About NBA era's differences

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Re: About NBA era's differences 

Post#21 » by Doctor MJ » Wed Aug 3, 2022 9:38 pm

falcolombardi wrote:
Doctor MJ wrote:
Texas Chuck wrote:Nothing more pointless than judging players/teams against modern standards and mocking them for it. Of course tactics advance, and as 70s pointed rule changes and non-enforcement of certain rules really significant. But Bill Russell is still influential on how defense is played 60 years later. People need to have more respect and understand "standing on the shoulder of giants" applies to the NBA too.

Who cares that modern teams would beat older ones? Who cares that Jessie Owens times now wouldn't have him on the Olympic team. He was still a "greater" sprinter than the guy who has a faster time now because of all the innovations that helped him to that mark.


I don't know if you're referring to me as someone "mocking" historical players, but let's make distinctions:

1. There's how dominant a player was in his own era.
2. There's how influential a player was on his own era and the future.
3. There's evaluating players in terms of goodness at basketball without normalizing for things that we would expect a player could pick up if he grew up in a different era - like equipment and training.
4. There's evaluating players in terms of goodness at basketball in terms of how their athletic advantages would scale against the developed skill of their competition.

Of the four approaches, I think only #3 is a waste of time when doing actual player comparisons (it's useful when evaluating the equipment, training, etc, but not the impressiveness of the athletes themselves).

I'm all for doing analyses of #1, but it has to be noted that traditionally on these boards, that's not been the primary focus. If it had been, then Mikan would be much higher on our Top 100s.

I'm particularly keen on #2, which has everything to do with why I've probably done more pre-NBA analysis than anyone else on these boards, but again, this has not been the primary focus on these boards.

So from my perspective, our main focus has been on #4, and that seemed to work pretty harmoniously until the 3-point revolution came in and changed the game so profoundly. And there the issues wasn't so much that the more modern league was "better" - because we had no issues putting Wilt over Mikan on such grounds - but that the modern league getting better in this way changed the structure of the basketball court, and thus dramatically changed what techniques could be expected to achieve greatest impact.

The question then becomes how one deals with such a sea change in one's assessment.

Obviously I've been someone pushing an approach that feels disruptive, but I'd note that I think I'm still just doing #4.

I've seen others - like 70sFan - who are leaning toward approach #1 - not in line with how we've done things around here traditionally, but it's arguably the easiest way to make a coherent - and thus meaningful -list.

But I think most folks are still doing a version of #4, but it's a more abstract form of it. It's effectively giving a "league quality" score to the context the player played in, and then evaluating the player's ranking based on how far he stood out from his peers along with that league quality.

I don't actually have a problem with people doing this necessarily, but it's easy for people to get non-sensical when they do this.

Take the '06 Wade vs '22 Curry thread:

It was pretty clear early in that thread that a lot of people were having takes along the lines of:

Peak Curry > Peak Wade > '22 Curry, with '22 Curry's lesser shooting excellence compared to his peak being used as a clear divide.

When one does this, one is essentially saying, "Curry has to be shooting his absolute best to be better than Wade". This sounds reasonable, but the reality is that Curry only had a "poor shooting year" relative to his own outlier standards. He remained considerably more effective at shooting 3's than anyone who played in Wade's time period, remained the scariest long-distance threat in the league he was in, and led his team to a title that way. To me it makes us ask the question:

Exactly how many more 3's did Curry need to make in order to surpass Wade?

And I would suggest that there's no basketball-meaningful answer to that question.

What do I mean by "basketball-meaningful"? Well, the answer to that question is going to have to be based on algorithmic thought wherein the 3-point shooting of Curry and the 3-point shooting of Wade are not compared in an apples-to-apples sense. Hence, wherever one decides the dividing line is, it will be not only subjective and arbitrary, but it will have less to do with thinking about how the basketball games were played, and more about number crunching.

Doing this isn't the end of the world - I'm fine with people doing it - but when it seems to be alleged that I'm "mocking" older players because I'm trying to focus my comparison on trying to understand actual basketball playing capacity, I think we have a problem.

In general, in any field, if the "right way" to do things requires that you don't factor in context that is obvious to ask questions about, you tend to hit a wall with your learning. What I'm doing is trying to avoid hitting that wall, as best I can.


I dont think anyone arguing wade in that thread did it on the basis of 3 point shooting

Everyone knows that even im a down year curry jumpshot threat and spacing generated by it is a lot better than wade (understatement of the century)

But 3 point shooting is not the sole aspect of basketball


Well, they largely didn't talk about basketball specifics. While discussing a player known primarily for his 3-point shooting, statistics were used as evidence he wasn't as good as in the past, and those statistics were heavily influenced by a drop in his 3P%, which everyone in the thread knows.
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Re: About NBA era's differences 

Post#22 » by falcolombardi » Wed Aug 3, 2022 9:46 pm

Doctor MJ wrote:
falcolombardi wrote:
Doctor MJ wrote:
I don't know if you're referring to me as someone "mocking" historical players, but let's make distinctions:

1. There's how dominant a player was in his own era.
2. There's how influential a player was on his own era and the future.
3. There's evaluating players in terms of goodness at basketball without normalizing for things that we would expect a player could pick up if he grew up in a different era - like equipment and training.
4. There's evaluating players in terms of goodness at basketball in terms of how their athletic advantages would scale against the developed skill of their competition.

Of the four approaches, I think only #3 is a waste of time when doing actual player comparisons (it's useful when evaluating the equipment, training, etc, but not the impressiveness of the athletes themselves).

I'm all for doing analyses of #1, but it has to be noted that traditionally on these boards, that's not been the primary focus. If it had been, then Mikan would be much higher on our Top 100s.

I'm particularly keen on #2, which has everything to do with why I've probably done more pre-NBA analysis than anyone else on these boards, but again, this has not been the primary focus on these boards.

