Hal14 wrote:
This notion that "more people in the world = better NBA competition needs to stop" One thing does not necessarily mean the other.
Based on your logic, every single profession in existence.....there are more high quality people at each profession...simply because an increase in the population.
Based on your logic, let's just make a blanket statement and say that player quality in the MLB in the last 10 years is the highest it's ever been. After all, higher population, better player quality.
Based on your logic, let's just make a blanket statement and say that player quality in the NFL in the last 10 years is the highest it's ever been. After all, higher population, better player quality.
Based on your logic, let's just make a blanket statement and say that the movie industry in the last 10 years is the best it's ever been. After all, higher population, more of a pool of actors and directors to choose from, so the movies must be better, right?
Based on your logic, let's just make a blanket statement and say that the print media industry in the last 10 years is the best it's ever been. After all, higher population, means more potential news reporters, means better print media, right?
Based on your logic, let's just make a blanket statement and say that music industry in the last 10 years is the best it's ever been. After all, higher population, means more potential music artists, so it must be better today, right?
Based on your logic, let's just make a blanket statement and say that coaching in the NBA is the best it's ever been. After all, higher population, that must mean a greater pool of NBA head coaches to choose from, which must mean the coaching is better.
Based on your logic, let's just make a blanket statement and say that officiating in the NBA in the last 10 years is the highest it's ever been. After all, higher population, means greater pool of refs to choose from, so surely that means we're witnessing the best refs of all time right here.
Based on your logic, let's just make a blanket statement and say that the restaurant industry in the last 10 years is the best it's ever been. After all, higher population, means more people are cooking food and opening restaurants, so that must mean the food/restaurants are better than ever.
It doesn't work that way!
I've seen you make this exact post in the past, so I'm guessing you have it saved on a google doc or something. But I think it would be best to dust it into the trash bin, because no: we shall not be making any of these blanket statements. We won't because [with the possible exception of the MLB or NFL comps] they're all either overt strawmen and/or completely inappropriate comparisons (not even apples to oranges.....more like apples to giraffes), and kinda obviously so if you stopped to think about them.
I won't speak to the NFL or MLB because there are too many other factors I don't have any idea about:
*The degree to which international player pools have or have not improved and expanded
**The degree to which the NFL or MLB taps into those pools
***The proportional domestic popularity/participation in these sports, and how it has changed over time.
****The degree to which equipment and other extrinsic factors have altered player selection, development, etc.
^^^I don't have any real idea about these things as it pertains to football and baseball in America. I mean, I suspect the domestic popularity of baseball has certainly declined [proportionally] compared to the days when baseball was the "great American game", while I think the proportional popularity of American football has increased from what it was 50-70 years ago, and has at the very least held pretty steady in recent years.
But I don't really have the least idea about the other stuff.
Basketball and the NBA, which we discuss here, is the only realm of sport I'm comfortable claiming I have enough knowledge and understanding of to render an educated opinion.
Comparing an industry like the food service/restaurant industry [or that of doctors, lawyers, teachers, janitors, construction workers, plumbers, general contractors, secretarial staff, city power/sewer workers, etc etc] are all complete strawmen: the # of people NEEDED for each of these services, essential service/support, or infrastructure jobs basically
grows proportionally with the population.
If the population increases by 30%, the number of people in each of these industries probably NEEDS to grow by ~25-35% to continue to provide adequate SUPPORT for that growing population. The average quality in these fields is probably neither better nor worse than before (except where EXTRINSIC factors have better enabled them to do their jobs better [e.g. better technology and applied knowledge in the medical field]).
Obviously this isn't at all the case with the NBA: a growing population does not REQUIRE a growth in the number of NBA teams/players (this is perhaps never more appropriately illustrated than in recent years, where the domestic population has grown by almost 12% in the last 16 years while the league has not grown AT ALL).
And again, domestic population change is just ONE of the factors which have been brought up relating to expansion of player pool.
Comparing to the music industry, film industry, printed media industry are all just kinda bizarrely inappropriate. How does one measure the quality of music? I'm
mostly a fan of rock, and
personally feel rock may have peaked somewhere circa-1970, though had a nice resurgence in some interest genres/bands in the early-mid 90s [maybe late 80s a bit too, actually]. But that's a purely subjective opinion.
What drives the music industry (and the film industry to a degree) is the spectrum of millions of subjective opinions, as well as things like shifting demographics [as far as who the target audience is] and how the product can be "delivered" to that target audience(s). These things play a HUGE role in what direction this creative industry goes in.
Same is basically true to the "film" industry, though in film (or "film-based media") some of the same basic premise as was commented on with infrastructure/essential services and support industries (expanding to fill the "need void") has occurred in film, too.
