Curry has dominated this era, but would get crushed in the 90's

[TheGeneral99]

And yet scoring went down...so the rules didn't do jack.

1993 - 105.3
1994 - 101.5
1995 - 101.4
1996 - 99.5
1997 - 96.9
1998 - 95.6
1999 - 91.6

EXACTLY!!!!!! That's why they changed the rules again!!!

Early 90s defense...aka The Jordan Rules:

Why are you using an image to demonstrate this? Weird.

[Bush4Ever]

People who say things like this in a non-trolling or non-ironic manner generally do so because of their unhappiness with their current life in [modern year], and prefer to look back at the old days when they had a more hopeful and optimistic outlook for their life, while generally feeling better about themselves.

It's mostly about avoidance of emotional pain and their personal mediocrity than anything else.

[The High Cyde]

RealGM might have to start vetting Mods for basic basketball knowledge lmao cause this is embarrassing

[JonHeist]

lots of ppl in this thread are showing that they know absolutely nothing about basketball despite having thousands and thousands of posts on this basketball forum lmao

[floppymoose]

And yet scoring went down...so the rules didn't do jack.

1993 - 105.3
1994 - 101.5
1995 - 101.4
1996 - 99.5
1997 - 96.9
1998 - 95.6
1999 - 91.6

Scoring was in a funk because of the illegal defense rules. Those rules prompted iso play, which in turn made the game slower paced, driving down scoring per game.

Once the NBA figured out (in the early 2000s) that the illegal defense rules hurt scoring rather than helped it, they started allowing real defenses again. This led to the team offenses with ball movement that we see today.

[1993Playoffs]

Some of these replies are absolutely insane

[Sedale Threatt]

And yet scoring went down...so the rules didn't do jack.

1993 - 105.3
1994 - 101.5
1995 - 101.4
1996 - 99.5
1997 - 96.9
1998 - 95.6
1999 - 91.6

EXACTLY!!!!!! That's why they changed the rules again!!!

Early 90s defense...aka The Jordan Rules:

Why are you using an image to demonstrate this? Weird.

If somebody cared to, you could have an absolute field day just with some of the crap Draymond has pulled over the years.

Oh hey, here he is laying out LeBron with a Laimbeer-style cheap shot.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7ag8UwFBEw0

[Doctor MJ]

I know it was like that. I played enough basketball in those days to know that every coach I had and knew or knew of, thought like this. But even that has its limits.

Again, there isn’t a single coach in his right mind, that would’ve prevented Curry to do what he does. I mean any GM in the league would have had a guy like that on his team and a coach preventing him to play like this would’ve been immediately fired, doesn’t matter if they were Phil Jackson or Red Auerbach.

This is like giving machine guns and rocket launchers to a war general in the 18th century and them being like, you know what, we’re not gonna use those, its just not how we train lol.

There’s a reason coaches were against their players taking those shots. Its because they weren’t good enough. Any coach would’ve seen curry or dame on their team and would changed their game plan immediately.

Another example of this is the typical 7 footer on teams back then. They weren’t ever allowed to dribble for the most part. Because most were terrible dribblers in the open court. Do you think for one second a coach who would magically receive Giannis or KD or LeBron or Jokic, etc on their team wouldve been like, nah you’re not gonna play that way. No, they would’ve said ‘new plan guys!!’ Those coaches back then weren’t THAT dumb lol.

So you agree that coaches back then would have benched you for taking such 3's, but that they'd not have the same issue with Steph Curry, or if they did, they'd get fired because owners/GMs would have seen the issue and fired them for it.

I think you're overestimating the ability of these coaches - who literally held back the game for decades because they weren't comfortable with 3's - if you think they would have instantly recognized things were different if they had Curry.

Fundamentally, they just thought they knew better and without access to really good data, there was nothing to show them how wrong they were.

Its not like steph came into the league spamming threes like today...his first two seasons, he averaged under five 3pt attempts per game, or less than a prime reggie miller.

If you dont think people catch on to unprecedented talent when it comes to anything, then you dont understand how human nature works. You think 90s coaches watching steph tear guys up in practice and drain 90 of 100 threes in practice and think ehh..lets bench this guy, especially looking at the lack of mid to low end starting talent overall in that era? Nope..they probably say lets see if he can do it in actual games, which he then would proceed to.

Hmm.

First, let's be clear that what we're talking about is the nature of paradigm shifts. It's a well-studied thing with origins in the scientific community. And there's an expression for how they tend to work in practice:

Science moves forward one funeral at a time.

It's not that one person comes up with something amazing and everyone drops what they're doing to emulate. Those who believe they already know the right way typically can never get their head around being wrong.

When a field progresses more rapidly than that, it's because the data is just so overwhelming it can't be argued with, and I would suggest that NBA basketball eventually got there about 10 years ago, but it didn't come from coaches watching 3-point shooters shoot and recognizing with their eye balls the truth. It came from large amounts of data becoming readily available, along with a team (Warriors) winning a championship this way.

Re: Steph tearing up practice draining 90 of 100 3's. So, have you ever looked at the result of historical 3-point contests? When you do what you see is that guys aren't actually that much better at it than they were decades ago. Herro just won the final round of this year's contest shooting 60%, and meanwhile Larry Bird one the first one shooting over 70%.