So from my perspective, our main focus has been on #4, and that seemed to work pretty harmoniously until the 3-point revolution came in and changed the game so profoundly. And there the issues wasn't so much that the more modern league was "better" - because we had no issues putting Wilt over Mikan on such grounds - but that the modern league getting better in this way changed the structure of the basketball court, and thus dramatically changed what techniques could be expected to achieve greatest impact.

The question then becomes how one deals with such a sea change in one's assessment.

Obviously I've been someone pushing an approach that feels disruptive, but I'd note that I think I'm still just doing #4.

I've seen others - like 70sFan - who are leaning toward approach #1 - not in line with how we've done things around here traditionally, but it's arguably the easiest way to make a coherent - and thus meaningful -list.

But I think most folks are still doing a version of #4, but it's a more abstract form of it. It's effectively giving a "league quality" score to the context the player played in, and then evaluating the player's ranking based on how far he stood out from his peers along with that league quality.

I don't actually have a problem with people doing this necessarily, but it's easy for people to get non-sensical when they do this.

Take the '06 Wade vs '22 Curry thread:

It was pretty clear early in that thread that a lot of people were having takes along the lines of:

Peak Curry > Peak Wade > '22 Curry, with '22 Curry's lesser shooting excellence compared to his peak being used as a clear divide.

When one does this, one is essentially saying, "Curry has to be shooting his absolute best to be better than Wade". This sounds reasonable, but the reality is that Curry only had a "poor shooting year" relative to his own outlier standards. He remained considerably more effective at shooting 3's than anyone who played in Wade's time period, remained the scariest long-distance threat in the league he was in, and led his team to a title that way. To me it makes us ask the question:

Exactly how many more 3's did Curry need to make in order to surpass Wade?

And I would suggest that there's no basketball-meaningful answer to that question.

What do I mean by "basketball-meaningful"? Well, the answer to that question is going to have to be based on algorithmic thought wherein the 3-point shooting of Curry and the 3-point shooting of Wade are not compared in an apples-to-apples sense. Hence, wherever one decides the dividing line is, it will be not only subjective and arbitrary, but it will have less to do with thinking about how the basketball games were played, and more about number crunching.

Doing this isn't the end of the world - I'm fine with people doing it - but when it seems to be alleged that I'm "mocking" older players because I'm trying to focus my comparison on trying to understand actual basketball playing capacity, I think we have a problem.

In general, in any field, if the "right way" to do things requires that you don't factor in context that is obvious to ask questions about, you tend to hit a wall with your learning. What I'm doing is trying to avoid hitting that wall, as best I can.


I dont think anyone arguing wade in that thread did it on the basis of 3 point shooting

Everyone knows that even im a down year curry jumpshot threat and spacing generated by it is a lot better than wade (understatement of the century)

But 3 point shooting is not the sole aspect of basketball


Well, they largely didn't talk about basketball specifics. While discussing a player known primarily for his 3-point shooting, statistics were used as evidence he wasn't as good as in the past, and those statistics were heavily influenced by a drop in his 3P%, which everyone in the thread knows.


What do you define as "talking about basketball" here?

Cause pro wade arguments talked a lot about basketball specifics. Wade monster on-off, wade beneffiting from better spacing in a cross era comparision. Etc

What pro wade argument didnt you consider basketball related? Is curry drop off in shooting efficiency compared to his peak seasons not a basketball talking point?

Is a player shooting worse that in his peak seasonz not supposed to be relevant?
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Re: About NBA era's differences 

Post#23 » by MyUniBroDavis » Wed Aug 3, 2022 9:47 pm

Doctor MJ wrote:
falcolombardi wrote:
Doctor MJ wrote:
I don't know if you're referring to me as someone "mocking" historical players, but let's make distinctions:

1. There's how dominant a player was in his own era.
2. There's how influential a player was on his own era and the future.
3. There's evaluating players in terms of goodness at basketball without normalizing for things that we would expect a player could pick up if he grew up in a different era - like equipment and training.
4. There's evaluating players in terms of goodness at basketball in terms of how their athletic advantages would scale against the developed skill of their competition.

Of the four approaches, I think only #3 is a waste of time when doing actual player comparisons (it's useful when evaluating the equipment, training, etc, but not the impressiveness of the athletes themselves).

I'm all for doing analyses of #1, but it has to be noted that traditionally on these boards, that's not been the primary focus. If it had been, then Mikan would be much higher on our Top 100s.

I'm particularly keen on #2, which has everything to do with why I've probably done more pre-NBA analysis than anyone else on these boards, but again, this has not been the primary focus on these boards.

So from my perspective, our main focus has been on #4, and that seemed to work pretty harmoniously until the 3-point revolution came in and changed the game so profoundly. And there the issues wasn't so much that the more modern league was "better" - because we had no issues putting Wilt over Mikan on such grounds - but that the modern league getting better in this way changed the structure of the basketball court, and thus dramatically changed what techniques could be expected to achieve greatest impact.

The question then becomes how one deals with such a sea change in one's assessment.

Obviously I've been someone pushing an approach that feels disruptive, but I'd note that I think I'm still just doing #4.

I've seen others - like 70sFan - who are leaning toward approach #1 - not in line with how we've done things around here traditionally, but it's arguably the easiest way to make a coherent - and thus meaningful -list.

But I think most folks are still doing a version of #4, but it's a more abstract form of it. It's effectively giving a "league quality" score to the context the player played in, and then evaluating the player's ranking based on how far he stood out from his peers along with that league quality.

I don't actually have a problem with people doing this necessarily, but it's easy for people to get non-sensical when they do this.

Take the '06 Wade vs '22 Curry thread:

It was pretty clear early in that thread that a lot of people were having takes along the lines of:

Peak Curry > Peak Wade > '22 Curry, with '22 Curry's lesser shooting excellence compared to his peak being used as a clear divide.

