Heej wrote:DQuinn1575 wrote:Heej wrote:League was weaker and Heat were flawed until they got Birdman
1. Why was League weaker in 1991?
2. Heat was flawed until they got their 9th man ? (based on playoff minutes played)
Pre-international influx. Unnaturally poor draft classes in the late 80s when you look at HOF and All-star talent produced. All time great teams like Pistons, Lakers, Celtics that due to poor luck and physical maintenance fell apart much earlier than they would have in the modern era. Even if they weren't title favorites the fact that those teams fell off so early made the league weaker.
Current league has way too much talent in all stages of their careers. Stacked amounts of young talent, comparable prime talent to any era, and plenty older talent that was holding on. The equivalent would be if teams like the Spurs and the Celtics being already completely wiped out in 2013. Now imagine that to lesser degrees throughout the NBA in terms of dearths of preserved talent from top to bottom and if entire classes of top end talent like 2008, 2009, 2011 just never appeared to push their teams into at least competitive playoff berth status during their precocious pre-primes.
Like in that case Kawhi Leonard never appears to buoy the Spurs into a new era just like what happened to the Celtics with Len Bias and Reggie Lewis. Just a whole bunch of stuff like that contributes to the league being much worse overall throughout the entirety of the 90s and the Bulls' SRS being comparatively inflated relative to teams in the 2010s
Also, clearly you don't remember that season but the Heat's biggest flaw was reliable interior rebounding and competent big man play for the regular season. They just had strange bad luck with bigs when you look at the revolving door of people they brought in. washed up Big Z, Joel Anthony, Juwan Howard Erick Dampier, Eddy Curry iirc?, Greg Oden, Dexter Pittman. Pretty much just all trash. Birdman is a mere 9th man to you, to the Heat he was an integral missing positive piece that sopped up major minutes that were otherwise being used for negative impact players during the regular season. Which is why their SRS pre and post-Birdman are probably markedly different lol. Also Wade got injured during the streak, MJ had a healthy Pip in 91.
This is why context is important in most of these discussions; and coincidentally that's the first thing that goes out the door with casual fans. Can't just take blanket numbers at face value and try to extrapolate something from them. Gotta dig a liiiiittle deeper b
So the Top 11 that will be picked are probably going to be Russell, Wilt, Jabbar, Bird, Magic, Jordan, Olajuown, Duncan, Kobe LeBron,Shaq - dont know the order, but that's a pretty solid consensus.
So that is one active player considered an all-time great, and there is no single player who has better than maybe a 25% chance to make the list in the future - Durant will probably be highest right now, and he's probably an mvp/finals mvp away from making the list - no guarantee. Curry, Kawhi, AD - all pretty unlikely to ever be Top Tier. Giannis, Luka - maybe some day, they have a lot of ball still to play and I hope one or both of them do. Chances are somebody active will, maybe even two,
but it means we probably went at least 10 years without an all-time great entering the league.In the 90s active were Magic, Jordan, Olajuwon, Shaq, Duncan, Kobe, Bird -
so 7 of the best 11 players of all-time played in this decade, which has got to be the most. For the last 4 seasons we have 1. Probably have to go back to 1979 to have a season with just one Tier 1 guy playing. For the 2010s you get 4, i'm not nitpicking Shaq or Bird, youre either in or out.
For every active Durant, Harden, Curry now you got Malone, Barkley, Stockton, David Robinson, so each year is going to have the great second level guys.
You're right - Anderson played great for Miami, ahd they had an incredible record with him. And he was the 9th man. Proves the point even more; the Miami
team was so good he could only play 14 minutes a game while the 91 Bulls had to start two below average starters in Cartwright and Paxson.