RealGM

Alright, so as mentioned with the Scandal thread, we're now moving on to a new thread where we're just talking about running projects going forward - as in, don't talk make this thread about specific posters. If you do, we're going to have to nip that in the bud to keep it from taking over the thread.

Doc

I've numbered below the suggestions I've identified from the prior thread, and this thread will be an opportunity for folks to chime in further.

I do want to emphasize that we're not going to do a formal democracy with votes on this, and in the end many of these suggestions are going to be more "things to keep in mind" when running future projects rather than strict, rigid rules.

On some points, I may inject some thoughts of my own in parentheses to try to inform the conversation without making it look like my thoughts are the collective thoughts of the forum.


1. "Yes, let's re-start the Peaks project and keep doing these projects!" This was the overwhelming response. While there were dissenters, those folks were the minority and don't have to participate in these type of projects going forward.

2. When should we restart it? Some say immediately once we have our new project runner, some say 2 months, some say wait until after we do the next RealGM 100.

(My guess it will probably start up pretty soon unless this thread shows many people wanting to wait.)

3. Project runners need to be more heavy handed moderating Jordan/LeBron-style off-topic capture of a thread, as well as dealing with deliberate baiting/disrespect/anti-social behavior.

4. Project runners should consider a) RealGM join date, b) RealGM active participation, and c) RealGM moderation track record, when determining who can vote in projects up front, and during the project. Specific suggestions of 100/500/1000/etc minimum posts, or specific join ages, as hard thresholds, but people also recognize that any hard threshold can be met by a determined bad actor.

5. There's also been suggestions along these lines for who can run a project, but posters can start their own small-scale projects at any time by just starting a thread.

(My own recommendation is that for projects that are new iterations of giant old projects - RPOY, RealGM100, Peaks, etc - need permission from the moderator team except when the new project runner did it previously. Here, as someone who had previously ran the two Scandalized projects, I'll say I didn't feel comfortable stopping the projects before, but I had major concerns that if I'd acted on immediately, would have kept us from being in this position now.)

6. Project runners should be purposeful about setting project vision. This doesn't necessarily mean super-restrictive, but we're trying to avoid people using completely different criteria and talking past each other. Beginning a project by emphasizing it will be era-relative or emphasizing it will be based on the modern league or whatever, can save us some frustration.

7. Consider having parallel votes, dubbed "Experts" vs "Consensus" in the suggestion, separating out the posters with a long track record from those who are newer so as to allow new posters to have a vote, but not let them utterly take over the only vote.

(I could see doing something like this where the second vote is based on a thread poll. I wouldn't want to use the "Expert" & "Consensus" names though, and I've always believed that if someone participates for a while expertly in a project, I'll give them a vote, because many of the best posters in these projects historically are people who got "sucked in" from other sites by the project. And yeah, doing it this way makes it easier for a PBP to sneak his way back in, but recent events to the contrary, preventing this isn't actually my main focus.)

8. Use ranked lists with sophisticated techniques rather than one-at-a-time voting.

(This is a thing we've done in the past and can continue to do, but it's not a true replacement for the many-months of discussion in something like the Peaks project - even if it can be incorporated in partially with things like Condorcet voting.)

9. Ranking by ranges rather than exact spots.

(I'm not really sure how this works in a group project. If someone wants to get more specific, they can.)

10. Emphasize smaller scale projects (greatest defenders at each position, greatest teams, etc) with less established stakes.

(I'm all for it, but would also emphasize that the "stakes" grow with the the collective buy-in, and so projects like this are not fundamentally immune from the concerns we've been discussing.)

11. "Book club" like projects, such as watching a historical game and discussing.

(So I love this and think we should look to do something like this. parsnips33 was the one mentioning it in the previous thread, but I know others have mentioned it in the past as well. I think we should have some folks look to develop this, and I'd say if you're someone who someone who done a ton of historical watching - 70sFan comes to mind - I'd like you to be involved in the brainstorming. For right now the discussion will happen here in this thread, but it might move to a separate thread or to a PM conversation from there until it's ready to be presented.)

I would also love 70sFan to be involved in the "book club" idea, provided that's something they'd be interested in

Doctor MJ wrote:1. "Yes, let's re-start the Peaks project and keep doing these projects!" This was the overwhelming response. While there were dissenters, those folks were the minority and don't have to participate in these type of projects going forward.

