RealGM

Solid video. The amount of ignorant commentary from older players has been very frustrating. It's like they all watch maybe Boston or Cleveland and nothing else. And even then, that escapes a lot of the extra complexity of what the offense is doing. But there are a pile of stars and teams which have very diverse offenses. And yeah, as is discussed in the video, the replacement of long twos with threes doesn't change a ton when you've still got stars who are attacking on drives and in the post.

Saw this right when it popped up today as it came on my recommended.

It's stuff many have said, but it's always more effective to have direct comparative video support. This is why memory and highlights are simply not replacements for what Thinking Basketball does, which is watch hours and hours of film from all eras.

What people seem to struggle with is that liking a specific era over another is totally fine, but that doesn't require it to be the best at everything in any objective sense (the best defenses, the best offenses, the best strategy, the best stars, you name it, that is how some want to frame their favorite span). It also doesn't mean every other era must be trash, and it doesn't have to mean that basketball didn't have any development or get better in some ways (worse in others). What we run into too much is a lot of assertions that if you actually go to film are just not actually supported.

It's wild for Pierce to say that we don't have any creativity like Kidd's passing when we're watching Jokic, Luka, a young guy like LaMelo, Sengun, you have Trae Young, and Lebron, Paul and Harden are STILL playing along with these guys

The BIGGEST thing I noticed, and even though I've watched a lot of past stuff before and have done comparison's, and technically I know it is true, but just watching the three different first quarters together. The BIGGEST thing I noticed is how much more the defense in todays game is moving around compared to even the late 2000's, but also how much the offense is moving around off the ball on average in comparison.

Of course it obviously makes sense, if you have to guard more space (and offensively use more space), and if you have to consider more players a threat, you have to move around more. It's also interesting to see how much more difficult it makes it to defend.

Probably one of the biggest messages, and, again, many of us have even here have said this, that message is at the end. It's that people's memories are not as good as they think. The NBA today is not wildly different than the past NBA in the sense that "everyone plays the same". The NBA has always been a copycat league and then you have a few teams who do something different, many times because they might have some unique player who makes them have to, or have a coach who just doesn't want to follow the grain.

That's how new schemes are developed (or popularized) on offense and defense, then people see you succeeding, then most teams copy it, then most teams are the same again. It's just part of the sport.

Tldr ?

Just at start of video, but youtuber saying DLO likes practice "air jumpers In a middle of a playoff game" this made me laugh

I've been saying this for a long time. A few things to note.

A lot of people who romanise Basketball from the 90s do so from there understanding via highlights and or their best memories (nostalgia).

Compatively a lot of the same people hear the same talking heads reaffirm their love of past eras, while simultaneously staying ignorant of the game today and not actually paying any real attention, yet making lazy takes about the state of the game.

As soon as someone starts to say today's game is less sophisticated or 'just 3s' or with a straight face says 90s Basketball was more complex, i can never really take anything you say seriously. You've just made it clear you either don't understand Basketball today and/or you see everything through a nostalgic lenses in which you'll only ever see what you want, not what is actually there.

"We used to play defense in the all-star game"

Super predictable that there are barely any responses to actual objective evidence like this. This will be ignored and then you’ll get the same tired “there’s no defense today! The game is trash! It’s a non stop chuck fest!” takes.

Klomp wrote:"We used to play defense in the all-star game"

Watch on YouTube

This is like bad boys pistons level defense compared to last years all star game.

therealbig3 wrote:Super predictable that there are barely any responses to actual objective evidence like this. This will be ignored and then you’ll get the same tired “there’s no defense today! The game is trash! It’s a non stop chuck fest!” takes.

Those that could learn from this will ignore/dismiss and sadly remain in the same echo chambers.

Saying we don't see passes like JKidd did was wild when two of the greatest and most creative passers in league history play today.

Showdown wrote:Tldr ?

The game is extremely fast and complex today compared to prior eras and former players are either posting hot takes on their podcasts or have gotten old and intellectually lazy and don't appreciate it.

Watching old games on youtube and videos like this make me appreciate the scoring of yesteryears players even more tbh.

Like its amazing how much some players were able to score in the paint back then when both of their bigs were literally bringing their man into their way every possession.

"He shot too many long jumpers for my taste"

Yeah okay, some of that is explained by the paint looking like Beijing in rush hour. Teams these days are 5-out and the PF spot is basically manned by small forwards to help spacing, and the other team may not even be playing a center.

There's much more creativity these days in general and the players are ubiquitously more skilled imo, but its definitely easier to score now than it was then.

NbaAllDay wrote:

therealbig3 wrote:Super predictable that there are barely any responses to actual objective evidence like this. This will be ignored and then you’ll get the same tired “there’s no defense today! The game is trash! It’s a non stop chuck fest!” takes.

Those that could learn from this will ignore/dismiss and sadly remain in the same echo chambers.

You think bledredwine will stop making his arguments based largely on videos of former players saying how awesome a guy from their era was?

The game is extremely fast... compared to prior eras

This is patently false.

Average team game pace this current 2024-25 season is 99.8 poss/48min. In 1977-78 it was 107.7 poss/48min, in 1978-79 it was 106.8 poss/48min.

As a matter of fact, average team game pace has not been as high as even 101.0 poss/48min in any season since 1988-89. From 1979-80 to 1988-89 it ranged from 101.0 to 104.2 poss/48min.

kcktiny wrote:

The game is extremely fast... compared to prior eras

This is patently false.

Average team game pace this current 2024-25 season is 99.8 poss/48min. In 1977-78 it was 107.7 poss/48min, in 1978-79 it was 106.8 poss/48min.

As a matter of fact, average team game pace has not been as high as even 101.0 poss/48min in any season since 1988-89. From 1979-80 to 1988-89 it ranged from 101.0 to 104.2 poss/48min.

I'm not talking about the number of possessions per game I'm talking about the number of things that happen in a possession. Off ball players are constantly moving, ball handlers are hunting mismatches, defenders are switching, doubling, shading, there are more passes than ever, the entire game is quicker. Just watch the video, the 90s finals game looks like a bad D2 college game today.

Thread title is what is known as leading the witness.
If you have a strong argument you dont need to do that do you?

breezypeezy wrote:Thread title is what is known as leading the witness.
If you have a strong argument you dont need to do that do you?

And if you had a counterpoint, you wouldn’t have to talk about how someone decides to title their video, do you?

Thinking Basketball, for those that don’t know, is a highly respected former poster on RGM who LOVES basketball and I’m pretty sure his favorite teams are the 80s Celtics. This isn’t a dude with a modern game bias, he’s a huge fan of the sport in general and respects all eras, as he said in the video. His basketball breakdowns are as good as you’re gonna get.

Not saying he’s perfect or that he’s totally 100% objective without his own biases, because he is human after all, but he does a really good job of keeping those in check for the most part and doing honest assessments.

I'm not talking about the number of possessions per game I'm talking about the number of things that happen in a possession... there are more passes than ever

You are wrong - again.

At stats.nba.com there is data for passes thrown since 2013-14 and for team possessions. Calculate from that the passes thrown per team possession league wide and you will find that in 2013-14, 2014-15, and 2015-16 teams averaged about 3.1 passes per team possession. But in 2022-23 and 2023-24 it was about 2.8 passes per team possession.

So again there are not now more passes being thrown than ever.

And that's the NBA Finals, damn! So ugly