I've been thinking about this the last couple years, and this guy breaks it down pretty well: Are NBA Players Getting Too Good At Basketball? (youtube.com) Growing up in the mid 80's and 90's the game is so different now. Especially compared to the late 90's, early 2000s. The balance of power has shifted too much towards offense imo, and I'm not sure it's a good thing. Players seem more skilled than ever at scoring. A guy like Joel Prizbilla wouldn't even make an NBA roster today. Eventually scoring milestones and records of past players and teams will be meaningless. I don't think it's simply a case of lack of defensive effort. That may be part of the issue, but the game has opened up so much more for the offense now it can be hard to tell. So many times throughout a game it looks like a layup drill going on. Or a three point shootout. There's less tension from moment to moment. Less grit. It's time to give some power back to the D with some rule changes. First fix travelling. So many plays would get called travelling even ten years ago aren't now. It's so common. Guys take like 4 or 5 steps, shuffle their feet, hop, etc. It starts to defeat the purpose of the whole you gotta bounce the ball thing. I heard there was a change to how many steps you can take, but if so it needs to be changed back. Also let's bring back some hand checking. The lack of physicality is boring. I would also extend the 3 point line a couple feet and ditch the sideling 3 all together. I'm curious if other people have thoughts on this either way.
The game is certainly different than the 90's... I think it would be tough to make a factual case that it's hurting the game as TV viewership, attendence, and revenue have greatly increased since then. Did all those things happen despite the rule changes? Possibly.... but what would we point to that would indicate the increase in scoring is in fact hurting the game? BlazerBeav points out that there are more blowouts, but there are also more comebacks. I recall in the late 90's, a double digit lead felt damn near insurmountable and you might as well just turn the game off.
Raise the hoop to 12' and make the rim a bit smaller. Make the court twice as long, put a barrier at half-court that you have to leap over. In the first and fourth quarters, play with an assortment of farm animals on the court. Teams must sub in randomly chosen fans at random times during a game when a gong is sounded. These things will fix the NBA permanently. barfo
I would say the biggest frustration I have about NBA defense is how they continue to baby 3-point shooters. But I will say there were some good rule changes they made after the 80-90s. The off-the-ball contact used to be ridiculous, especially in the playoffs. Holding and body-checking guards to keep them from getting the ball was unnecessary and they rarely called it.
Agree. I wouldn't bring back hand checking. Call traveling. Call carrying (sorry Scoot). Stop all star favoritism calls. Make it a no-call when the offensive player initiates contact.
Allowing hand-checking doesn't make sense to me at all. Who wants to watch players get held and pushed around for 2 hours? To me, the answer is more about cutting down on the flopping and rewarding the unnatural acts than it is turning basketball into rugby.
I’d be curious to know if, overall, injuries have dropped in the last five years. The NBA has a lot of very highly paid players, who are working for very very rich owners. If more offense reduces injuries, that is how the NBA will focus its game. While it may make aficionados long for the days of rough and tumble defense and fistfights between guys who genuinely hated each other, the general public likes more scoring, more action to the game. I don’t think you can make sweeping changes to the size and shape of the court without getting literally worldwide approval from all the basketball associations globally, and high school, and college, etc. so I think that’s a non starter. But, if we are insisting it was better back then, I think the solution is to just get rid of the three point line, and push the game back toward the basket, forcing contact between offense and defense.
I don't think it's ruining the game, but I do miss the centers and power forwards of old. But shooting was really incentivized the moment the 3pt shot was instantiated. It just took the league a long time to catch up with that incentive. You look at one of the best centers of all time, Patrick Ewing, his career TS% is only 55%, which is 3 points below the current league average, and would not be considered good today. I think the tougher defense in the 80s 90s is mostly mythical. People point to the hand checking rule, but that was in 2004. It may have contributed somewhat but that's clearly not all of it. They did used to call carrying and offensive fouling MUCH differently though in the 60s/70s era. Players used to have to keep their hands over the ball, and you'd get called for an offensive foul for going into a player. Look at film of Wilt being called for charging for going into someone 1/10th the amount that Shaq would (and shaq would often do that and draw a DEFENSIVE) foul. But players overall today are much better shooters and ball handlers.