Further, it's not like Curry's ever actually been able to lap the field in these contests despite being the clear cut best shooter of all time, which really makes clear that what makes Curry the best isn't something that you can just see by having him shoot 100 3's. To see Chef Curry cook like we know he can cook, you need to build an offense around him and have him play game-in game-out against defenses going all out, and guess what? Coaches who didn't believe in the 3 would never do that.

It's a Catch 22 situation: To get coaches to see what was possible with the 3, you needed them to take a leap of faith on something they had no faith in, so they were never going to see what was possible until others proved it.

One last thing to note:

I believe a big part of the problem that coaches of the past had is the same one that many older fans still have:

More 3-point shooting leads to more unsuccessful offensive possessions, because the FG% on 3's is worse than on 2's.

Yes, rationally we know that 3's count for 50% more than 2's, but when you're judging things shot by shot, you're talking about embracing shots that are more likely to be missed, which makes it feel like the team is less effective even when this isn't true.

All this to say that there are a bunch of things that stood in the way of the 3-point shot being embraced for decades that are actually quite understandable despite my pithy language.

[WarriorGM]

Steph first made his mark in college basketball playing for a largely overlooked college. It isn't as if he was carried along by positive expectations from the beginning. He's been seriously doubted throughout his career—and judging by the comments here he continues to be even now. Certainly there would be many opportunities for his career to have been derailed playing in the 90s but when he started in the league in 2009 it wasn't as if he wasn't facing a wall of skepticism either.

[Raps in 4]

I remember watching games in the 90s. It was like UFC. The NFL is less physical than 90s basketball. Guys would get punched, shot, stabbed, and still finish the game. Today's players are soft.

[LakerLegend]

The softened defensive rules, outlawing handchecking or touching an offensive player in any way, removing physicality and promoting freedom of movement have allowed players to run amok on the offensive end.

This is best exemplified by Curry. A relatively unimpressive 6-3(if that) physical specimen.

How much is Curry dominating in a game like this?

Watch on YouTube

Mark Price and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf had games where they gave the Jordan Bulls fits. You seriously think Curry couldn't do better? Get out of here!

The irony here is that Mahmoud is exactly who curry would be if Mahmoud didn’t get blacklisted.

[Iwasawitness]

The softened defensive rules, outlawing handchecking or touching an offensive player in any way, removing physicality and promoting freedom of movement have allowed players to run amok on the offensive end.

This is best exemplified by Curry. A relatively unimpressive 6-3(if that) physical specimen.

How much is Curry dominating in a game like this?

Watch on YouTube

Mark Price and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf had games where they gave the Jordan Bulls fits. You seriously think Curry couldn't do better? Get out of here!

The irony here is that Mahmoud is exactly who curry would be if Mahmoud didn’t get blacklisted.

He would have been a two time MVP? Jesus Christ the posts you’ve in this thread make my head hurt.

[LakerLegend]

Mark Price and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf had games where they gave the Jordan Bulls fits. You seriously think Curry couldn't do better? Get out of here!

The irony here is that Mahmoud is exactly who curry would be if Mahmoud didn’t get blacklisted.

He would have been a two time MVP? Jesus Christ the posts you’ve in this thread make my head hurt.

Curry wouldn’t be winning mvps with the real rules. That’s the point.

[JRoy]

Curry is an all time great.

All time means just that, could succeed in any era.

[WarriorGM]

The softened defensive rules, outlawing handchecking or touching an offensive player in any way, removing physicality and promoting freedom of movement have allowed players to run amok on the offensive end.

This is best exemplified by Curry. A relatively unimpressive 6-3(if that) physical specimen.

How much is Curry dominating in a game like this?

Watch on YouTube

Mark Price and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf had games where they gave the Jordan Bulls fits. You seriously think Curry couldn't do better? Get out of here!

The irony here is that Mahmoud is exactly who curry would be if Mahmoud didn’t get blacklisted.

Highlights of Mahmoud's game where he thumped what would become the 72-win Bulls is on Youtube. 32 points on 10 3-point attempts on 40% 3-point shooting. That's an average game for prime Steph. You can probably pull up the highlights of a random Steph game and it would have highlights that would be better than what Mahmoud put out in that game against the Bulls. Mahmoud's a Lillard at best and that's being generous considering Abdul-Rauf never averaged 20 points in a season in his career while Lillard has averaged over 20 every year of his career except his rookie year. But I guess you are one of those poor souls who thinks Lillard is a satisfactory comparison for Curry.

[durden_tyler]

Curry tonight: 56 points, 12 (of 14 shots) three-pointers.

This guy gets crushed in the 90s, sure. LOL

[Sedale Threatt]

Yeah, but imagine if he had Kenny Smith or Derek Harper locking him up. Different story.

[floppymoose]

These threads are like power ups

[Iwasawitness]

The irony here is that Mahmoud is exactly who curry would be if Mahmoud didn’t get blacklisted.

He would have been a two time MVP? Jesus Christ the posts you’ve in this thread make my head hurt.

Curry wouldn’t be winning mvps with the real rules. That’s the point.

Yes, he would. In fact he’d probably have even more.

[LakerLegend]

He would have been a two time MVP? Jesus Christ the posts you’ve in this thread make my head hurt.

Curry wouldn’t be winning mvps with the real rules. That’s the point.

Yes, he would. In fact he’d probably have even more.

Nice reasoning