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I'm just browsing games and watching the scores around the league and you got teams scoring 155 points in just 4 quarters is insane. I remember when scores use to be 80-90. These players of today are just not playing much defense. The game is so wide open you can literally get your shot off anytime you want.

I'm wondering if that's why guys like Jokic/Luka continuously put up insane stats nightly. I don't think anyone truly takes pride in defense anymore. The game seems all offense.


Am I tripping or do you agree?

JustBuzzin wrote:I'm just browsing games and watching the scores around the league and you got teams scoring 155 points in just 4 quarters is insane. I remember when scored use to be 80-90. These players of today are just not playing much defense. The game is so wide open you can literally get your shot off anytime you want.

I'm wondering if that's why guys like Jokic/Luka continuously put up insane stats nightly. I don't think anyone truly takes pride in defense anymore. The game seems all offense.


Am I tripping or do you agree?

Magic vs. Heat was 88-89

No, the players today are by and large better than past players. Any amount of time watching 90s footage, never mind the semi-pro league of the 60s, makes that obvious.

Maybe if you take numbers at face value. The statistics are inflated over the last 8 or so years.

Why are people leaving, if the talent's so good?

20 Years ago the Spurs would have a player run a pin down screen on Manu's defender and he would cut under the ring for an open layup and people were dropping their Jaw at such innovative Offense

Now as a defender You are Fighting through 7 Screen's to defend a teams third best 3p shooter because unguarded he's hitting 80% from the left side shoulder on the 3P line while trying to remember to Show as much between two points because you will get benched if the PG passes it to the SG on the right side shoulder 3p line he knocks it down 90% of the time, and god help you if you get caught on the 5th screen and you suddenly have accidently had to switch now your 6'2" PG is on their 6'10" Small forward who is going to almost have an uncontested mid range


You are watching but not watching. Sure I would like more defensive rules, But what do you do? Hell Miami brought back in the zone 2-3 years and it literally stumped teams because suddenly you had 4 really good defenders guarding space+ a center who could cover behind a beaten defender and it would suddenly be you broke Tyler Hero down, But now you have BAM on your ass and guys like Butler /Lowry who were excellent at knowing where the pass out was going to happen. offenses were a little stumped and never really drilled how to beat it

I would enforce Carry's to be honest. Fiba you have no third step and the ability to take the step and Dribble eliminates a lot of breaking down defenders but it also leads to less athletic/highlight plays.

I think allowing more physicality (IF someone says hand checking, No) And putting in 2 more refs who literally only call carry's would sort a few things out.

The offense is so good now and efficient now. The spacing has never been so good. That's due to the players skillset has gotten better over the years and coaching to provide the best offense. It's not that the defense is incredibly bad. At least what is allowed via rules.

You would have to change the rules to make defense more effective, but you could only do so much with their shooting.

The pacing is fast too, similar to the 80s. The late 90s and early 00s were the abnormally in nba history since they were slower paced. Usually the pace of the game is fast.

Plus you can just see it for yourself. How are you going to stop Jokic? Dude is shooting 50% from 3. He could do pick and rolls, pick and pop, has multiple post moves, with one of the best footworks ever and one of the best passers in the history of the game. You have a center that come off screens, do a curl to a jumphook or a curl to a 3pt line and shoot it. Bigs back then never seen that. At most you could say there were multiple big bodies that could bother Jokic in the post.

Luka is similar.

You take the celtics now and put them in the late 90s and early 00s, they would revolutionize the game. They would out shoot everyone. What they take is considered to be bad shots back then. But it would spread the floor. They wouldn't be able to defend it because the thought of it seems crazy. They could, in turn, defend the driving to the basket and they could have a center camp in the paint.

Teams nowadays took what the Utah Jazz did with their constant pick and rolls, and expanded it like crazy. How are you going to defend that? Like 3-4 picks to free up a shooter, and then the rest of the team could shoot as well?

It's just a different game how it is now in comparison to how it is back then. Lots of things to keep track of. The coaching is different and how they played the game was different.

The best thing you could say is that the refs could call carrying and moving screens more often back then. And probably traveling. But sometimes it happens so fast that the refs won't pick up on it.