The shear volume of film-type media has bloated in recent decades, and particularly appears gargantuan compared to 80(ish) years ago. Things like straight to DVD/Blue ray/streaming [or even VHS] and rental services obviously were not available until pretty recently, and certainly weren't an option 80 years ago. Those things have EXPANDED the capacity by which the industry can deliver product to consumers [and thus expanded the industry itself].
TV wasn't even a thing 80 years ago; and even as recently as 35-40 years ago, we basically only had 4 channels.
Now there are LITERALLY
thousands of TV channels catering to all manner of niche interests, as well as dozens of competing streaming services, some of whom are their own high-quality production companies [e.g. Netflix]. So the manner and AMOUNT of television now being produced is many MANY times more than what it was 40 years ago.
Sports broadcasts are SO much larger productions than what they were 30 years ago, too.
Hell, could even touch the online porn industry (not sure I really want to know just how many people that employs).
But all this added production has REQUIRED more people work in the "film industry" in some capacity. The added population is simply filling that void created by the requirement.
The average quality of these film industry employees would again come down to an "eye of the beholder" grade (because we're largely talking about art). It would be very hard to come by an objective [and quantifiable] assessment of its quality.
And who the primary beholder is has shifted greatly over time. Circa-1940 Hollywood's target audience was mostly women roughly age 21-45 [mostly housewives], +/- [occasionally] their husbands/dates.
In the early 2000's, Hollywood's target audience was boys age 13-15. One could see how such a shift would GREATLY change what type of film product is being produced.
This again is not at all how it works with the NBA (the "apples to giraffes").
If the NBA's target audience suddenly shifted to being 60-yr-old women, that won't change AT ALL what makes a good basketball player. It would still be the various ways in which he can produce on the court and otherwise help his team win games that ultimately determines how "good" he is (and is what we try [by a lot of different methods] to analyze and measure here).
Hal14 wrote:Just because more people are doing something does not mean they are doing it better. In the 2000s we saw the amount of AAU basketball teams explode. Did this mean the players were better? Nope. Instead of AAU being for a select few, the best of the best...the best playing against the best, and therefore raising the bar...you had 1 top team full of top talent from a particular city or region and that was it.
But in the 2000s it blew up, now every kid in the US who could put a pair of sneakers on was playing for an AAU team. This watered down the talent in a huge way. Instead of every AAU game being a battle against top notch talent, it became a situation where 90% of AAU games were a joke. Not only that, but the more AAU teams that were created, all of these teams needed games to play. Teams were playing 3 to 6 games every weekend...how many practices? 1 or 2 per week, if that. There was a huge increase in AAU teams but not an increase of qualified coaches to coach these teams. Players weren't getting better. It used to be that top players would spend their summers in the gym, working on their games, practicing, working on the fundamentals, doing skill work, hitting the weight room, playing a smaller number of games and when they did play games it was always against top notch competition. Hitting the weight room. In the 2000s? They spend their summers playing in games, way too many games, many of which are against mediocre competition with AAU programs and basketball facilities making a bunch of $ while some short fat 11 year old shoots it from half court.
I touched on the "AAU issue" in my prior post pertaining to player pool changes. The context of this discussion was SPECIFICALLY 1984 compared to 2000. I noted that this AAU issue [for whatever it's relevance is today] was in the very VERY early stages at THAT time. You yourself have just ^^^described how it exploded throughout the 2000s [i.e. largely BEFORE the specific time being discussed].
As to how relevant this AAU question should be ANYWAY is something I struggle with.
For instance, we'll often comment about modern players have the "benefit" of modern training, facilities, medical care, coaching, etc etc, and how we shouldn't grade them overly generous compared to older generations of players based on what are essentially unfair [extrinsic to the player himself] advantages they have over earlier generations.
Well, should not the same apply to a potential extrinsic
hindrance, such as the AAU issue?
Hal14 wrote:You also bring up the popularity of basketball leading to global expansion as a reason for 2000s basketball being more competitive. This is also a myth. Let's look at the 2019-2020 season for example, since that's the last season that has occurred so by your logic with there would be more international players than ever and better competition than ever since the population keeps growing and we have another year of basketball gaining popularity overseas. Yet, the Lakers win the title with no foreign players. The Eastern conference champs Heat? They had 1 role player from Canada, whose contributions were highly inconsistent.
My goodness. You're actually citing TWO teams [out of 30] from a single year in time, and citing like it's some sort of "check-mate" argument?
How about I note the world champion '14 Spurs, who had MOST of their minutes (particularly their best minutes) going to foreign players. Check-mate?
Hardly; neither is fully investigative.
I already did my homework on the topic of foreign influence in 2000 compared to 1984, and posted it.
You obviously have not if you're actually calling Patrick Ewing and Nique products of foreign basketball programs.
"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