2. When should we restart it? Some say immediately once we have our new project runner, some say 2 months, some say wait until after we do the next RealGM 100.

(My guess it will probably start up pretty soon unless this thread shows many people wanting to wait.)

I'd argue for delaying it until after the next Top 100. If a peaks project is started now, it would likely bleed into the early months of 2026, and if I'm not mistaken there would be a new Top 100 scheduled to start in June or July. I'm not sure two big projects that close together is the best idea. Maybe if the peaks project is resumed soon, and then the next Top 100 could be delayed.

I just feel like these projects need to be more spaced out. And maybe shortened. Making it two days per round instead of three days alone would take nearly 3.5 months off the runtime of a 100-spot ranking, and nearly 2 months off the runtime of a 50-spot ranking.

4. Project runners should consider a) RealGM join date, b) RealGM active participation, and c) RealGM moderation track record, when determining who can vote in projects up front, and during the project. Specific suggestions of 100/500/1000/etc minimum posts, or specific join ages, as hard thresholds, but people also recognize that any hard threshold can be met by a determined bad actor.

On the last point - just because someone might jump a turnstile in a train station doesn't mean you don't put the turnstiles there at all.

3. Project runners need to be more heavy handed moderating Jordan/LeBron-style off-topic capture of a thread, as well as dealing with deliberate baiting/disrespect/anti-social behavior.

5. There's also been suggestions along these lines for who can run a project, but posters can start their own small-scale projects at any time by just starting a thread.

(My own recommendation is that for projects that are new iterations of giant old projects - RPOY, RealGM100, Peaks, etc - need permission from the moderator team except when the new project runner did it previously. Here, as someone who had previously ran the two Scandalized projects, I'll say I didn't feel comfortable stopping the projects before, but I had major concerns that if I'd acted on immediately, would have kept us from being in this position now.)

Personally, given recent events, I'd feel more comfortable if mods were running the big projects. Whether it's a current PC Board a mod, a current mod of a different board who is a regular on the PC board(tsherkin comes to mind), or a former/retired mod(NO-KG-AI, for example). I know that some have the opposite opinion.

6. Project runners should be purposeful about setting project vision. This doesn't necessarily mean super-restrictive, but we're trying to avoid people using completely different criteria and talking past each other. Beginning a project by emphasizing it will be era-relative or emphasizing it will be based on the modern league or whatever, can save us some frustration.

I think this was one of my suggestions, and I'm all for it.

9. Ranking by ranges rather than exact spots.

(I'm not really sure how this works in a group project. If someone wants to get more specific, they can.)

I imagine first you'd have to define how big a range is - maybe something like 5 spots. Then you have everybody vote for five players, tally the votes, and the five players with the most votes are inducted into that range. And then when you list the results, you list them in tiers with no formal ranking, for example:

Tier 1:
Player A
Player B
Player C
Player D
Player E

Tier 2:
Player A
Player B
Player C
Player D
Player E

and so on. I imagine your concern with this would be that it would cut down the conversation.

Lastly, I'll quote another of my suggestions from the other thread that didn't make it into the OP:

Maybe instead of starting a project at #1, start at the end point and count down, ending with #1/#2. This could have the effect of increasing participation as a project goes on, with a climactic event at the end. It could also enable the project runner and/or mods to say, if you haven't been participating regularly, you don't get to vote for #1/#2.

I still think this would be an interesting way to build participation up along the way and de-incentivize any possible PBPs from trying to make any trouble until the end.

I don't think that represents all the views from that thread, and in some cases it does not seem to reflect my recollection of the consensus.

I don't think the majority of voters called for set criteria for a project for instance, and I think it could be extremely partisan for this to be done as it would actually limit debate and prejudge which side of that debate is right. If it is done, it's fairly clear it'll be done in a way that favours the pre-existing status quo. There's zero chance the top 100 for example will have the parameter that they be rated 'based on how good they would be today', or 'how good players were in an objective sense', or 'how good they would be over the bulk of NBA history'.

My 2 cents:
1) Everyone should use their own criteria, since we can't read minds anyway & most won't do it consistently (so you'll just be punishing those who are honest about why they're voting), e.g. most will not be voting Mikan top 5 even with era relativity criteria, and even though that's absurd the mods will have to let it slide as long as everyone asserts they're using the right criteria.
2) Project participants should have 100 posts, and be active participants on the board/project before being added. Posters who appear to post incoherent nonsense about Baller vows should be removed.
3) Projects should be run by non-mods, with mods only stepping in for the usual reasons. There are a long list of non-mods I'd nominate to run the next projects; happy to suggest names. I feel it produces a more free flowing conversation.

