Yesterday's NBA vs.Today's NBA

A common myth–Today’s NBA is so much better/more athletic/insert BS term here, than the '80s and early '90s

You hear it all the time. Usually you hear it from people who only stand to profit if the masses buy into the idea that today’s NBA is better than the NBA of yesterday. In Jemele Hill’s disastrous train wreck article written two years ago, where she said that Kobe Bryant was better than Michael Jordan, her opinions on today’s NBA struck me as particularly blind.

For those who haven’t read Hill’s article, she basically concludes that Kobe Bryant is better than Michael Jordan, dismisses all empirical or objective indicators in favor of Jordan (MVPs, winning, statistics), makes a bunch of dumbfounding assertions, and then backs all of this up with:

Her opinion and pure speculation (“Jordan would have struggled to coexist with Shaq”—when she basically has no way of knowing that)

In that article, she also blindly asserts that today’s NBA is superior to the one that Jordan played in. This argument needs to be settled separate of any Kobe v. Jordan debate, because it’s so tired and thoroughly indefensible, it’s disgusting.

Let’s take a look at Jemele Hill’s disaster and compare the 06-07 NBA to the 89-90 NBA.

Jemele Hill’s “argument” and the counter-argument

“There was definitely a difference in the level of competition during Jordan's heyday compared to now.

Yesterday's NBA player certainly was more fundamentally sound, but there's no question that today's player is bigger, stronger and faster.”

First, isn’t being more fundamentally sound a huge thing?

The 02-03 Chicago Bulls were bigger, stronger and jumped higher than just about any team from the 1980s, but they lost 52 games because Tyson Chandler, Eddy Curry and Eddie Robinson couldn’t do very basic things that Tom Coverdale and Dane Fife probably mastered by the third grade. Robinson is 6’9” with a vertical well over 40”, but he was always hurt, and really had no basketball “skill” whatsoever. Curry and Chandler have gone on to become at least competent to below average, but at that point, they would have made Chris Washburn wince.

What you’ve seen is a league where a player like Steve Nash can win an MVP by doing things that guards in the '80s who “didn’t suck” could do rather easily. John Stockton was old by 1997, when Nash was a rookie, and Nash struggled. Nobody watched him then and thought that he was fundamentally where John Stockton ever was. But that is how low expectations have become.

Expectations have become so low that Kirk Hinrich gets the star treatment in Chicago for doing basic things well and almost nothing spectacularly.

Take Hinrich’s old teammate Chris Duhon. Duhon was actually a second rounder, has almost no individual scoring ability, and yet he’s a prominent member of the Chicago Bulls. Why? Because he does things today that all point guards were expected to do in the 1980s fundamentally. John Paxson has taught the league a lesson.

When you can find a point guard with elite quickness and passing in today’s NBA, a point guard who doesn’t want to “show them that they can’t sleep on my scoring ability,” a point guard who is content to just quarterback an offense and play defense, you grab a hold of him and don’t let go. This is true regardless of any other glaring deficiencies in his game.

Or look at the Chicago Bulls overall. Who is very athletic at all on that team? Tyrus Thomas is, but he hasn’t played a lead role on that team, and he’s very incomplete as a basketball player being a three year proand all. Who is next? Luol Deng? Imagine Luol Deng being guarded by Scottie Pippen.

The Bulls are mocking the league (considering their record despite any sort of lock hall of famer). They won 41 games, the seventh best record in the Eastern Conference, by doing all the things that middle-of-the-road players like John Paxson were expected to do in the 1980s.

Fundamentals are a huge deal. If you’re not an intelligent observer, you could have let Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson fool you into thinking that supreme athleticism could overcome fundamental play. But there was a huge difference. Michael Jordan played under Dean Smith. He jumped like Vince Carter, but did the little things in a way that made Bobby Knight happy in 1984. Knight wasn’t only happy, he was beaming like Santa Claus. Think about that for a second.

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