Do you believe the average NBA player is more talented now than the 90s?

[hauntedcomputer]

and that's even if you think the american players haven't gotten better - which seems like insanity in its own right.

"Better" still has nothing to do with natural talent. They're better because they trained, had better diets, had lots more leisure time to focus on developing skills (and have a reward/incentive system in place), and have better coaching and development and infrastructure, not because they have more talent.

[Hair Jordan]

Yes, the game is more popular internationally, more popular in America, and the game has grown.

If you look at a guy like Bill Wennington, he was big but didn’t have much skill. I feel like the league in the 90s had a bunch of players like Bill Wennington, while the average player now is probably a small forward who is skilled(but not elite) at everything.

Wennington had soft hands and could hit a 10-15 foot jumper. He didn’t last for 15 years by being a stiff.

[brokebuthappy]

FT % in the 1970’s - 75.4%

FT % in the 2010’s - 76.0%

If the modern player is so much more skilled, why have FT% for the league as a whole remained virtually the same over the past 50 years? Athletes are better, training is better, sports science is better, players practice more and yet the percentages are nearly identical. Can’t wait to read the mental gymnastics used to justify the responses.

WNBA FT% hovers around 78-80%. Are they simply more talented than the nba or is ft% may be not the most comprehensive measure? Tough call.

Idk, maybe it could have something to do with the fact that the ball is smaller?

[bkkrh]

I picked equal. Mostly because it is hard to define what exactly is meant with talent. Is there more natural Basketball talent? Definitely. The game is more global. More people playing basketball also means a bigger available talent pool in general. According to FIBA, about 450 Million people play Basketball worldwide today. So that alone of course raises the chances to find more talented players compared to the years where Basketball was mostly an US sport.

If we mean skill with talent it's kind of a question of definition. Modern players can do things that historically weren't really part of their positions. Bigs shooting 3s, super athletic Point Guards and so on. On the other side players are less skilled in parts of the game that were fundamendals in the 90s. 2 bigs going at each other with their low post game, trying to fake each other out. Players get more prepared to go high in the draft young. You enter the league 1 and done if you have the talent, so colleges will focus less on skill development during that 1 year and try to get instead as much out of the player based on the pure talent. When it was more common that players played 3-4 seasons of college they were more refined already when they entered the league. You had less raw prospects.

It was normal that young, unproven players (like players drafted out of high school) spend their first 2-3 seasons in very limited roles. You didn't have situations were teams created a roster of 12 players that were in their first 3 seasons and then evaluated the next 1-2 years which players actually had NBA potential. So what is kinda more common now is that relatively solid players are out of the league after their rookie contract, or just get minimum contracts with limited minutes, since teams prefer to give another raw Rookie a chance in hopes he develops into a better player during his contract. So from that perspecitve there is a clear shift from young players having to proof themselves to young players being preferred because of potential upside. If that means that they are in the end then actually more talented than a solid rotation player that has peaked in that role is then another question.

[NZB2323]

Yes, the game is more popular internationally, more popular in America, and the game has grown.

If you look at a guy like Bill Wennington, he was big but didn’t have much skill. I feel like the league in the 90s had a bunch of players like Bill Wennington, while the average player now is probably a small forward who is skilled(but not elite) at everything.

Wennington had soft hands and could hit a 10-15 foot jumper. He didn’t last for 15 years by being a stiff.

Sure, but the average NBA player today has more skill.

[Hair Jordan]

Yes, the game is more popular internationally, more popular in America, and the game has grown.

If you look at a guy like Bill Wennington, he was big but didn’t have much skill. I feel like the league in the 90s had a bunch of players like Bill Wennington, while the average player now is probably a small forward who is skilled(but not elite) at everything.

Wennington had soft hands and could hit a 10-15 foot jumper. He didn’t last for 15 years by being a stiff.

Sure, but the average NBA player today has more skill.

Where’s your proof? I’d say the average NBA player nowadays has less skill. The majority of 80’s and 90’s players played 4 years in college and honed their skills. Most rookies nowadays are one and done types with underdeveloped games. Post games are nonexistent. Mid range shots are dying. It’s all 3’s and dunks. People confuse that with skill.

[makubesu]

Devil’s advocate: there are more players in the league now due to expansion, and teams prefer cheap rookies to vets so they can tank. So if we’re talking average, no.

[Cavsfansince84]

If you removed all the int'l players I'd say its pretty close to what it was in the 90's but adding them in it has to be higher.

[Pelon chingon]

The rule changes have made fools of you.

[D.Brasco]

Devil’s advocate: there are more players in the league now due to expansion, and teams prefer cheap rookies to vets so they can tank. So if we’re talking average, no.

The modern expansion era came about in the late 80s and 90s though. 7 teams were added to the league between '88 and '04, the NBA hasn't actually expanded in 20 years. NBA expansion was usually used as an argument against 90s basketball by those who believed the pre-expansion 80s was the NBA's golden era or conversely the current era which has not seen expansion in a long time.

[Hoop Hunter]

I think there's more talent overall and much deeper talent.

I don't think the top players are better than the past legends though.

[mowcrowbar]

More talented less fundamentally sound.

[HotelVitale]

Wennington had soft hands and could hit a 10-15 foot jumper. He didn’t last for 15 years by being a stiff.

Sure, but the average NBA player today has more skill.