Personally, I'd also do the peaks project after the top 100, once others emotions are cooled.

I thought about it today and I may have one suggestion - what do people think about the peaks project that would be splitted into smaller eras?

For example, we could do the top 10-15 peaks of each decade (I'd prefer 10 years period from 2025 down, so 2016-25, 2006-15 etc.). That would change our focus from the typical Jordan vs James and era strength debates to the granular discussions about the specific years choices, in-era rivals and lesser known players. I think it could be more interesting even for people with modernist view like One_and_Done, because they could finally talk about players they believe are actually good, without the need to show the clear disagreement about era evaluations.

Of course you may think 10 years is too short period, everything could be adjusted for the overall perception. What are your thoughts about it? I think I'd be far more interested in something like that vs repetition of the same debates. Just a quick idea, please let me know if you like it.

70sFan wrote:I thought about it today and I may have one suggestion - what do people think about the peaks project that would be splitted into smaller eras?

For example, we could do the top 10-15 peaks of each decade (I'd prefer 10 years period from 2025 down, so 2016-25, 2006-15 etc.). That would change our focus from the typical Jordan vs James and era strength debates to the granular discussions about the specific years choices, in-era rivals and lesser known players. I think it could be more interesting even for people with modernist view like One_and_Done, because they could finally talk about players they believe are actually good, without the need to show the clear disagreement about era evaluations.

Of course you may think 10 years is too short period, everything could be adjusted for the overall perception. What are your thoughts about it? I think I'd be far more interested in something like that vs repetition of the same debates. Just a quick idea, please let me know if you like it.

I like it, but it would feel odd discussing/voting for the same player in multiple eras. Eg '64 Russell in one group and '66 Russell in another. Don't see a way to avoid it well though, it'd seem no matter where you put the lines some players will be on both sides of them.

Could consider splitting eras along specific rule changes/notable events instead of arbitrarily? Like ABA years, '05 rule changes, stuff like that. Not sure it'd be any better, but an idea.

Completely separate - I'd be interested in doing an X-year prime list (3 years maybe?) instead of a peaks list sometime.

70sFan wrote:I thought about it today and I may have one suggestion - what do people think about the peaks project that would be splitted into smaller eras?

For example, we could do the top 10-15 peaks of each decade (I'd prefer 10 years period from 2025 down, so 2016-25, 2006-15 etc.). That would change our focus from the typical Jordan vs James and era strength debates to the granular discussions about the specific years choices, in-era rivals and lesser known players. I think it could be more interesting even for people with modernist view like One_and_Done, because they could finally talk about players they believe are actually good, without the need to show the clear disagreement about era evaluations.

Of course you may think 10 years is too short period, everything could be adjusted for the overall perception. What are your thoughts about it? I think I'd be far more interested in something like that vs repetition of the same debates. Just a quick idea, please let me know if you like it.

I really like this idea. I think it would go a long way to avoiding the same rabbit holes that threads so often end up gravitating towards: (1) discussions about certain specific great cross-era players, such as Jordan vs. LeBron; and (2) arguments about translation across eras. Those discussions are legitimate topics and can be interesting, but I think they’re pretty played out here these days, with a lot of discussions devolving into people repeating the same things to each other for the millionth time. In turn, I think that’ll also make things a bit more friendly/collaborative and make people feel less competitive about their arguments, since that sort of thing much more naturally arises when people get frustrated at having the same arguments with the same people over and over.

The downside is that this would break continuity with the past peak projects, but under the circumstances I think that’s fine.

If it’s done like this then I’d be in favor of it starting up relatively soon. On the other hand, I tend to think just restarting the peaks project as normal should probably wait a year or two, in order to give some space from what happened and to avoid having the first few threads just involve posters needing to just repeat the same thing they said a few weeks ago.

70sFan wrote:I thought about it today and I may have one suggestion - what do people think about the peaks project that would be splitted into smaller eras?

For example, we could do the top 10-15 peaks of each decade (I'd prefer 10 years period from 2025 down, so 2016-25, 2006-15 etc.). That would change our focus from the typical Jordan vs James and era strength debates to the granular discussions about the specific years choices, in-era rivals and lesser known players. I think it could be more interesting even for people with modernist view like One_and_Done, because they could finally talk about players they believe are actually good, without the need to show the clear disagreement about era evaluations.

