One_and_Done wrote:I think people are working off a false premise here. Old timer fans are looking at the league today, and saying “where are the US white superstars? The fact that there aren’t many great white US players must mean they stopped trying to play basketball, maybe because it got too black for them!”
In reality there are more white US players trying to become stars than ever before. They’re just not succeeding, because the NBA has become a much tougher league to succeed in as the talent level has risen. I’m sure there are a few white kids discouraged from playing because they feel they won’t succeed, but there were doubtless even more discouraged from playing in the first place when the NBA was less lucrative, less professional, and less visible.
It’s not that the white versions of Jokic from the US stopped existing, it’s that they never existed in the first place. There was no “US Jokic” in the pre-2010 NBA. There was no “US Luka” in the pre-2010 NBA. The closest analogy would be Bird, but for the most part guys with this sort of skill level never existed, because the league wasn’t at the same skill level back then. Today white Euro star players are emerging because these guys get molded as kids, in real competition and not a hot dog AAU circuit, and the US is not the sort of place that is conducive to producing such players. Giannis was living almost on the street selling fake sunglasses to help his brothers survive as a kid. Luka and Manu were identified as prodigies at an early age and subjected to brutal training. In the US people are mostly affluent, there is no crucible for the average white player to emerge from. If the young US player slacks off he gets allowances for it. In Europe you get sent to the bench for that ish. Basketball is treated as a career for a 14 year old prodigy, and you drill every day to master something. Basketball is not treated that way for most young white US players, most of whom have other options their parents want them to explore and prepare for just in case.
A lot of the white stars in the olden days would be nothing special today, which is why you aren’t seeing them. The situation is not “they just stopped playing”. Trust me, when you’re a kid and you see guys get hundreds of millions of dollars you are just as keen to enter that sport. What has changed is the quality of the sport you are trying to enter.
Your first three paragraphs are a good argument for why there are less American stars in today's game.
But it has nothing to do with the cross-era argument, imo.
When an era-relative person is arguing for Mikan or Oscar or West or whoever, we are not arguing that they would necessarily be as good in the modern game. We are saying it does not matter. You say "A lot of the white stars in the olden days would be nothing special today". That may be true, it may not be. But it does not matter to the era-relativist. It is irrelevant.
I feel like you just don't want to acknowledge era-relativism as a valid POV.
Right now, six of the fourteen players voted in so far have had their primes in the last 25 years - Shaq, Duncan, Garnett, Kobe, LeBron, and Steph. I don't really argue with any of them being in Top 14(though I disagree about specific placements). If you and the other modernists had your way, I imagine - I could be wrong - that Jokic, Giannis, and KD at the least would be inducted already over, say, Russell, West, and Bird. In that case, it would be nine of the top fourteen having had their primes in the last 25 years. Do see you where this is going?
If we eschew era-relativity, then in two decades' time, some group of people here will be doing the 2044 Top 100 and I bet anyone who had their prime before the 2010s will struggle to get in the Top 15.