Where’s your proof? I’d say the average NBA player nowadays has less skill. The majority of 80’s and 90’s players played 4 years in college and honed their skills. Most rookies nowadays are one and done types with underdeveloped games. Post games are nonexistent. Mid range shots are dying. It’s all 3’s and dunks. People confuse that with skill.

Not saying you're wrong but don't think you're getting to the right arguments for this. Every extra year those 80s/90s players stayed in school is one less year they had in the NBA; even if you think 80s college coaching was great, it seems objectively true that there's definitely more time and more money spent in NBA training than college training now. Also most players literally couldn't make 3 pointers in the 80s, so even making a leap to assume the average player was better overall at shooting midrangers then than now (debatable but may be true), players now are certainly better at midrange shots than players in the 80s were at 3 point shots. And obviously more players shoot long 2s and 3s now than in the past too. So the overall shooting--midrange+3s--seems like it's likely to be significantly better now.

Also the basic/superficial argument for players having more skill now focuses on nearly all players needing to have pretty good passing, dribbling, and shooting skills that only some players needed then. I think it's an interesting counterargument to say that it takes just as much precision and skill to bang in the post and time your hooks and dropsteps etc, as it does to learn how to shoot 3s or spray passes to the corners, but the fact that new players have to develop and hone that wide RANGE of skills still seems like it means people are learning more skills overall. Even if they've lost or let slip some skills (like posting up, shooting contested midrange shots etc) it seems like there's been more net/overall skills gained than lost.

[prophet_of_rage]

Not talking superstars only, but players and the league as a whole, do you believe the average NBA player is more skilled/athletic than they were 30 years ago? Do you believe today's league has more talented players now?

Yes. The average player shoots as well as the low end specialists. They all handle better and they all run the floor.

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[prophet_of_rage]

FT % in the 1970’s - 75.4%

FT % in the 2010’s - 76.0%

If the modern player is so much more skilled, why have FT% for the league as a whole remained virtually the same over the past 50 years? Athletes are better, training is better, sports science is better, players practice more and yet the percentages are nearly identical. Can’t wait to read the mental gymnastics used to justify the responses.

You showed am increase in peecentage. No gymnastics needed.

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[prophet_of_rage]

they're not BORN MORE TALENTED - let's get that out of the way. there's this inferred misconception that players today are simply better.

they are not..today's players ARE REQUIRED to be more skilled by rules changes. if these very same players today were growing up in the70s/80s/90s they would NOT be as "skilled" as they are now

and let's face it - the de rigueur definition of "more skilled" is shooting from 30'.

Why are taller players more agile with better footwork and handeye coordination?

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[prophet_of_rage]

Definition of "talent" is "natural aptitude or skill."

I think the natural talent level is the same as it was 500 or 1,000 years ago, accounting for population growth (a much larger pool where more people will have talents adaptable to basketball) and specific skill development of a growing sport that is barely 120 years old. The human race isn't evolving on a stopwatch. The game is not essential to survival.

Would you agree that, by this metric, the growth in the selective pool has been exponential due to the NBA now selecting talent from across the entire globe, whereas it was previously mostly limited to the U.S.?

Of course. Basketball emerged as largely an obscure regional sport in northwestern US and now it is international. Larger selection pool, but the average newly born human is not much different over thousands of years once you account for nutrition, health care, and generally stronger social structures. If tossing an object into a hole ten feet above the ground would have been necessary for survival, almost everyone would be good at it. Most of human existence has been spent on survival, not leisure.

That's one reason I celebrate the greats of yesterday. They were competing against the best in the world at that time. Seems like a lot of people confuse "talent" with "the early training and advanced development of specific skills."

If you increase the pool of tall mobile and strong candidates then you have more natural talent.

There are more of those people thanks to globalisation.

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[PhilBlackson]

Keyword: overall....yes.

But it doesn't mean the best of yesteryear weren't extremely talented/skilled.

[HotelVitale]

FT % in the 1970’s - 75.4%

FT % in the 2010’s - 76.0%

If the modern player is so much more skilled, why have FT% for the league as a whole remained virtually the same over the past 50 years? Athletes are better, training is better, sports science is better, players practice more and yet the percentages are nearly identical. Can’t wait to read the mental gymnastics used to justify the responses.

You showed am increase in peecentage. No gymnastics needed.

NBA 3pt % 1980-85: 26%
NBA 3pt% 2019-24: 36%

And that's even with the huge huge jump in volume, which means 7 footers and slashers with some broken-looking jumpers (who in the 80s would barely shoot outside of 10 feet) needing to hoist 3s all game.

Not saying that's a mic drop for this whole debate--it's a complicated one--but we gotta do a little better at making these points.

[NZB2323]

Wennington had soft hands and could hit a 10-15 foot jumper. He didn’t last for 15 years by being a stiff.

Sure, but the average NBA player today has more skill.

Where’s your proof? I’d say the average NBA player nowadays has less skill. The majority of 80’s and 90’s players played 4 years in college and honed their skills. Most rookies nowadays are one and done types with underdeveloped games. Post games are nonexistent. Mid range shots are dying. It’s all 3’s and dunks. People confuse that with skill.

I have no proof; it's all eye test. I'm not comparing rookies, I'm comparing the average player. I don't think the average player in the 90s was all that skilled for a post game. I don't think that Bill Wennington was all that skilled. I think the average player today(backup small forward), is skilled at more things than Bill Wennington. 3's, passing, dribbling, defending multiple positions, ect. I'll take over Bill Wennington's post moves and midrange shot.