The NBA today

[Petre1978]

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I grew watching the league in the 90's and I just love that style of basketball.

I'm a fan of a rougher style of play...once the malice at the palace occurred and the NBA started changing a lot of rules I no longer liked the look of the game.

It's a bit too flashy for me and less hard nose ball...i can't stand seeing big men shoot 3's instead of posting up in the paint and punishing people down low...defense is soft and you can't even celebrate or you'll get a T.

There are some amazing players nowadays but the current style of the NBA game is just not my taste.

Charles and Shaq are right. The entire game now is played from the perimeter. Far less strategy.

Less defense, if a team came along with a strong big man and played an old school style really attacking the lane, I don't think current teams would have a clue what to do.

[pepe1991]

NBA made decisions that made big players less useful.
Verticality rule ( Roy Hibbert rule ) bothred Lebron, so they changed it next year.
Fact that center has to leave paint ever 3 seconds for no reason but to allow guard to drive easier makes it so obvious what was plan all along.
Those changes weren't made to kill centers, centers were just collataral demage done by nba to make game "more fun". More fun in their minds = more points. More points across the board means more "stars" and more stars bring more money to teams from fans.

This rule simply did not exist during prime Shaq, Hakeem , David Robinson era.

"The NBA introduced the defensive three seconds rule during the 2001-02 season. The rule was implemented to improve the watchability of the game by unclogging the paint and giving offensive players a better chance to make explosive plays at the rim."

And since Europe played 4 out basketball during 90s , with more players from Europe crossing boards, and even more coaches crossing over, concept of outside shooting started to live up. Whole concepct of 4 out is starting to implement more in nba.
Around 2006 & 2007 there comes those Suns and they are leading nba in 3 point shots and they are making mockery out of nba defenses, and even best nba defense Spurs, can't keep up with 3 guards shooting +35% for 3 ( Bell, Nash, Barbosa).
You would tune in to see box score around 2006 and you would have like Nets- Kings 86:78, Spurs- Nuggets 92-85 .... Suns- whoever 121-100.
They were just playing offense on another level. And whole league took notice and started to **** slowly toward perimeter. Explosion happend after Curry arived.

People forget how nba durign early 90s were still unshure what they wanted to be & do. Only in 1994 they decided to award 3 point shooting foul with 3 FTs instad of 2.
Up until 2001 zone was illegal defense.
In 1994 they even changed lenght of 3 point shoot just to return to today's lenght 3 years later.

[drsd]

One thing I will add is that the game has now devlopved to to plays. The pick and roll, and the drive and dish. Both are two man games. There is little in the way of overall player movement in offensive sets.

Get your sharp-shooter 6 inches of space, and let him fire away. All plays are some form of this.

The one play truly killed by analytics is the mid-range jumper. Look at a player like Fultz. In the 90s he would be all Universe with his skill set. Now, he is a marginal starter.


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[LDNMagic90]

I think this era of sport cares more about a spectacle rather than the pure form of the said sport, largely because this generation has such a short attention span for a lot of things. Most sports will favour offense/attacking situations over a hardnosed defensive game, we see that with NFL, NBA and soccer to some degree. Defending gets harder as they have changed rules, just to create more highlights for people to talk about/retweet and like.

Like Pepe said the verticality rule got changed and unfortunately for Hibbert that affected the way he had to defend and eventually played a part in him becoming redundant.

The thing is can this generation bang like the older players? We see players flopping half the time and theres only a few bruisers in the NBA right now that i can think of. The rule changes I guess forced players to become 'softer' to some degree and I think it's why fans tend to value players that put their bodies on the line/hustle plays. It's a reason why I'll miss MCW for sure.

[cedric76]

Nba today sucks

No D
No toughness
Divas

Rules changes and LeBron killed this game

LeBron always looking for easy path but trying to make super team wherever he goes just killed it.

You should want to beat the best player, not join him.

Soft mentally

Fan sucks too, this Tanking culture makes me sick

I miss the 90s ball

[drsd]

I think this era of sport cares more about a spectacle rather than the pure form of the said sport, largely because this generation has such a short attention span for a lot of things. Most sports will favour offense/attacking situations over a hardnosed defensive game, we see that with NFL, NBA and soccer to some degree. Defending gets harder as they have changed rules, just to create more highlights for people to talk about/retweet and like.

Like Pepe said the verticality rule got changed and unfortunately for Hibbert that affected the way he had to defend and eventually played a part in him becoming redundant.

The thing is can this generation bang like the older players? We see players flopping half the time and theres only a few bruisers in the NBA right now that i can think of. The rule changes I guess forced players to become 'softer' to some degree and I think it's why fans tend to value players that put their bodies on the line/hustle plays. It's a reason why I'll miss MCW for sure.

One thing the NBA has never done, then or now, is call two turnovers: palming the ball, and the step back travel.

A player like Curry or Young will have their hand under the ball dribbling on almost every play.
** In youth B-ball that is an auto turnover. But it looks cool and leads to killer cross-overs, so the NBA allows it. But it is against the rules.
** creating six inches of space by shuffling your feet back and back and back is a travel. Harden has made a career off of this acceptance of a blatant travel. This is something NBA refs can and should call as launching yet another three is not part of the "new" NBA.

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[pepe1991]

Media has to take fair share, maybe even biggest blame for huge changes and players chasing rings.
Using team's achviments to determine who is "good" and who is "bad" pretty much played pivoal role in players jumping ships in seach for easiest solutions.
Lebron was dominant force with Cavs but could not win title, so media was pounding on him every day for something he had very little control of. One player makes just 1/5th of starting five and like 1/9th of rotation. Whole ring count thing was dummy media perception of sucess. So one Barkley was viewed as failure for not being able to win title and one Pippen as sucess for being simply lucky enough to be drafted on team with Jordan and tag along titles. This does not mean that Pippen was bad, but let's reverse roles and answer same question: would Pippen won any titles if he was drafted by Bullets or 76ers in that era instad of Bulls, and would Barkley be ringless if he had luxury to join Jordan early in his career?

How would history of basketball look like if Supersonics weren't on drugs during 1987 draft and instad of trading pick and drafting Mckey actually drafted Pippen AND Kevin Johnson or Reggie Miller?
Would Vancouver Grizzlies ever relocate if they in 1996 they drafted Kobe or Ray Allen instad of Camby or year later Tracy over Daniels? Or they would have been future champion team?

But player movment started with media. Media forced hands of players to care about legacy only in fashion of looking how many titles they won. And only possible solution to win as many rings is to create superteams and having under a dask deals with other superstars where to hoop on next. Miami Heat was just begining. Now you have new superteams every year or two. This isn't even a secret, players are plotting way in and out their desired locations. NBA gave players with CBA changes too big of a power and now they can just case their tails by trying to fine them with tampering and taking away second round picks, because, yea , that's what will teach them the lession

[Optimus_Steel]

When I was growing up, the game was a ton of isolation play and grind out defense and lets be honest that is not as appealing unless you are watching a Jordan or a Penny type talent on a nightly basis. Now its way too much 3pt launch fest which is also not very appealing or interesting. If they can get a balance of both it would be ideal, seems like every era there is too much of one type of play and very little moderation, swings too much one way.