About NBA era's differences

[SpreeS]

Watch on YouTube

good job!!!

[70sFan]

This video isn't horrible, but it's clear that the narrator didn't watch older eras before. He has no idea about rules difference for example.

[SpreeS]

This video isn't horrible, but it's clear that the narrator didn't watch older eras before. He has no idea about rules difference for example.

Could you point his main mistakes?

[70sFan]

This video isn't horrible, but it's clear that the narrator didn't watch older eras before. He has no idea about rules difference for example.

Could you point his main mistakes?

Sure, his criticism of ball-handling doesn't take into account how much different it was officiated back then. That's the first and most obvious example.

[Purch]

This is exactly why I find what Draymond said about how they would blow the Jazz/Bulls out because of the style of basketball they played so crazy. The way the Bulls/Jazz played in those finals was specifically because of the illegal defense rules. 75% of Draymond/GS brand of defense would be called as illegal if they were plopped into those finals.

[SpreeS]

This video isn't horrible, but it's clear that the narrator didn't watch older eras before. He has no idea about rules difference for example.

Could you point his main mistakes?

Sure, his criticism of ball-handling doesn't take into account how much different it was officiated back then. That's the first and most obvious example.

I know that you know a lot about old era’s, but I notice that you overrate them a lot too.

What’s did he wrong say about dribbling? He only compared numbers 20/80 with 45/55. Couldn’t old players dribble with left hand more because of rules/officiating?

[kcktiny]

I know that you know a lot about old era’s, but I notice that you overrate them a lot too.

Are you of the opinion that NBA players of 30, 40, 50, and 60 years ago were not as "good" as the players of today? If so, why?

[70sFan]

Could you point his main mistakes?

Sure, his criticism of ball-handling doesn't take into account how much different it was officiated back then. That's the first and most obvious example.

I know that you know a lot about old era’s, but I notice that you overrate them a lot too.

What’s did he wrong say about dribbling? He only compared numbers 20/80 with 45/55. Couldn’t old players dribble with left hand more because of rules/officiating?

I didn't have in mind his breakdown of right/left dribbling actually, more about him talking how limited Julius Erving handles were. It's ridiculous to call his ball-handling limited compared to modern players, when he wasn't allowed to play like modern players.

"Couldn't old players dribble with left hand more because of rules/officiating?" - not directly, but yes. Old rules made dribbling significantly harder to perform. Most players, even now, have significant tendency to attack with their stronger hands. Even though he counted it as 55/45 in modern game, the truth is that most of the dribbles with weaker hand are not game changing. Now, make the rules significantly stricter and you'll get the league in which most players wouldn't be able to dribble the ball with weaker hand on consistent basis. Players like Kevin Durant (who is all-time great skilled player) wouldn't be able to perform any of his dribbling moves in the 1960s.

I think ball-handling got better with time, but you can't just watch 1960s game for the first time and conclude players were less skilled. They were limited by the rules, even Chris Paul or Steph Curry wouldn't do anything modern in the 1960s with the ball.

Another of his points that is wrong is below the rim play. He watched one game in which there were few dunks, but if you watch other games players dunked back then on consistent basis.

Lack of knowledge about rules changes and singificantly small sample of size makes this video very misleading.

Do I overrate old players? Maybe, although I never denied that basketball got better with time. I think you have to watch old games on consistent basis to get the fair judgement of these players. Most people don't do that, they watch one short clip, look at the handles or shootinf motion and decide they were horrible. They weren't, they were the best players in the world with extremely refined skillsets.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Sure, his criticism of ball-handling doesn't take into account how much different it was officiated back then. That's the first and most obvious example.

I know that you know a lot about old era’s, but I notice that you overrate them a lot too.

What’s did he wrong say about dribbling? He only compared numbers 20/80 with 45/55. Couldn’t old players dribble with left hand more because of rules/officiating?