Of course you may think 10 years is too short period, everything could be adjusted for the overall perception. What are your thoughts about it? I think I'd be far more interested in something like that vs repetition of the same debates. Just a quick idea, please let me know if you like it.

I like this idea and it adds an interesting dimension in maybe some pre-project discussion of what are the significant "eras" in league history - I don't think all eras necessarily have to be the same length. Something like Hobsbawm's idea of the long 19th century (French Revolution to World War I) versus the literal 19th century

70sFan wrote:I thought about it today and I may have one suggestion - what do people think about the peaks project that would be splitted into smaller eras?

For example, we could do the top 10-15 peaks of each decade (I'd prefer 10 years period from 2025 down, so 2016-25, 2006-15 etc.). That would change our focus from the typical Jordan vs James and era strength debates to the granular discussions about the specific years choices, in-era rivals and lesser known players. I think it could be more interesting even for people with modernist view like One_and_Done, because they could finally talk about players they believe are actually good, without the need to show the clear disagreement about era evaluations.

Of course you may think 10 years is too short period, everything could be adjusted for the overall perception. What are your thoughts about it? I think I'd be far more interested in something like that vs repetition of the same debates. Just a quick idea, please let me know if you like it.

I think a per-decade approach is awesome, personally. Keeps the game looking mostly the same, strips away a lot of the major differences you get comparing decades and decades apart, that sort of thing.

OldSchoolNoBull wrote:[

Maybe instead of starting a project at #1, start at the end point and count down, ending with #1/#2. This could have the effect of increasing participation as a project goes on, with a climactic event at the end. It could also enable the project runner and/or mods to say, if you haven't been participating regularly, you don't get to vote for #1/#2.

I still think this would be an interesting way to build participation up along the way and de-incentivize any possible PBPs from trying to make any trouble until the end.

I don't think this makes a whole lot of sense practically. If you start a peaks project at #40 or top 100 project at #100 and expect people to vote at that point, you're expecting them to have an entire list ready, no? Some do but it's a pretty tall task. The nice thing about starting from the top and going down is that the only question you're answering at any point is "who is the best player not yet picked?"

70sFan wrote:I thought about it today and I may have one suggestion - what do people think about the peaks project that would be splitted into smaller eras?

For example, we could do the top 10-15 peaks of each decade (I'd prefer 10 years period from 2025 down, so 2016-25, 2006-15 etc.). That would change our focus from the typical Jordan vs James and era strength debates to the granular discussions about the specific years choices, in-era rivals and lesser known players. I think it could be more interesting even for people with modernist view like One_and_Done, because they could finally talk about players they believe are actually good, without the need to show the clear disagreement about era evaluations.

Of course you may think 10 years is too short period, everything could be adjusted for the overall perception. What are your thoughts about it? I think I'd be far more interested in something like that vs repetition of the same debates. Just a quick idea, please let me know if you like it.

I've been working on an individual/personal project along these lines, except I'm using birth year ranges so there is no crossover - a player can only appear once. So I have seven different 11-12 year generations and I'm ranking players within those generations, probably about 35 deep for the earlier generations(mostly 50s/60s guys) and maybe 50 deep after that. I'm quite enjoying it. Was planning on sharing it eventually.

jalengreen wrote:

OldSchoolNoBull wrote:[

Maybe instead of starting a project at #1, start at the end point and count down, ending with #1/#2. This could have the effect of increasing participation as a project goes on, with a climactic event at the end. It could also enable the project runner and/or mods to say, if you haven't been participating regularly, you don't get to vote for #1/#2.

I still think this would be an interesting way to build participation up along the way and de-incentivize any possible PBPs from trying to make any trouble until the end.

I don't think this makes a whole lot of sense practically. If you start a peaks project at #40 or top 100 project at #100 and expect people to vote at that point, you're expecting them to have an entire list ready, no? Some do but it's a pretty tall task. The nice thing about starting from the top and going down is that the only question you're answering at any point is "who is the best player not yet picked?"

It's a fair point, I guess.

parsnips33 wrote:

70sFan wrote:I thought about it today and I may have one suggestion - what do people think about the peaks project that would be splitted into smaller eras?