When one does this, one is essentially saying, "Curry has to be shooting his absolute best to be better than Wade". This sounds reasonable, but the reality is that Curry only had a "poor shooting year" relative to his own outlier standards. He remained considerably more effective at shooting 3's than anyone who played in Wade's time period, remained the scariest long-distance threat in the league he was in, and led his team to a title that way. To me it makes us ask the question:

Exactly how many more 3's did Curry need to make in order to surpass Wade?

And I would suggest that there's no basketball-meaningful answer to that question.

What do I mean by "basketball-meaningful"? Well, the answer to that question is going to have to be based on algorithmic thought wherein the 3-point shooting of Curry and the 3-point shooting of Wade are not compared in an apples-to-apples sense. Hence, wherever one decides the dividing line is, it will be not only subjective and arbitrary, but it will have less to do with thinking about how the basketball games were played, and more about number crunching.

Doing this isn't the end of the world - I'm fine with people doing it - but when it seems to be alleged that I'm "mocking" older players because I'm trying to focus my comparison on trying to understand actual basketball playing capacity, I think we have a problem.

In general, in any field, if the "right way" to do things requires that you don't factor in context that is obvious to ask questions about, you tend to hit a wall with your learning. What I'm doing is trying to avoid hitting that wall, as best I can.


I dont think anyone arguing wade in that thread did it on the basis of 3 point shooting

Everyone knows that even im a down year curry jumpshot threat and spacing generated by it is a lot better than wade (understatement of the century)

But 3 point shooting is not the sole aspect of basketball


Well, they largely didn't talk about basketball specifics. While discussing a player known primarily for his 3-point shooting, statistics were used as evidence he wasn't as good as in the past, and those statistics were heavily influenced by a drop in his 3P%, which everyone in the thread knows.


I thought Curry was worse at finishing and getting to the rim in general though, vs at his best, although his shot making in that mid paint area was very on point
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Re: About NBA era's differences 

Post#24 » by MyUniBroDavis » Wed Aug 3, 2022 9:52 pm

Doctor MJ wrote:
Texas Chuck wrote:Nothing more pointless than judging players/teams against modern standards and mocking them for it. Of course tactics advance, and as 70s pointed rule changes and non-enforcement of certain rules really significant. But Bill Russell is still influential on how defense is played 60 years later. People need to have more respect and understand "standing on the shoulder of giants" applies to the NBA too.

Who cares that modern teams would beat older ones? Who cares that Jessie Owens times now wouldn't have him on the Olympic team. He was still a "greater" sprinter than the guy who has a faster time now because of all the innovations that helped him to that mark.


I don't know if you're referring to me as someone "mocking" historical players, but let's make distinctions:

1. There's how dominant a player was in his own era.
2. There's how influential a player was on his own era and the future.
3. There's evaluating players in terms of goodness at basketball without normalizing for things that we would expect a player could pick up if he grew up in a different era - like equipment and training.
4. There's evaluating players in terms of goodness at basketball in terms of how their athletic advantages would scale against the developed skill of their competition.

Of the four approaches, I think only #3 is a waste of time when doing actual player comparisons (it's useful when evaluating the equipment, training, etc, but not the impressiveness of the athletes themselves).

I'm all for doing analyses of #1, but it has to be noted that traditionally on these boards, that's not been the primary focus. If it had been, then Mikan would be much higher on our Top 100s.

I'm particularly keen on #2, which has everything to do with why I've probably done more pre-NBA analysis than anyone else on these boards, but again, this has not been the primary focus on these boards.

So from my perspective, our main focus has been on #4, and that seemed to work pretty harmoniously until the 3-point revolution came in and changed the game so profoundly. And there the issues wasn't so much that the more modern league was "better" - because we had no issues putting Wilt over Mikan on such grounds - but that the modern league getting better in this way changed the structure of the basketball court, and thus dramatically changed what techniques could be expected to achieve greatest impact.

The question then becomes how one deals with such a sea change in one's assessment.

Obviously I've been someone pushing an approach that feels disruptive, but I'd note that I think I'm still just doing #4.

I've seen others - like 70sFan - who are leaning toward approach #1 - not in line with how we've done things around here traditionally, but it's arguably the easiest way to make a coherent - and thus meaningful -list.

But I think most folks are still doing a version of #4, but it's a more abstract form of it. It's effectively giving a "league quality" score to the context the player played in, and then evaluating the player's ranking based on how far he stood out from his peers along with that league quality.

I don't actually have a problem with people doing this necessarily, but it's easy for people to get non-sensical when they do this.

Take the '06 Wade vs '22 Curry thread:

It was pretty clear early in that thread that a lot of people were having takes along the lines of:

Peak Curry > Peak Wade > '22 Curry, with '22 Curry's lesser shooting excellence compared to his peak being used as a clear divide.

When one does this, one is essentially saying, "Curry has to be shooting his absolute best to be better than Wade". This sounds reasonable, but the reality is that Curry only had a "poor shooting year" relative to his own outlier standards. He remained considerably more effective at shooting 3's than anyone who played in Wade's time period, remained the scariest long-distance threat in the league he was in, and led his team to a title that way. To me it makes us ask the question:

Exactly how many more 3's did Curry need to make in order to surpass Wade?

And I would suggest that there's no basketball-meaningful answer to that question.

What do I mean by "basketball-meaningful"? Well, the answer to that question is going to have to be based on algorithmic thought wherein the 3-point shooting of Curry and the 3-point shooting of Wade are not compared in an apples-to-apples sense. Hence, wherever one decides the dividing line is, it will be not only subjective and arbitrary, but it will have less to do with thinking about how the basketball games were played, and more about number crunching.

