Showtime 80 wrote:Ainosterhaspie wrote:Most of the people grumbling about physicality have no idea what they're talking about. Their memories of the past are fogged by 30-40 years of passing time, and they haven't really paid attention to the modern game. It's a critique based highlights not real games, and it's a praise of a fictitious nostalgic past. There is also a lot of failure to understand the physical challenges of the modern game. Needing to defend the entire half court instead of just the paint is a huge change, that requires much more effort and it's just ignored when people start crying about the modern game being too soft.
You want to know how it was factual that the game was more physical and the league wanted to soften and turn it more perimeter oriented? Because David Stern, Rob Thorn, Stu Jackson and Jerry Colangelo were more than open about the creation and objective for the numerous rule changes from the mid 90’s up to the late 2010’s. There’s a ton of literature on it that you should check out
You know we can actually watch games the games from the 80s, 90s and now right? Like whole actual games not just the same "10 brutal 80s plays" running on loop next to "10 of 2010s most egregious flops". If you bother to actually watch whole games it's very clear that the physicality of the 80s and 90s is highly exaggerated, as is the so called softness of today.
That's before you notice that much of 80s/90s defense is five guys standing in the paint instead of chasing people all over the court. You could get wide open 15+ foot shots in the 80s and 90s doing zero work. Defense gave you those for free. Try defending like that today and you'll get destroyed.
80s/90s defense being super intense and physical is one of the biggest NBA myths. It's pure cope to cover for an era that played stupid (treated the three as a novelty and bad shot instead of game changing weapon) and lacked skill.
Go watch the Blazers giving Jordan six wide open threes with barely a hint of contesting then get back to me about that super physical 90s defense.
Only 10 Players in NBA history have 20,237 points, 5,504 assists and 5,592 rebounds. LeBron has double those numbers.