I get what Ant is saying. The players currently on NBA rosters, as a group, are far more athletic than those from forty years ago. Michael Jordan was the most-athletic player in the league, and I'm not absolutely certain that he would be in the top twenty of that category today.
Factoring that in with the vastly-increased skill that you find in modern players taller than 6'7" and there's an argument to be made. In the eighties, teams were still being built by getting a couple of skilled ballhandlers and shooters, and surrounding them with giants. Obviously, a player like Kareem Abdul Jabbar changes that calculus, but centers of that skill level were rare then, and certainly remain so.
I want to assure you that this isn't a matter of recency bias. When the NBA put out their 75 best, or whatever it was, it was drowning in recency bias. Anthony Davis is a great player when healthy. Is he one of the best seventy-five players to ever play in the NBA? Come on. I watch him disappear when playing against Sabonis and I'm not sure he's one of the best seventy-five players currently in the NBA.
Back to Edwards' point, obviously previous iterations of the NBA have had truly great players, but what would their games look like trying to score against a power forward like Jaden Daniels as opposed to a Kurt Rambis?
It is, of course, impossible to compare athletes across eras, for more reasons than I can count, and time spent doing so is completely wasted, which I'm sure you're feeling if you've read this far. (That said, Muhammad Ali would have wiped out Mike Tyson.) I'll wrap with a gross oversimplification:
Take a starter from an era, not a superstar, but a guy good enough to be in the starting lineup of an NBA squad. Imagine him playing in today's NBA, then take a current starter and drop him into a past era. Which is likely to be more successful?
The other thing that I think should be noted is how tight some of the seedings have been. Last year 1-3 were all up in the air the last week of games as were 4-7 and 8-10 were all tight. Every game seems to matter immensely as far as seeding. A two game difference between home court in round 1 and the play in. The one seed was a tie breaker! The west is insane.
With respect to the great Michael Pina, I'm thinking the Clippers are a prime candidate to fall into the abyss. If there's any issues with Kawhi's health—LOL, there will definitely be issues—we're going to get Harden in unmotivated, request-a-trade mode, because there's no way he wants the burden of carrying a mediocre team on his back. And the vibes are going to be off the charts bad with Kevin Porter Jr *and* Kai Jones on the roster. That said, you do have a fantastic coach and some high-quality role players here. I just think in a crazily competitive conference, it could get ugly for them.
I would tell Anthony Edwards to get stronger (as I would tell any young player) but does it even matter anymore in the cupcake era? If a player like Ant is killing it then TMac would be like MVP every year.
if i had to rank the west as of now.... Top tier Thunder, Nuggets and Mavs. Second tier Memphis. Thats the only team in tier two. Tier three: minny, Suns, Rockets....( i mean houston is simply better right now than the lakers. And the question is really what to do with New Orleans and the Warriors.)-. Tier Four....new Orleans, Lakers, Jazz and Spurs. And probably maybe warriors. So lets say Tier Four B. Golden State and Kings. Five is Portland and clips- -. Now i am assuming Kawhi barely plays. he might retire in fact. GS is on paper a pretty poor team. Nothing i do, no amount of squinting seems able to change that. And for NOLA to be tier four g ives way too much credit to Zion who i doubt stays healthy. I dont think he can. So Spurs are the deep sleeper.
I get what Ant is saying. The players currently on NBA rosters, as a group, are far more athletic than those from forty years ago. Michael Jordan was the most-athletic player in the league, and I'm not absolutely certain that he would be in the top twenty of that category today.
Factoring that in with the vastly-increased skill that you find in modern players taller than 6'7" and there's an argument to be made. In the eighties, teams were still being built by getting a couple of skilled ballhandlers and shooters, and surrounding them with giants. Obviously, a player like Kareem Abdul Jabbar changes that calculus, but centers of that skill level were rare then, and certainly remain so.
I want to assure you that this isn't a matter of recency bias. When the NBA put out their 75 best, or whatever it was, it was drowning in recency bias. Anthony Davis is a great player when healthy. Is he one of the best seventy-five players to ever play in the NBA? Come on. I watch him disappear when playing against Sabonis and I'm not sure he's one of the best seventy-five players currently in the NBA.
Back to Edwards' point, obviously previous iterations of the NBA have had truly great players, but what would their games look like trying to score against a power forward like Jaden Daniels as opposed to a Kurt Rambis?
It is, of course, impossible to compare athletes across eras, for more reasons than I can count, and time spent doing so is completely wasted, which I'm sure you're feeling if you've read this far. (That said, Muhammad Ali would have wiped out Mike Tyson.) I'll wrap with a gross oversimplification:
Take a starter from an era, not a superstar, but a guy good enough to be in the starting lineup of an NBA squad. Imagine him playing in today's NBA, then take a current starter and drop him into a past era. Which is likely to be more successful?
The other thing that I think should be noted is how tight some of the seedings have been. Last year 1-3 were all up in the air the last week of games as were 4-7 and 8-10 were all tight. Every game seems to matter immensely as far as seeding. A two game difference between home court in round 1 and the play in. The one seed was a tie breaker! The west is insane.
With respect to the great Michael Pina, I'm thinking the Clippers are a prime candidate to fall into the abyss. If there's any issues with Kawhi's health—LOL, there will definitely be issues—we're going to get Harden in unmotivated, request-a-trade mode, because there's no way he wants the burden of carrying a mediocre team on his back. And the vibes are going to be off the charts bad with Kevin Porter Jr *and* Kai Jones on the roster. That said, you do have a fantastic coach and some high-quality role players here. I just think in a crazily competitive conference, it could get ugly for them.
Adam Silver is such a rotten hypocrite. The NBA dealing with a dictator is unacceptable. But also hardly a surprise.
I would tell Anthony Edwards to get stronger (as I would tell any young player) but does it even matter anymore in the cupcake era? If a player like Ant is killing it then TMac would be like MVP every year.
if i had to rank the west as of now.... Top tier Thunder, Nuggets and Mavs. Second tier Memphis. Thats the only team in tier two. Tier three: minny, Suns, Rockets....( i mean houston is simply better right now than the lakers. And the question is really what to do with New Orleans and the Warriors.)-. Tier Four....new Orleans, Lakers, Jazz and Spurs. And probably maybe warriors. So lets say Tier Four B. Golden State and Kings. Five is Portland and clips- -. Now i am assuming Kawhi barely plays. he might retire in fact. GS is on paper a pretty poor team. Nothing i do, no amount of squinting seems able to change that. And for NOLA to be tier four g ives way too much credit to Zion who i doubt stays healthy. I dont think he can. So Spurs are the deep sleeper.
How does this version of the Thunder compare to the Durant, Harden, Westbrook, Ibaka, Adams version? There are no guarantees.
The Suns also never fell out of the top 10. 10th was their lowest standing.