I didn't have in mind his breakdown of right/left dribbling actually, more about him talking how limited Julius Erving handles were. It's ridiculous to call his ball-handling limited compared to modern players, when he wasn't allowed to play like modern players.

"Couldn't old players dribble with left hand more because of rules/officiating?" - not directly, but yes. Old rules made dribbling significantly harder to perform. Most players, even now, have significant tendency to attack with their stronger hands. Even though he counted it as 55/45 in modern game, the truth is that most of the dribbles with weaker hand are not game changing. Now, make the rules significantly stricter and you'll get the league in which most players wouldn't be able to dribble the ball with weaker hand on consistent basis. Players like Kevin Durant (who is all-time great skilled player) wouldn't be able to perform any of his dribbling moves in the 1960s.

I think ball-handling got better with time, but you can't just watch 1960s game for the first time and conclude players were less skilled. They were limited by the rules, even Chris Paul or Steph Curry wouldn't do anything modern in the 1960s with the ball.

Another of his points that is wrong is below the rim play. He watched one game in which there were few dunks, but if you watch other games players dunked back then on consistent basis.

Lack of knowledge about rules changes and singificantly small sample of size makes this video very misleading.

Do I overrate old players? Maybe, although I never denied that basketball got better with time. I think you have to watch old games on consistent basis to get the fair judgement of these players. Most people don't do that, they watch one short clip, look at the handles or shootinf motion and decide they were horrible. They weren't, they were the best players in the world with extremely refined skillsets.

Out of curiousity, Maravich got away with more than his peers like iverson did late 90s right?

[70sFan]

I know that you know a lot about old era’s, but I notice that you overrate them a lot too.

What’s did he wrong say about dribbling? He only compared numbers 20/80 with 45/55. Couldn’t old players dribble with left hand more because of rules/officiating?

I didn't have in mind his breakdown of right/left dribbling actually, more about him talking how limited Julius Erving handles were. It's ridiculous to call his ball-handling limited compared to modern players, when he wasn't allowed to play like modern players.

"Couldn't old players dribble with left hand more because of rules/officiating?" - not directly, but yes. Old rules made dribbling significantly harder to perform. Most players, even now, have significant tendency to attack with their stronger hands. Even though he counted it as 55/45 in modern game, the truth is that most of the dribbles with weaker hand are not game changing. Now, make the rules significantly stricter and you'll get the league in which most players wouldn't be able to dribble the ball with weaker hand on consistent basis. Players like Kevin Durant (who is all-time great skilled player) wouldn't be able to perform any of his dribbling moves in the 1960s.

I think ball-handling got better with time, but you can't just watch 1960s game for the first time and conclude players were less skilled. They were limited by the rules, even Chris Paul or Steph Curry wouldn't do anything modern in the 1960s with the ball.

Another of his points that is wrong is below the rim play. He watched one game in which there were few dunks, but if you watch other games players dunked back then on consistent basis.

Lack of knowledge about rules changes and singificantly small sample of size makes this video very misleading.

Do I overrate old players? Maybe, although I never denied that basketball got better with time. I think you have to watch old games on consistent basis to get the fair judgement of these players. Most people don't do that, they watch one short clip, look at the handles or shootinf motion and decide they were horrible. They weren't, they were the best players in the world with extremely refined skillsets.

Out of curiousity, Maravich got away with more than his peers like iverson did late 90s right?

I don't think so, Pete usually dribbled within the rules of the time. He probably got away with more than most, but not to the degree of AI. When you watch Pete dribbling, he didn't carry the ball like modern players do.

[MyUniBroDavis]

I didn't have in mind his breakdown of right/left dribbling actually, more about him talking how limited Julius Erving handles were. It's ridiculous to call his ball-handling limited compared to modern players, when he wasn't allowed to play like modern players.

