevause 99s fans think it means contact whike todays fans think it means exertion.

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[Johnny Bball]

[prophet_of_rage]

90s NBA was WAY more physical. The only people who don't believe it....didn't watch it.

But beyond that, why does modern fans always try to diss older generations to try and prop up today's NBA? Should it be able to stand on it's own? This endless need to say previous decades were weak just shows desperation.

That is the nature of basketball. The generations diss each other.

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[Ice Man]

Nineties basketball wasn't more physical. People think it was because 1) the ball was inside the paint more often, with post-up play, and so viewers watched the banging that goes on in the post. Now they don't watch the banging that goes on in the post because the ball isn't there. But believe me, it's going on, as much or even more than before. Just ask Jokic. The second reason is 2) YouTube videos, which show the 0.1% of the most violent, dirty plays in the Nineties, and then people who weren't there start to think that the game was constantly like that. It wasn't. MJ would go entire games barely being touched, but getting 10 FTs on brush fouls. That was more common than muggings.

[Himothy Duncan]

The Fraudulent GOAT that was created and pushed like no other athlete won in the 90s, so they tried to make it seem so tough so ppl forget he didn’t win in the 80s lol.

[Tim Lehrbach]

yawn. All you have to do is go look at the scores in the Finals for your answer but OP is clearly disingenuous and not interested in anything that goes against his bias.

Also you:

now the league is an unwatchable joke with zero defense and an explosion of offensive numbers based off that more than any increase in skill.

But, no bias there, right?

[Tim Lehrbach]

I think there would be slightly less mythologizing of earlier eras -- the mid-late 90s and early aughts in particular -- if fans weren't obsessed with protecting the sanctity of the record books and stats generally. A lot of people don't like seeing numbers that weren't as attainable in a different age, so they find reasons to be critical of the trends and rule changes that account for the individual and team offensive production we see today. It is unacceptable that somebody's counting stats could dwarf those of MJ or Kobe, or that Steph and Jokic could produce at unheard-of efficiencies, or that a dynasty could dominate by wider margins than the titans of yesteryear. So, we have to say that everything is inflated or a joke and the numbers mean nothing because the game has been corrupted. Some fans of today's game respond with defensiveness and sweeping claims about how everybody sucked back in the day to stick up for the accomplishments of recent stars and dominant teams.

This is all, of course, a silly concern, but I detect it often when people knock down achievements of any era. Like we can't contextualize numbers to the environment they were recorded in. Like record books and comparing counting stats even f'ing matter. If folks could be freed from caring about comparing stats across eras or preserving some sacred record books, I think we'd see more appreciation of different times for what they were/are.

[bledredwine]

It wasn’t really a myth. It was more physical. Hand checking was allowed. But it was a much less skillful league.

I really don't know what people are looking at when they say there's no hand checking in the league anymore...

Giannis sure gets plenty handsy with Wemby in this possession alone...

Resistance. You were allowed to provide resistance whereas now you can put your hand there but aren’t allowed to provide any resistance whatsoever. It’s a game changer, just as the three sec violation is. If you watch games from both eras and pay attention specifically to resistance, you’ll see it almost immediately. I have a friend who had an epiphany because he was saying the saying thing. We watched together and after awareness, it became obvious to him.

[bledredwine]

What is it like being proven wrong on a consistent basis on these views, and then convincing yourself that it never happened and/or everybody else is wrong but you?

What is it like knowing so little about basketball that you have nothing to say in reply to your original question and instead decide on shifting the topic to the poster himself instead?

What a joke you are.

And if you read the above replies, you'll start to know that your topics are seen that way as well.

You are living rent free in his brain.

100%
Hilarious- he put me in his signature and literally no one cared. I got so much satisfaction out of those laughs

I’ve never seen someone try so hard who is completely harmless. It also confirms the neuroscience that if you ignore someone, they don’t get the dopamine hit they anticipate and it drives them completely bonkers.

It’s been really fun, if I’m being completely honest.

[Ainosterhaspie]

yawn. All you have to do is go look at the scores in the Finals for your answer but OP is clearly disingenuous and not interested in anything that goes against his bias.

Also you:

now the league is an unwatchable joke with zero defense and an explosion of offensive numbers based off that more than any increase in skill.

But, no bias there, right?

Let's look at some finals from the 90s compared to the 20s.

Winner 106.7 PPG. Loser 106.7 PPG.
Winner 114 PPG. Loser 107 PPG.

Winner 104.6 PPG. Loser 96.4 PPG.
Winner 101.6 PPG. Loser 99.2 PPG.

The first two look like a weaker defense era and the latter two look like the stronger defense era. First two are the 93 and 95 finals. Second two are the 23 and 24 finals.

We see 90s mythologists says things like "90s defenses were brutal and every time you drove the lane, you'd get knocked on your ass", and "today you can't touch anyone or play defense", yet series like the above happened which completely destroys that narrative.

That narrative is wrong because it's taking a kernel of truth and making it the whole truth when there are numerous factors intertwined which make the story much more complex than the "90s defense good and physical, modern defenses trash and soft" narrative.

Yes, the three second rule makes offense easier than it would be without it, but so did the illegal defense rule which was more impactful.

Yes handchecking enforcement relaxed at various moments in the 90s. (It's always been illegal, but enforcement waxes and wanes over the years). But it wasn't a tool extensively employed by every team all game through the whole 90s. When it started to get out of hand, the league cracked down right in the middle of the 90s.

Yes the paint was crowded in the 90s. More than anything else, this was because the offensive philosophy at the time was that good offense meant post ups and shots as close to the basket as you can get. Players were discouraged from taking threes. It was viewed as smart basketball to pass up an open three, step inside the arc for a long two. That's a fundamentally broken idea, but it was ubiquitous at the time.

That mindset destroyed offensive efficiency and it had nothing to do with physical or quality defense. Offenses intentionally rejected higher efficiency shots in favor of lower efficiency shots. That didn't just impact those shots, it impacted the whole offense. Defenders could crowd the lane because they didn't have to defend at the arc. This made things much more crowded and therefore physical inside, but it had nothing to do with the rules. It was primarily bad tactics.

Had teams understood the value of threes and taught their players to take shots from beyond the arc, it would have forced defenses to defend more space and it would have opened up things inside.

No, handchecking isn't why teams didn't do this. If you watch the games, you can see wide open shot after wide open shot being rejected in favor of attempts to force entry passes for low efficiency post ups.

But that's just because defenses knew those guys couldn't shoot so they didn't guard them as a smart tactic. To the extent that is true, there was nothing preventing players from practicing the three more and no reason coaches couldn't have taught even weak shooters that a three is better than a long two. But weak shooter aside, even the great three point shooters often didn't take open threes in favor of making interior passes or stepping inside the arc for long two.

The three was there as a tool that would have opened offenses and increased efficiency and teams simply refused to use it. This was fundamentally bad basketball and is far more than physical defense and the rules of the era, the reason that offensive output was suppressed in that era. The modern utilization of the three is far more responsible for modern offensive output, than rules changes since the 90s.