Doing this isn't the end of the world - I'm fine with people doing it - but when it seems to be alleged that I'm "mocking" older players because I'm trying to focus my comparison on trying to understand actual basketball playing capacity, I think we have a problem.

In general, in any field, if the "right way" to do things requires that you don't factor in context that is obvious to ask questions about, you tend to hit a wall with your learning. What I'm doing is trying to avoid hitting that wall, as best I can.


#3 is weird, because unless it’s brought up specifically I don’t usually discuss it that much on the board (although I do consider it to an extent, in terms of how good they are in an absolute sense) but I do generally do that, at least to an extent, if people talk to me irl mostly, but it is inherently unfair to players of the past who have greater legacies and be far better for their time than some guys of today who might be better in an absolute sense because of modern advantages
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Re: About NBA era's differences 

Post#25 » by Doctor MJ » Wed Aug 3, 2022 10:19 pm

Texas Chuck wrote:
Doctor MJ wrote:
I don't know if you're referring to me as someone "mocking" historical players, but let's make distinctions:

1. There's how dominant a player was in his own era.
2. There's how influential a player was on his own era and the future.
3. There's evaluating players in terms of goodness at basketball without normalizing for things that we would expect a player could pick up if he grew up in a different era - like equipment and training.
4. There's evaluating players in terms of goodness at basketball in terms of how their athletic advantages would scale against the developed skill of their competition.

Of the four approaches, I think only #3 is a waste of time when doing actual player comparisons (it's useful when evaluating the equipment, training, etc, but not the impressiveness of the athletes themselves).

I'm all for doing analyses of #1, but it has to be noted that traditionally on these boards, that's not been the primary focus. If it had been, then Mikan would be much higher on our Top 100s.

I'm particularly keen on #2, which has everything to do with why I've probably done more pre-NBA analysis than anyone else on these boards, but again, this has not been the primary focus on these boards.

So from my perspective, our main focus has been on #4, and that seemed to work pretty harmoniously until the 3-point revolution came in and changed the game so profoundly.

In general, in any field, if the "right way" to do things requires that you don't factor in context that is obvious to ask questions about, you tend to hit a wall with your learning. What I'm doing is trying to avoid hitting that wall, as best I can.


I don't think you were mocking them. I do think you are more dismissive of them than I am personally comfortable with, but this board would be pointless if we didn't take different approaches/have different perspectives.

I don't know that I would break it down into those 4 choices, but if forced to pick one of them, I'm definitely a number 1. Because for me its only fair to judge someone based on the circumstances they found themselves in. So I'm far more interested in how they fared in-era than anything else.

Number 4 which you tout as ideal feels to me nearly as useless as number 3. Because Doc is going to make certain assumptions and Chuck is going to make certain assumptions and we are both just guessing as we try and predict how players from the past might fare today. We aren't analyzing anything at that point. We are guessing and our biases become an enormous problem. 70sfan gets accused of having a bias towards older players, and he concedes this may be true. But overwhelming the bias is towards modern players and I don't believe even the most objective among us can correct for that and frankly it appears many have zero interest in even trying.

I don't know if that means I'm hitting a wall in learning as much as I'm just not interested solely in a modern-centric view on the history of the NBA. I'm assuming that in 40 years, what feels optimized to you right now, will be seen as out of date as further advancements in skill, development, tactics, analytics etc continue. And the NBA makes further in-roads globally, we will see more and more athletes with incredible size/skill that further expand what is possible.

But I won't want to minimize the greatness of the players of today because the players of tomorrow will take the game further. But a lot of the talk now is like that. And while some posters can at least acknowledge all the modern advantages, many still do not. It's just hur dur white plumbers. And yeah I definitely take issue with that.


Re: not sure about 4 choices. Feel free to lay out another way of splitting them up. Truthfully I think you can break it up into even more different possibilities depending on what extra details you consider important enough.

If you're in category 1, I'm fine with that, but I have to ask - because I can't remember - where did you rank Mikan in the Top 100 project last time? Were you considering him for the #1 spot? If not and not close: How do you justify that if you're not elevating more modern leagues over the NBA of the '40s & '50s?

Re: different voter, different assumptions. True, and true no matter what we do. There will never be definitive correct answers no matter how we do this.

Something I will acknowledge is that approach #1 is simplest, and thus in theory reduces the odds of talking past each other.

Re: just not interested solely in a modern-centric view of the NBA. But of course, neither am I, so it's worth diving deeper to see where we differ. I'd imagine many feel like I'm demoting players from the past with this approach, and I'd concede that on a ranked list, it can have that effect, I just really want to make clear that that's not my goal.

Re: In 40 years, what's optimized now will feel out of date. I hope so! Further I'll concede that it's entirely possible that shooting will become such a common skill that guys rising on my list due to their shooting now will fall, while those falling will experience a relative rise.

I think for many there's a wish to have a list of old players that are set in a particular order, with specific rankings changing only to insert new players. Makes the rankings feel more meaningful - more real - if they can be seen as representing something so absolute, and I very much understand that.

As someone who has been obsessed with rankings from a very young age, what I find is that from time to time, the criteria for a certain ranking hits a crisis point which requires decisions.

For me, I'd say I've hit a crisis stemming from the realization that I don't think basketball in my lifetime (as a basketball fan, beginning in the '80s) has changed from arbitrary rule changes or healthcare so much as it has from just strategic shifts that took place decades after they could have.

As a result, I'm forced to conclude that "what makes a player good at basketball" hasn't changed so much as "what people think makes a player good at basketball", and I find the former a more concrete/meaningful/real thing to focus my analysis than I do the latter.

Of course, we historians of the PC Board go back earlier than the '80s when the absence of a 3-point shot really does change things dramatically. The approach I'm using is this modern-centric in the sense that it seems the optimal approach for analyzing every NBA player I've ever witnessed play live as well as all those who will come forward in the future, but it's more iffy when you go back into the deeper past. I can certainly see that as a reason to do all-time rankings with an approach different from the one I'm using.