"Couldn't old players dribble with left hand more because of rules/officiating?" - not directly, but yes. Old rules made dribbling significantly harder to perform. Most players, even now, have significant tendency to attack with their stronger hands. Even though he counted it as 55/45 in modern game, the truth is that most of the dribbles with weaker hand are not game changing. Now, make the rules significantly stricter and you'll get the league in which most players wouldn't be able to dribble the ball with weaker hand on consistent basis. Players like Kevin Durant (who is all-time great skilled player) wouldn't be able to perform any of his dribbling moves in the 1960s.

I think ball-handling got better with time, but you can't just watch 1960s game for the first time and conclude players were less skilled. They were limited by the rules, even Chris Paul or Steph Curry wouldn't do anything modern in the 1960s with the ball.

Another of his points that is wrong is below the rim play. He watched one game in which there were few dunks, but if you watch other games players dunked back then on consistent basis.

Lack of knowledge about rules changes and singificantly small sample of size makes this video very misleading.

Do I overrate old players? Maybe, although I never denied that basketball got better with time. I think you have to watch old games on consistent basis to get the fair judgement of these players. Most people don't do that, they watch one short clip, look at the handles or shootinf motion and decide they were horrible. They weren't, they were the best players in the world with extremely refined skillsets.

Out of curiousity, Maravich got away with more than his peers like iverson did late 90s right?

I don't think so, Pete usually dribbled within the rules of the time. He probably got away with more than most, but not to the degree of AI. When you watch Pete dribbling, he didn't carry the ball like modern players do.

Watch on YouTube

;t=441s

I feel hes definately carrying it more on certain moves based on the rules than the typical guy of the time (I’m assuming it’s looser than the 60s but not to this extent still)

I’m not saying it’s like modern guys or anything

[70sFan]

Out of curiousity, Maravich got away with more than his peers like iverson did late 90s right?

I don't think so, Pete usually dribbled within the rules of the time. He probably got away with more than most, but not to the degree of AI. When you watch Pete dribbling, he didn't carry the ball like modern players do.

Watch on YouTube

;t=441s

I feel hes definately carrying it more on certain moves based on the rules than the typical guy of the time (I’m assuming it’s looser than the 60s but not to this extent still)

I’m not saying it’s like modern guys or anything

Some of his behind the backs are questionable and I have seen him carrying the ball a few times in transition (like Magic did all the time in the 1980s), but most of his crossovers, hesitations and between the legs are clean by 1970s standards.

[MyUniBroDavis]

I don't think so, Pete usually dribbled within the rules of the time. He probably got away with more than most, but not to the degree of AI. When you watch Pete dribbling, he didn't carry the ball like modern players do.

Watch on YouTube

;t=441s

I feel hes definately carrying it more on certain moves based on the rules than the typical guy of the time (I’m assuming it’s looser than the 60s but not to this extent still)

I’m not saying it’s like modern guys or anything

Some of his behind the backs are questionable and I have seen him carrying the ball a few times in transition (like Magic did all the time in the 1980s), but most of his crossovers, hesitations and between the legs are clean by 1970s standards.

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

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

[70sFan]

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.

[Doctor MJ]

This is exactly why I find what Draymond said about how they would blow the Jazz/Bulls out because of the style of basketball they played so crazy. The way the Bulls/Jazz played in those finals was specifically because of the illegal defense rules. 75% of Draymond/GS brand of defense would be called as illegal if they were plopped into those finals.

Sure, but the defense would be moot. Teams in the '90s have no chance against elite 3-point shooting teams of today...unless they re-format themselves to play similarly.

[Texas Chuck]

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.

[Doctor MJ]

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.

[falcolombardi]

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

[Texas Chuck]

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.

[70sFan]

I don't think these 4 approaches provided by Doc are contradictory. You can try to balance all of these ways and try to finish with the best results.

It's the same thing we talked about not so long ago - you have to contextualize and analyze the situation of each GOAT candiate to make the debate more nuanced, but at the same time you have to keep in mind that actual results matter. We can't just stop our analysis at our assumptions and hypotheses.

We need a balance between these approaches, I'm closer to the #1 than you, but it doesn't mean that I reject #4.