For example, we could do the top 10-15 peaks of each decade (I'd prefer 10 years period from 2025 down, so 2016-25, 2006-15 etc.). That would change our focus from the typical Jordan vs James and era strength debates to the granular discussions about the specific years choices, in-era rivals and lesser known players. I think it could be more interesting even for people with modernist view like One_and_Done, because they could finally talk about players they believe are actually good, without the need to show the clear disagreement about era evaluations.

Of course you may think 10 years is too short period, everything could be adjusted for the overall perception. What are your thoughts about it? I think I'd be far more interested in something like that vs repetition of the same debates. Just a quick idea, please let me know if you like it.

I like this idea and it adds an interesting dimension in maybe some pre-project discussion of what are the significant "eras" in league history - I don't think all eras necessarily have to be the same length. Something like Hobsbawm's idea of the long 19th century (French Revolution to World War I) versus the literal 19th century

Of course we don't need to do it by decade, it was just a default choice. I can see creating more interesting era distinctions like pace and space era, dead ball era etc.

I just wonder if we could find agreement on what an "era" is in NBA history. 10 years period is at least very well defined.

eminence wrote:I like it, but it would feel odd discussing/voting for the same player in multiple eras. Eg '64 Russell in one group and '66 Russell in another. Don't see a way to avoid it well though, it'd seem no matter where you put the lines some players will be on both sides of them.

I don't think you can avoid that with longevity monsters like Kareem and LeBron. I mean, nobody with any clue about basketball would call 2007 and 2020 the same era and James probably would make both lists. Same with Kareem, Russell, Jordan, Wilt. Great players transcends their eras and I think it's cool to do it that way.

70sFan wrote:I thought about it today and I may have one suggestion - what do people think about the peaks project that would be splitted into smaller eras?

For example, we could do the top 10-15 peaks of each decade (I'd prefer 10 years period from 2025 down, so 2016-25, 2006-15 etc.). That would change our focus from the typical Jordan vs James and era strength debates to the granular discussions about the specific years choices, in-era rivals and lesser known players. I think it could be more interesting even for people with modernist view like One_and_Done, because they could finally talk about players they believe are actually good, without the need to show the clear disagreement about era evaluations.

Of course you may think 10 years is too short period, everything could be adjusted for the overall perception. What are your thoughts about it? I think I'd be far more interested in something like that vs repetition of the same debates. Just a quick idea, please let me know if you like it.

Like it as a standalone project akin to the half-decade All NBA team project but I wouldn't want it to replace the peaks project outright.

eminence wrote:Could consider splitting eras along specific rule changes/notable events instead of arbitrarily? Like ABA years, '05 rule changes, stuff like that. Not sure it'd be any better, but an idea.

Some are a year or two off but I think decade split is already pretty close

47-56: Infancy
57-66: Integration
67-76: ABA expansion
77-86: Post merger
87-96: Global popularization
97-06: Dead ball
07-16: ?
17-26: 3pt explosion

OldSchoolNoBull wrote:Maybe instead of starting a project at #1, start at the end point and count down, ending with #1/#2. This could have the effect of increasing participation as a project goes on, with a climactic event at the end. It could also enable the project runner and/or mods to say, if you haven't been participating regularly, you don't get to vote for #1/#2.

I proposed this same idea back in 2019:

LA Bird wrote:

cecilthesheep wrote:

LA Bird wrote:This is why I think these kind of long projects should start bottom up instead of top down. There are two overriding factors in determining how many votes we get in these projects - time and player popularity. More people will vote in a Jordan vs LeBron thread than a Gilmore vs Lanier thread and people naturally lose interest in these projects over time after a few months time. With a bottom up approach where we first decide on the player pool and then countdown from #50, we can ensure a more balanced participation throughout the project because we get the less popular players out of the way when everybody is still interested in the project. There could even be incentives for participation by weighing votes depending on voting frequency in previous rounds. With the current top down approach, we get a huge rush of votes at the beginning when everybody joins to vote for their favorite GOATs but participation quickly declines once we go down the list. There was quite a sharp drop in participation by as early as round 15 (West won round 17 with only 2 votes).

This is an interesting idea, but seems pretty difficult from a practical standpoint. How do you even have a top-down discussion? To decide who your 50th guy is, you essentially need to already know who guys 1-49 are, and without talking about that first it's a pretty daunting individual task.

The idea I had in mind would be to start with a list of the top 50 candidate peaks already and we vote for the least valuable season from that pool of seasons in each round from #50, #49, ..., until we eliminate our way down to just the #1 peak, similar to the election process for deciding the hosts of the Olympic games. Besides increased participation, this method also has the added benefit of focusing the discussion and reducing vote wastage because the players are already decided and it is only the order of their peaks that changes.