One_and_Done wrote:No, the players today are by and large better than past players. Any amount of time watching 90s footage, never mind the semi-pro league of the 60s, makes that obvious.

This.just way more skilled in every facet.doesnt mean players in the past werent state of the art ,just in retrospect they look pedestrian.if you take a look outside the nba its even more obvious.

When the game is called correctly, it's harder to score. Simple as that. The playoffs don't look anything like this.

CumberlandPosey wrote:

One_and_Done wrote:No, the players today are by and large better than past players. Any amount of time watching 90s footage, never mind the semi-pro league of the 60s, makes that obvious.

This.just way more skilled in every facet.doesnt mean players in the past werent state of the art ,just in retrospect they look pedestrian.if you take a look outside the nba its even more obvious.

They're better at shooting threes maybe. They totally lack any back to the basket skills though.

JustBuzzin wrote:I'm just browsing games and watching the scores around the league and you got teams scoring 155 points in just 4 quarters is insane. I remember when scored use to be 80-90. These players of today are just not playing much defense. The game is so wide open you can literally get your shot off anytime you want.

I'm wondering if that's why guys like Jokic/Luka continuously put up insane stats nightly. I don't think anyone truly takes pride in defense anymore. The game seems all offense.


Am I tripping or do you agree?

Scoring 80-90 was a really short period of time and uncharacteristic of NBA history. it was also, just terrible basketball.

So yeah, you're tripping.

Chuck Everett wrote:When the game is called correctly, it's harder to score. Simple as that. The playoffs don't look anything like this.

The 2024 playoffs had a higher ORTG than the current regular season

IG2 wrote:

Chuck Everett wrote:When the game is called correctly, it's harder to score. Simple as that. The playoffs don't look anything like this.

The 2024 playoffs had a higher ORTG than the current regular season

Much of the changes we see in scoring in the playoffs is just pace, not scoring efficiency.

Eliminating three step carries and penalizing flopping might bring the hype down a bit. It might be cool to let teams actually play defense as well.

Some players are being overhyped based on market, role, inflated stats, etc. Others aren't enough. Cade Cunningham as example is getting no credit.

Ehhh... You realize Ja Morant only scored 19 points out of that 150 the Grizzlies put up. The volume of points a team scored was never what makes a star.

20 years ago Iverson was a star during his '01 Finals run in which he averaged 30ppg on near 30 shots a game shooting 39% from the field. To put it in perspective, prime James Harden got crucified for better "bad" numbers than that... but of course he was going up against far better offenses/all-time teams compared to the Vince Carter-led trash of geriatric Charles Oakley, Keon Clark, Alvin Williams and Jerome the Junkyard Dog.

So in a sense, yesterday's stars are a bit overhyped... because give SGA 2005-2006 Shaq in a conference filled with crappy offensive teams and one other real star pairing, and yea they gon eviscerate Kidd/Carter and Hamilton/Wallace enroute to the Finals as well.

Give Jokic a 24 year old Kobe + shooters everywhere, and everyone else gets a fat Shawn Kemp or a 36 year old Vlade Divac... or Rasho Nestrovic.

One_and_Done wrote:No, the players today are by and large better than past players. Any amount of time watching 90s footage, never mind the semi-pro league of the 60s, makes that obvious.

Sure, and they are only better on one end just because.

Just look on the All Star roster 30 years ago versus today.

Compare the East, which is the weaker conference.

Shaq, Pippen, Kenny Anderson, Derrick Coleman, BJ Armstrong, Ewing, Price, Dominique, John Starks, Horace Grant, Charles Oakley, Mookie Blaylock

Giannis, Tatum, Lillard, Haliburton, Bam, Brown, Mitchell, Brunson, Trae, Banchero, Maxey, Scottie Barnes

Do you really don't see different depth of talent? In the 90s there are only a handful of guys you can trust to be your offense's main focal point

So…Adam Silver made it a point to get the offense going so the game would be more exciting. So, I’m guessing most players coming up put more effort in their offensive game. Now, he wants the game to slow down but defense has yet to catch up. There are some great defensive team and others just outshoot each other.

No.

There is more to basketball than three point chuckery.