ciueli wrote: You're the one being disingenuous here, comparing the early parts of Walton's and Jokic's careers.
Walton was 22 and a college senior when he was drafted first overall into the NBA and Jokic was 20, an international second round pick no one really expected to be anything. That's worlds different, Walton was immediately the starter on his team in spite of the injuries, he wasn't playing backup minutes like Jokic was out of the gate. If you compare these players at their respective ages (the fair way to compare two players) Jokic was putting up better scoring numbers on better efficiency with higher assist numbers than Walton at the same ages.
And since you absolutely refuse to let the eras discussion go (I guess I shouldn't be surprised), I'll say that the 70s was the most watered down era in NBA history. Too rapid expansion and the ABA siphoning players away from the NBA caused this, without international players the league began to discover in the 90s and 2000s there just wasn't enough talent to go around.
The 70s was also the beginning of illegal drugs being a problem in the NBA, it was the start of the cocaine era. Read this to understand just how pervasive this was:
https://apnews.com/article/nfl-nba-entertainment-sports-racial-injustice-2b239f949b4e9569aa90ab69d7d083bb
John Lucas. David Thompson. Bernard King. Michael Ray Richardson. Walter Davis. These were a few of the players who had problems with drugs in a league where, the Los Angeles Times estimated, up to 75% used cocaine and one in 10 smoked, or freebased, the drug.
Even ignoring the drug problem, it was still common for players to smoke in the locker room at halftime because they still didn't understand the health impacts and how it affected athletic performance. It seems obvious now, with players dedicating their entire lives to maximizing their performance as an athlete so they can get paid on their next contract, but back then it wasn't as well understood, this also extends to diet, nutrition, and training.
There was less money to be made back then, too, Kareem was the highest paid player in the late 70s and factoring in inflation he was barely making more than some NBA veterans make on minimum contracts now, it's just reality that basketball wasn't close to as popular a sport then as it is now.
I'm failing to see how the drug problems of the 70's, the training and dieting habits of players, and the popularity of the game at the time has any relevance at all in the discussion about the abilities of Walton vs. Jokic?
And to say the league needed international players because there was a lack of talent in the 90's and 2000's is one of the most ludicrous things I have ever read. And I've read a lot of garbage on this forum. In the 90's in the East you had MJ's Bulls, Ewing's Knicks, Miller's Pacers, Larry Johnson and Zo on the Hornets, Shaq and Penny on the Magic, Mark Price and Brad Daugherty on the Cavs (who always gave MJ problems), Kenny Anderson and DC on the Nets. And that is in the Eastern Conference ALONE. And there was arguably even MORE talent in the West. So I got one question for you: what the hell are you talking about?