As for how we decide the top 50 peaks in no order in the first place, I would assume we can grandfather in the top 80% of the players from the previous peaks project and then do a nomination count system like trex_8063 did for the Honorable Mentions in the Top 100 project to decide who is selected with the remaining spots. Having people submit a 10 player peak list for #41~#50 shouldn't be too difficult when the project is just starting. I am just floating an idea though since we won't have another peaks project for 3+ years and who knows, maybe none of us will still be on this board at that point.

I worry a countdown like that would be too negative for my tastes.

70sFan wrote:Of course we don't need to do it by decade, it was just a default choice. I can see creating more interesting era distinctions like pace and space era, dead ball era etc.

I just wonder if we could find agreement on what an "era" is in NBA history. 10 years period is at least very well defined.

I mean, there's room to run it with different definitions, right? See how the results change. And I think separating out the halves of certain players with great longevity will actually be helpful. Because Kareem after like 83 was very different from Kareem prior, right? And Lebron's been a bit different from Miami forward compared to his first run in Cleveland.

But yeah, maybe "early NBA" for the 50s, 60s/70s together (minding the ABA), early 3pt era, pre-grind. Horrible slop era from like 96-04, then something prior to 2018 or so, and then contemporary/pace-and-space era, etc.

Lots of intriguing options beyond just straight decades.

tsherkin wrote:

70sFan wrote:Of course we don't need to do it by decade, it was just a default choice. I can see creating more interesting era distinctions like pace and space era, dead ball era etc.

I just wonder if we could find agreement on what an "era" is in NBA history. 10 years period is at least very well defined.

I mean, there's room to run it with different definitions, right? See how the results change. And I think separating out the halves of certain players with great longevity will actually be helpful. Because Kareem after like 83 was very different from Kareem prior, right? And Lebron's been a bit different from Miami forward compared to his first run in Cleveland.

But yeah, maybe "early NBA" for the 50s, 60s/70s together (minding the ABA), early 3pt era, pre-grind. Horrible slop era from like 96-04, then something prior to 2018 or so, and then contemporary/pace-and-space era, etc.

Lots of intriguing options beyond just straight decades.

As LA Bird stated, the decades already did a solid job on differentiating eras. Of course we could slightly alter that, but I wouldn't like to see 25 years eras that don't have much in common.

We can create a separate thread for that, if people are interested in such project.

tsherkin wrote:

70sFan wrote:Of course we don't need to do it by decade, it was just a default choice. I can see creating more interesting era distinctions like pace and space era, dead ball era etc.

I just wonder if we could find agreement on what an "era" is in NBA history. 10 years period is at least very well defined.

I mean, there's room to run it with different definitions, right? See how the results change. And I think separating out the halves of certain players with great longevity will actually be helpful. Because Kareem after like 83 was very different from Kareem prior, right? And Lebron's been a bit different from Miami forward compared to his first run in Cleveland.

But yeah, maybe "early NBA" for the 50s, 60s/70s together (minding the ABA), early 3pt era, pre-grind. Horrible slop era from like 96-04, then something prior to 2018 or so, and then contemporary/pace-and-space era, etc.

Lots of intriguing options beyond just straight decades.

I wouldn't lump 60s/70s together as the league changed drastically. ABA, contract jumping, cocaine, steroids, end of canvas sneakers, faster more open playstyle.

Eras in my head: Pre shot clock, Pre ABA with shot clock, ABA years, Post merger 77-89, End of the 20th Century (can go through 2004 to end of last NBA expansion), 21st Century Begins 2005-2015, Age of Spam (2016 to present)

penbeast0 wrote:I wouldn't lump 60s/70s together as the league changed drastically. ABA, contract jumping, cocaine, steroids, end of canvas sneakers, faster more open playstyle.

Yeah, it's just a rough starting point for the sake of sparking discussion. As 70s noted, it could probably use its own thread for all the depth we could get into.

Eras in my head: Pre shot clock, Pre ABA with shot clock, ABA years, Post merger 77-89, End of the 20th Century (can go through 2004 to end of last NBA expansion), 21st Century Begins 2005-2015, Age of Spam (2016 to present)

Yep, those are solid. I'd call 2004 a pretty significant demarcation point, though, because there are some notable changes thereafter, personally.