Today's players probably can run faster and jump higher than they could in the 50s and 60s. But the best players in NBA history were so, because of their skill and coordination. Every draft has a guy that can run as fast and jump as high as Michael Jordan, but they usually end up being no-names who are out of the league in a couple years. There have been so many great players that were mediocre athletes, that I think it's silly to assume the stars from the 50s and 60s couldn't do really well in today's game. For example, was Cousy so much less athletic than Stockton? Just look take a look at these stats, sort by the highest jumpers, the quickest in the agility test, the fastest sprinters, most of them are no-namers. You need a certain level of size and athleticism to play in the NBA, but beyond that it's skill and the mental aspect. http://www.draftexpress.com/nba-pre...All&sort2=DESC&draft=&pos=&source=All&sort=15
They are not superstars overseas. Sergio is not even on team Spain. Why can team USA barely beat team Spain? How do you think an all-euro team would fare against team USA? That would be more of a fair match.
They would probably fare worse, actually. The international teams forced the US into a totally different way of thinking about how to assemble a squad for international play. It takes time to develop that level of cohesiveness, placing "all-star" teams at a disadvantage. And if anyone can't tell quickly from the OP photo that those guys are low on the athletic scale for professionals, take off your racial sensitivity blinders. There's barely a hint of muscle tone from any of them. Of course, that wasn't true for the league as a whole back then, so HCP's point is still iffy.
The teams European nations send to international competitions are a collection from many different teams, including the NBA, so how do they have any "cohesion" advantage? That's always been a silly cop-out. It also undermines the idea that superior athletes will always "destroy" lesser athletes, as HCP implied in his post.
How about this than....... stars from today would be stars back then. Stars from back then would be stars today. Average players from today would be above average back then. Average players from back then would not be in the league today.
The good ones are made up of guys that have played together for years. The UK takes pretty much anyone and it shows in their results. As soon as the US went to a similar model of playing together for more than just the tournament itself, superiority was restored. Talent wins out when other advantages are removed.
The U.S. team is led by superstars like Durant, yet every time, it barely wins in an exciting final game against some Euro team that looks like HCP's picture. This shows that smarts are more important than hops, muscle, and speed.
It's almost always closer than expected (as expected by Americans, not Europeans). To connect to the thread: Some posts here say that average 50s players wouldn't make the league now. You ethnocentrists would be surprised if 50s teams played now, just as you are, every championship game between the U.S. and a European team.
I disagree. And it's not an indictment of us at all. It's because the other teams all over the world have had to step up their game to contend with the USA. Other countries like Spain (who were never good at hoops) and France have had to revamp their whole approach to the game. This is why the games are closer.
Gee. Old timers think it was harder back in the day. There's a shock. You never hear that from old people. Teams now have the ability to keep 15 guys on their roster instead of 12, and you point to that as a reason the league is somehow less competitive now? Seems to me, all else being equal, the team that can survive a couple injuries before they have to rely on a young Luke Babbitt is going to do better than the one who doesn't. Do you really feel that salaries have done absolutely nothing to encourage people to play this sport? Because I don't see it. Seems like I read all the time about kids desperate to make it into the NBA for the money and glory. In 1960 (when the US population was your 180m number) you went to the NBA hoping to become a thousandaire. Now it's akin to winning the lottery. The US population only doubled while the number of teams tripled. But people are so much more motivated to join the league now because of the money and celebrity. That coupled with the massive international fanbase has easily made up for the additional 10 more teams than natural population growth would seem to support. Additionally, while the number of teams expanded, the number of championships didn't. There are now 30 teams fighting for one trophy instead of 9. There are now 30 different organizations scrambling to find any means possible to get their hands on a title, and all of them use advanced statistics and scouting techniques to find that diamond in the rough no matter where they are in the world. And then you have advances in diet, training, video....the list just goes on. Teams spend money on that stuff because it matters. The pool of talent available now is massively larger than it was back then. It ain't even close.
I think it's fair to say that one on one players of this era would dominate most players of the past, but in a team vs team scenario the team from the past would be a real struggle for a team of this era. The team of the past would sloe the game down immensely and grind it out. It would be like watching an NCAA tournament game that featured a team like Kentucky with all the athleticism in the world vs Creighton/Butler who are much more fundamentally sound.
In the 60s they made 10 times an office executive. Now it's 100. They were plenty motivated back then. In fact, black players faced a much worse fate if they failed in the NBA, than blacks do now. So my answer is yes, salaries have done nothing to make today's players any more motivated than in the past. Players today could be paid 10% as much as they are, and their motivation would remain unchanged. The alternative is to make 5-20% of even that.