But there is one other factor that I know drives people nuts when I mention it:

As much as we hard-core-history types love the history of basketball back to the peach baskets, the NBA truly goes mainstream in the '80s, and while the 3-point line was not the main reason for that at the time, this was only one of many rules put in place over the decades to tilt the game away from the giants, and I'd argue that that was central to what made the NBA's popularity eventually explode.

So while I admire Bill Russell more than anyone else in the history of the game, and I enjoyed having him as my Top 100 #1, and I still enjoy having him as #1 by other criteria (Most Dominant in Era, Most Important Player), I do have to acknowledge that he literally represents the pinnacle of a game that is not the same as the one that I've actually been around in my life as a (now) middle-aged man.

This doesn't mean he can't be #1 on any particular list, but it does mean that it's a bit weird for me to say something like "Russell was better at basketball than anyone who has come since", given that the "basketball" he played isn't the game as I've known it in my lifetime, and I don't think he - or his archetype - is the best at playing the game I know.
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Re: About NBA era's differences 

Post#26 » by Texas Chuck » Thu Aug 4, 2022 12:33 am

Doctor MJ wrote:
If you're in category 1, I'm fine with that, but I have to ask - because I can't remember - where did you rank Mikan in the Top 100 project last time? Were you considering him for the #1 spot? If not and not close: How do you justify that if you're not elevating more modern leagues over the NBA of the '40s & '50s?



I'm pretty sure I put him in a I do not know what to do with him category, but I know I have acknowledged that he and Russell are the gold standard when it comes to in-era dominance.

But I'm also a longevity guy and so its hard for me to put him ahead of Russ and Lebron and Duncan and Kareem who were incredibly dominant for so much longer.
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Re: About NBA era's differences 

Post#27 » by MyUniBroDavis » Fri Aug 5, 2022 10:15 pm

Texas Chuck wrote:Nothing more pointless than judging players/teams against modern standards and mocking them for it. Of course tactics advance, and as 70s pointed rule changes and non-enforcement of certain rules really significant. But Bill Russell is still influential on how defense is played 60 years later. People need to have more respect and understand "standing on the shoulder of giants" applies to the NBA too.

Who cares that modern teams would beat older ones? Who cares that Jessie Owens times now wouldn't have him on the Olympic team. He was still a "greater" sprinter than the guy who has a faster time now because of all the innovations that helped him to that mark.


Kind of a bump but I just wanted to touch on the second part

I don’t see how the sprinting is something that supports this. If Jesse Owens was unanimously seen as the greatest sprinter ever ahead of bolt because of those things I would understand it, but Bolt is considered the undisputed GOAT of sprinting, at the very least there’s more agreement there than anyone in basketball

(Assuming when you said the guy you were referring to bolt and not randoms with better times, which would make sense lol)
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Re: About NBA era's differences 

Post#28 » by falcolombardi » Fri Aug 5, 2022 11:22 pm

MyUniBroDavis wrote:
Texas Chuck wrote:Nothing more pointless than judging players/teams against modern standards and mocking them for it. Of course tactics advance, and as 70s pointed rule changes and non-enforcement of certain rules really significant. But Bill Russell is still influential on how defense is played 60 years later. People need to have more respect and understand "standing on the shoulder of giants" applies to the NBA too.

Who cares that modern teams would beat older ones? Who cares that Jessie Owens times now wouldn't have him on the Olympic team. He was still a "greater" sprinter than the guy who has a faster time now because of all the innovations that helped him to that mark.


Kind of a bump but I just wanted to touch on the second part

I don’t see how the sprinting is something that supports this. If Jesse Owens was unanimously seen as the greatest sprinter ever ahead of bolt because of those things I would understand it, but Bolt is considered the undisputed GOAT of sprinting, at the very least there’s more agreement there than anyone in basketball

(Assuming when you said the guy you were referring to bolt and not randoms with better times, which would make sense lol)


Athletism seens much more streamlined for "goatness" evaluation than a team sport tho

But even there i imagine people pay respects to older greats eveb if their times dont hold up to modern standards

Jesse owens couldnt qualify to modern olympics but he remains a legend of the discipline for example

There is also the element of older sprinters main difference with modern ones being literally nutrition/technique/equipment improvements

Since it is very unlikely that modern humans just happen to have evolved to he faster than those of 80 yeats ago. Nothingh about a usain bolt born in the 1910's would be different except he would have worse shoes and run in worse fields (and maybe be teached a worse running technique?)

Not an expert in athletism so i am kinda guessing here
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Re: About NBA era's differences 

Post#29 » by MyUniBroDavis » Fri Aug 5, 2022 11:33 pm

falcolombardi wrote:
MyUniBroDavis wrote:
Texas Chuck wrote:Nothing more pointless than judging players/teams against modern standards and mocking them for it. Of course tactics advance, and as 70s pointed rule changes and non-enforcement of certain rules really significant. But Bill Russell is still influential on how defense is played 60 years later. People need to have more respect and understand "standing on the shoulder of giants" applies to the NBA too.

Who cares that modern teams would beat older ones? Who cares that Jessie Owens times now wouldn't have him on the Olympic team. He was still a "greater" sprinter than the guy who has a faster time now because of all the innovations that helped him to that mark.


