NFL vs NBA on Xmas

[MissoulaHusker]

I fashion myself to be an NBA fan, but "Today's NBA" is boring. Scoring is up (way up) over the past 10 years or so. Some say that today's players are far better than previous generations, not sure on that one, because everything is about offense. Things are so out of whack that half of the guards in the league could put up 30 points if they got enough of an opportunity.

• As Greg Popovich said, the big man has been taken out of the game. Now called "bigs" and "rim runners", they just take set ball screens and take the ball out. Some are also "stretch fives" who stand outside and shoot from 25'. It used to be that guys who stood around outside were called soft and got their ass kicked in the low post.
• All the NBA is these days is a H-O-R-S-E contest. Long range jump shots and complicated layups ("OK, two dribbles, jump off left foot, left hand off the glass").
• There is no pivot foot anymore. Players can freely reposition their feet as they wish. This adds at least 10% to a players FG%.
• Touch a guy while driving to the hoop and it's a foul. Three defenders in your way? No problem! Go ahead and add a step or two while you are at it. Complements of the NBA!

I agree with a lot of what you’re saying. The 90s era NBA was the best to me. But sports are always evolving, plus the NFL and NBA have adopted rules to prevent certain types of injuries because fans don’t want to see a Bill Laimbeer-like guy take out a star player for the year.

The NBA is still obviously far and away the best basketball in the world. The shotmaking is ridiculous and now it seems obvious and inevitable that big guys would become faster, more athletic, better ball handlers, and able to shoot the 3 because it stretches defenses in ways they didn’t have to worry about before and opens up the lane for more cutters and driving.

The NBA banning flops has helped this year. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the game eventually evolve back to a power post-up game to some extent if teams go too far the other way, similar to how certain NFL teams have gone back to power running schemes.

 

[HBK4life]