Doctor MJ wrote:NinjaSheppard wrote:Seeing the Dirk vs Jokic discussion and I am really struggling to compare players from 2000-2010 and players from the last few years. The league is talented as its ever been but this really feels like a completely different sport being played out there now. It is approaching the passing stats change in the NFL in terms of difference.
The analogy to the NFL becoming a passing game instead of a running game is dead on. Both the NFL & NBA have had some strategic shifts on offense that makes the game more offensive - and yes, both have been further stoked by rule changes, but the strategy is the key change.
By contrast, I've been saying for decades that hockey needs to make changes because the supremacy of defensive strategy has made it really hard to get non-hard core fans excited.
The thing that's funny about hockey is that it's so, so easy to fix but hockey purists don't want to do it. If hockey goalies have to be allowed to wear absurdly excessive padding in the name of their safety, then you have to make the goal bigger if you want to have a similar balance to what it was in the Gretzky era.
Then of course there's baseball who put themselves in just a really tough position when they covertly embraced steroids and then had to backtrack with performative outrage when it became too obvious.
many other sports have became optimized too
soccer doesnt have rule changes but offense and scoring have gone up as strategy and táctics get better in both sides (less long ball game, more defensive pressing, eh )
baseball with bunts or base stealing becoming discouraged
Boxing has become Cleaner and more tsctical/technical with violent slugfests becoming a thingh of the past
statistics have changed the way the games are played to be more optimized, but optimized doesnt always means it is liked by fans
nfl, soccer, basketball, baseball, volleyball a bit from what i have seen
all of them seem to have evolved/changed, whether aided by rules or not to their most optimized styles
and in all of them part of the fans dont like the changes and sometimes blame somethingh, whether new rules or player "softness" or "advanced statistics" for running the game.
it seems to be a common trend in all sports i have series at among its fans