Kind of a bump but I just wanted to touch on the second part

I don’t see how the sprinting is something that supports this. If Jesse Owens was unanimously seen as the greatest sprinter ever ahead of bolt because of those things I would understand it, but Bolt is considered the undisputed GOAT of sprinting, at the very least there’s more agreement there than anyone in basketball

(Assuming when you said the guy you were referring to bolt and not randoms with better times, which would make sense lol)


Athletism seens much more streamlined for "goatness" evaluation than a team sport tho

But even there i imagine people pay respects to older greats eveb if their times dont hold up to modern standards

Jesse owens couldnt qualify to modern olympics but he remains a legend of the discipline for example

There is also the element of older sprinters main difference with modern ones being literally nutrition/technique/equipment improvements

Since it is very unlikely that modern humans just happen to have evolved to he faster than those of 80 yeats ago. Nothingh about a usain bolt born in the 1910's would be different except he would have worse shoes and run in worse fields (and maybe be teached a worse running technique?)

Not an expert in athletism so i am kinda guessing here


I was just saying in terms of as an example, I don’t think Owens is less legendary than the average sprinter or anything

I think we all have very varying opinions on how some of the older stars would be today in an absolute sense, especially the perimeter guys

I think when comparing greats, comparing them in an absolute sense is inherently unfair to older guys but I don’t think that means it’s objectively wrong to weigh that heavily when it’s A subjective criteria
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Re: About NBA era's differences 

Post#30 » by Texas Chuck » Sat Aug 6, 2022 12:18 am

MyUniBroDavis wrote:
Texas Chuck wrote:Nothing more pointless than judging players/teams against modern standards and mocking them for it. Of course tactics advance, and as 70s pointed rule changes and non-enforcement of certain rules really significant. But Bill Russell is still influential on how defense is played 60 years later. People need to have more respect and understand "standing on the shoulder of giants" applies to the NBA too.

Who cares that modern teams would beat older ones? Who cares that Jessie Owens times now wouldn't have him on the Olympic team. He was still a "greater" sprinter than the guy who has a faster time now because of all the innovations that helped him to that mark.


Kind of a bump but I just wanted to touch on the second part

I don’t see how the sprinting is something that supports this. If Jesse Owens was unanimously seen as the greatest sprinter ever ahead of bolt because of those things I would understand it, but Bolt is considered the undisputed GOAT of sprinting, at the very least there’s more agreement there than anyone in basketball

(Assuming when you said the guy you were referring to bolt and not randoms with better times, which would make sense lol)


Not trying to argue Owens is GOAT. But he and Carl Lewis are Mount Rushmore sprinters even as we have many sprinters who have run faster than they ever did.

I don't care if people believe modern player X is a better basketball player than Petit or Baylor or Schayes or whomever. I would agree that with maybe a couple of exceptions the players from 60 years ago don't stack up well. But neither would Lebron or Steph or Giannis or Jokic if they had been born 60 years earlier. Heck its likely of that 4 only Lebron even ends up in the NBA as Giannis and Jokic certainly don't and Steph might have played baseball or piano or whatever because his dad wouldn't have been leading a path.

That's what gets lost. All the advantages and just this hur dur the guys before sucked. That's stupid.
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Re: About NBA era's differences 

Post#31 » by MyUniBroDavis » Sat Aug 6, 2022 12:27 am

Texas Chuck wrote:
MyUniBroDavis wrote:
Texas Chuck wrote:Nothing more pointless than judging players/teams against modern standards and mocking them for it. Of course tactics advance, and as 70s pointed rule changes and non-enforcement of certain rules really significant. But Bill Russell is still influential on how defense is played 60 years later. People need to have more respect and understand "standing on the shoulder of giants" applies to the NBA too.

Who cares that modern teams would beat older ones? Who cares that Jessie Owens times now wouldn't have him on the Olympic team. He was still a "greater" sprinter than the guy who has a faster time now because of all the innovations that helped him to that mark.


Kind of a bump but I just wanted to touch on the second part

I don’t see how the sprinting is something that supports this. If Jesse Owens was unanimously seen as the greatest sprinter ever ahead of bolt because of those things I would understand it, but Bolt is considered the undisputed GOAT of sprinting, at the very least there’s more agreement there than anyone in basketball

(Assuming when you said the guy you were referring to bolt and not randoms with better times, which would make sense lol)


Not trying to argue Owens is GOAT. But he and Carl Lewis are Mount Rushmore sprinters even as we have many sprinters who have run faster than they ever did.

I don't care if people believe modern player X is a better basketball player than Petit or Baylor or Schayes or whomever. I would agree that with maybe a couple of exceptions the players from 60 years ago don't stack up well. But neither would Lebron or Steph or Giannis or Jokic if they had been born 60 years earlier. Heck its likely of that 4 only Lebron even ends up in the NBA as Giannis and Jokic certainly don't and Steph might have played baseball or piano or whatever because his dad wouldn't have been leading a path.

That's what gets lost. All the advantages and just this hur dur the guys before sucked. That's stupid.


I don’t think that realizing modern players have a lot of advantages means you can’t prefer looking at players in an absolute sense vs relative to their time, or at least factor that in though, it’s subjective at the end of the day
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Re: About NBA era's differences 

Post#32 » by Johnlac1 » Sat Aug 6, 2022 12:45 am

70sFan wrote:
MyUniBroDavis wrote:How different were 70s standards vs 60s standards?

It feels like the base of his hand generally stays on top or in the upper area of the ball but his fingers definately go below the halfway area of the ball on some of them for his crossovers

It wasn't much different, some of crossovers were always questionable and refs sometimes called it and sometimes not. Late 1970s was the time when we can see more such moves (probably merger has something to do with that).

Maravich’s impact is hard to see from his teams, they performed a good bit worse without him but they weren’t usually strong offensive teams right? I’d assume he wasn’t a lockdown defender

Maravich impact was overrated in my opinion. He was a very poor defender and his offense, although flashy, wasn't that good either. He wasn't bad floor raiser in Utah (though they were still horrible with him offensively) but his high turnover and low scoring efficiency didn't scale well with more talented teammates. That's why Hawks became worse with him in place of Joe Caldwell, who was more efficient and far better defensively than Pete.
Considering Maravich's enormous talents in ballhandling, passing, shooting, speed and quickness he never lived up to what he could have been. Although not a great leaper he could do a 360 dunk.
I don't know if you can blame his LSU years and his father who allowed him to do anything he wanted, but he learned a lot of very bad habits in college. Especially his preference for shooting tough jump shots over going to the basket.
If you watch Pete's 68 point game against the Knicks available on the internet, you can see how easy it was for Maravich to penetrate and either get to the basket or get an easy 8-10 foot fadeaway jumper in the lane when he wanted to. (Incidentally, Pete should have had 70 pts, but the ref screwed up one time when Pete was going to the basket and called an obvious blocking foul on Phil Jackson a charging foul on Pete.)
But throughout his career he preferred to take many of the kinds of shots he was forced to take at LSU when he was taking close to 40 shots a game.
Which is why, despite having incredible ballhandling and passing abilities, Maravich never averaged as much as seven assists a game for any of his seasons in the league. He never shot close to 50% from the floor either (except for his last year in the league when he played sparingly) another reflection on his penchant for shooting long, hard jump shots with a man on him rather than getting to the basket more and drawing fouls and getting easy assists.
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Re: About NBA era's differences 

Post#33 » by Johnlac1 » Sat Aug 6, 2022 1:06 am

Although overall the video did a good job, it's obvious the reviewer didn't know much about the players from the sixties considering his comments about sixties centers shooting mostly hook shots.
Many centers from the sixties had jump shots including Russell, Chamberlain, Reed, Thurman, and Bellamy the five best centers of the sixties.
In fact even though he had a very good hook shot, Chamberlain rarely shot hook shots. Which is too bad, because he should have shot more hooks and a lot less fadeaway jumpers. But Wilt wanted to show that he could score away from the basket. His fadeaway was his least effective shot from the floor. And he virtually stopped shooting jump shots after about four or five seasons preferring his finger roll or power dunks and the occasional fadeaway to jump shots and hook shots.
And many players of the sixties had off the dribble jump shots. In fact most of the guards and forwards had off the dribble jump shots West and Robertson being the best exemplars of that kind of shot.
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Re: About NBA era's differences 

Post#34 » by kcktiny » Sat Aug 6, 2022 4:15 am

Which is why, despite having incredible ballhandling and passing abilities, Maravich never averaged as much as seven assists a game for any of his seasons in the league. He never shot close to 50% from the floor either (except for his last year in the league when he played sparingly) another reflection on his penchant for shooting long, hard jump shots with a man on him rather than getting to the basket more and drawing fouls and getting easy assists.


From 1970-71 to 1976-77 Maravich attempted the 4th most FTAs among all players - only Jabbar, Tiny, and the Big E attempted more.

Over those 7 seasons he averaged 7.1 FTA/g and 7.6 FTA/40min, and his ratio of FTA/FGA (0.33) was actually higher than that of both Jabbar and Hayes (0.32 each) - i.e. for a player that took a lot of shots he actually attempted a lot of FTs.
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Re: About NBA era's differences 

Post#35 » by Jaivl » Sat Aug 6, 2022 7:55 pm

MyUniBroDavis wrote:
Texas Chuck wrote:Nothing more pointless than judging players/teams against modern standards and mocking them for it. Of course tactics advance, and as 70s pointed rule changes and non-enforcement of certain rules really significant. But Bill Russell is still influential on how defense is played 60 years later. People need to have more respect and understand "standing on the shoulder of giants" applies to the NBA too.

Who cares that modern teams would beat older ones? Who cares that Jessie Owens times now wouldn't have him on the Olympic team. He was still a "greater" sprinter than the guy who has a faster time now because of all the innovations that helped him to that mark.


Kind of a bump but I just wanted to touch on the second part

I don’t see how the sprinting is something that supports this. If Jesse Owens was unanimously seen as the greatest sprinter ever ahead of bolt because of those things I would understand it, but Bolt is considered the undisputed GOAT of sprinting, at the very least there’s more agreement there than anyone in basketball

(Assuming when you said the guy you were referring to bolt and not randoms with better times, which would make sense lol)

I mean, Bolt is considered the GOAT sprinter because he's the only sprinter casual fans know about, so he's not the best example.

Of course, in this case the casual sprinting GOAT is also the real sprinting GOAT, due to his dumb, decade-long, dominance.

Owens just has too small of a body of work, even for amateur athletes (a product of sad circumstances, obviously, but we do have GOATish athletes with meh marks, because their olympic dominance was so strong, like Nurmi). Owens was a 10.2 to 10.3 (manual timing, ugh) runner, but there were a bunch of others at 10.3.

It's not a Biles vs Latynina case (where Latynina only has less world titles than the "casual GOAT" because the World Championships were much more spread back then). Bolt is just more impressive.

Fun fact: Owens would not qualify on the 100m, but he most definitely would on the long jump. He was a better leaper than sprinter (Carl Lewis as well, he is a great sprinter but easily the GOAT long jumper)
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Re: About NBA era's differences 

Post#36 » by falcolombardi » Sat Aug 6, 2022 8:03 pm

Jaivl wrote:
MyUniBroDavis wrote:
Texas Chuck wrote:Nothing more pointless than judging players/teams against modern standards and mocking them for it. Of course tactics advance, and as 70s pointed rule changes and non-enforcement of certain rules really significant. But Bill Russell is still influential on how defense is played 60 years later. People need to have more respect and understand "standing on the shoulder of giants" applies to the NBA too.

Who cares that modern teams would beat older ones? Who cares that Jessie Owens times now wouldn't have him on the Olympic team. He was still a "greater" sprinter than the guy who has a faster time now because of all the innovations that helped him to that mark.


Kind of a bump but I just wanted to touch on the second part

I don’t see how the sprinting is something that supports this. If Jesse Owens was unanimously seen as the greatest sprinter ever ahead of bolt because of those things I would understand it, but Bolt is considered the undisputed GOAT of sprinting, at the very least there’s more agreement there than anyone in basketball

(Assuming when you said the guy you were referring to bolt and not randoms with better times, which would make sense lol)

I mean, Bolt is considered the GOAT sprinter because he's the only sprinter casual fans know about, so he's not the best example.

Of course, in this case the casual sprinting GOAT is also the real sprinting GOAT, due to his dumb, decade-long, dominance.

Owens just has too small of a body of work, even for amateur athletes (a product of sad circumstances, obviously, but we do have GOATish athletes with meh marks, because their olympic dominance was so strong, like Nurmi). Owens was a 10.2 to 10.3 (manual timing, ugh) runner, but there were a bunch of others at 10.3.

It's not a Biles vs Latynina case (where Latynina only has less world titles than the "casual GOAT" because the World Championships were much more spread back then). Bolt is just more impressive.

Fun fact: Owens would not qualify on the 100m, but he most definitely would on the long jump. He was a better leaper than sprinter (Carl Lewis as well, he is a great sprinter but easily the GOAT long jumper)


I had never heard of latynina, and holy hell her resume is wild

Why was simone biles always compared with nadia comanecci and not latynina?
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Re: About NBA era's differences 

Post#37 » by Ryoga Hibiki » Sat Aug 6, 2022 8:35 pm

Doctor MJ wrote:
Texas Chuck wrote:Nothing more pointless than judging players/teams against modern standards and mocking them for it. Of course tactics advance, and as 70s pointed rule changes and non-enforcement of certain rules really significant. But Bill Russell is still influential on how defense is played 60 years later. People need to have more respect and understand "standing on the shoulder of giants" applies to the NBA too.

Who cares that modern teams would beat older ones? Who cares that Jessie Owens times now wouldn't have him on the Olympic team. He was still a "greater" sprinter than the guy who has a faster time now because of all the innovations that helped him to that mark.


I don't know if you're referring to me as someone "mocking" historical players, but let's make distinctions:

1. There's how dominant a player was in his own era.
2. There's how influential a player was on his own era and the future.
3. There's evaluating players in terms of goodness at basketball without normalizing for things that we would expect a player could pick up if he grew up in a different era - like equipment and training.
4. There's evaluating players in terms of goodness at basketball in terms of how their athletic advantages would scale against the developed skill of their competition.

Of the four approaches, I think only #3 is a waste of time when doing actual player comparisons (it's useful when evaluating the equipment, training, etc, but not the impressiveness of the athletes themselves).

I'm all for doing analyses of #1, but it has to be noted that traditionally on these boards, that's not been the primary focus. If it had been, then Mikan would be much higher on our Top 100s.

I'm particularly keen on #2, which has everything to do with why I've probably done more pre-NBA analysis than anyone else on these boards, but again, this has not been the primary focus on these boards.

So from my perspective, our main focus has been on #4, and that seemed to work pretty harmoniously until the 3-point revolution came in and changed the game so profoundly. And there the issues wasn't so much that the more modern league was "better" - because we had no issues putting Wilt over Mikan on such grounds - but that the modern league getting better in this way changed the structure of the basketball court, and thus dramatically changed what techniques could be expected to achieve greatest impact.

The question then becomes how one deals with such a sea change in one's assessment.

Obviously I've been someone pushing an approach that feels disruptive, but I'd note that I think I'm still just doing #4.

I've seen others - like 70sFan - who are leaning toward approach #1 - not in line with how we've done things around here traditionally, but it's arguably the easiest way to make a coherent - and thus meaningful -list.

But I think most folks are still doing a version of #4, but it's a more abstract form of it. It's effectively giving a "league quality" score to the context the player played in, and then evaluating the player's ranking based on how far he stood out from his peers along with that league quality.

I don't actually have a problem with people doing this necessarily, but it's easy for people to get non-sensical when they do this.

Take the '06 Wade vs '22 Curry thread:

It was pretty clear early in that thread that a lot of people were having takes along the lines of:

Peak Curry > Peak Wade > '22 Curry, with '22 Curry's lesser shooting excellence compared to his peak being used as a clear divide.

When one does this, one is essentially saying, "Curry has to be shooting his absolute best to be better than Wade". This sounds reasonable, but the reality is that Curry only had a "poor shooting year" relative to his own outlier standards. He remained considerably more effective at shooting 3's than anyone who played in Wade's time period, remained the scariest long-distance threat in the league he was in, and led his team to a title that way. To me it makes us ask the question:

Exactly how many more 3's did Curry need to make in order to surpass Wade?

And I would suggest that there's no basketball-meaningful answer to that question.

What do I mean by "basketball-meaningful"? Well, the answer to that question is going to have to be based on algorithmic thought wherein the 3-point shooting of Curry and the 3-point shooting of Wade are not compared in an apples-to-apples sense. Hence, wherever one decides the dividing line is, it will be not only subjective and arbitrary, but it will have less to do with thinking about how the basketball games were played, and more about number crunching.

Doing this isn't the end of the world - I'm fine with people doing it - but when it seems to be alleged that I'm "mocking" older players because I'm trying to focus my comparison on trying to understand actual basketball playing capacity, I think we have a problem.

In general, in any field, if the "right way" to do things requires that you don't factor in context that is obvious to ask questions about, you tend to hit a wall with your learning. What I'm doing is trying to avoid hitting that wall, as best I can.
I am definitely for #1 normalized for "league quality", in particular the popularity of the aport at the time, the number of practitioners and its ability to attract the best athletes.

On a side note, I have the feeling that Mikan and Russell are too close in terms of era to justify the massive difference of respe t that is there between the two.

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