Compared to previous eras. The competetion over the weekend was astounding with the top two teams in the WC going down. yeah, its just game ones, but the mvp's team had to work against a supposedly very weak 8 seed. the superfriends were given some some good comp and superman went down in a game that wasn't particularly close. Denver held its own, its one of the best first days of playoff competetion i've seen. i may not remember correctly but when magic and bird were in the league it seemed that the playoffs didn't heat up until the conference championships. we know the eighties had some great teams, but i think the first round competition level will continue to remain at a high level, particularly philly playing hard, and chris paul unleashing the knee brace. we've seen a lot recently about superstar hoarding but there seems to be an abundance of good players around the league. atlanta should be in the position to take down orlando when you think about their talent, they just have to show up every night. i'm very excited about these playoffs, hopefully the good play continues.
Its not that good IMO. Championship teams of years past would run through this league. Spurs are an easy example. They are ranked #1 this year, can you imagine what the 03 Spurs team would do to this current one?
I'm a huge fan of parity. I like NCAA ball or NHL playoffs where you honestly never know who is going to win a series before it starts. In the NBA it felt like you did know all too often. These past few days have been GREAT basketball, something I haven't said about the playoffs in years.
I am of the exact opposite opinion. 2003 is too recent. But, put today's Lakers in, say, 1980, they'd destroy everybody. All the resources that go now into finding talent, developing talent, training, strategizing, analyzing, etc has been steadily increasing the overall talent in the league over time. I think the result might be clouded by the fact that defense gets better along with the offense, and by simple nostalgia.
It's really good. Much better than past eras. As I said in another post, the NBA doesn't need to get rid of teams or playoff spots. Last weekend proved that. Also why is it much better? Simple. Look at all the international players in the game today. Years ago this wasn't even possible, the entire world is now a talent pool for basketball. So the league is MUCH better than it ever has been. Some teams like the Spurs wouldn't even be around if it werent for their overseas players like Manu and Parker. Would the Lakers be contenders without Pau? The list goes on and on with these players. Sure there were guys coming in during the 90s but it wasn't this much. Also the world is getting much better and the growth of the sport has not ceased.
But give the 1980s teams those resources. See, you can't say what you just said(at least IMO, I don't think it's fair), then not give those same options to everyone else. If I got the 83 76ers and gave them all the resources you mentioned, they could dominate this league/era. To answer the OP...this era is trash. No one can shoot anymore, and they ones that do shoot, they take dumb ass 3s and shoot 44% with most of that being layups, dunks and floaters. Defense is missed BADLY. It's not a ton of guys that can just MAN up on defense. Chase down blocks and playing the passing lanes is the means for defense these days. Put it like this with the shooting...why do you guys think the foreign teams zone us up in International competition?
IMO the league got more competitive this year with multiple superstars changing teams as well as the rise of young teams like the Bulls and the Thunder. Meanwhile some of the older contenders start to fade. This makes this year's playoffs a lot more competitive than the last couple of years'. The Lakers of 2009-2011 has been the worst back-to-back championship teams in league history mainly because their competition was so weak. Boston was the only team that posed a serious challenge to the Lakers and Boston was never healthy.
i think it has more to do with the fact that the top teams are just not that good. i still don't know how the spurs won 60+ games
I'm with you 100000%! Great first weekend for sure. Very entertaining. I really didn't like the early 2000's. I felt like the competition was relatively weak, particularly on the heels of the big names that had just retired (including Hakeem, of course). Today's game seems loaded, now, with really good young talent.
Also think about all the players that have not matured yet. Evans-Cousins Wall Blake For me those guys are star players in the making.
I don't think that makes sense. Maybe you could give them modern-era statistical analyisis, medical help, training, etc. They'd still get killed by a modern team. Because today's teams are built from players found and developed by very professional college programs, who got them from very professional high school programs, all driven by the marketing earlier stars reinforce -- millions of kids world-wide playing and training, trying to make it to the NBA and be a star, with tons of resources in place to help them maximize their potential. With almost every NBA player in the league today, they've been working on this since they were kids. A couple of decades ago, they didn't have the incentives to lure the kids, they didn't have the resources to train the kids, and they didn't have the analysis to evaluate the kids. As the league gets better at that, they'll increase in talent.
"Good" in what sense? From the OP's words, he seems to say that it's good competition. Well, yes and no. Sure the first games of the playoffs were competitive. The West has always been competitive. So no surprise there. In fact, I've predicted that at least one of the bottom three teams would pull off an upset to advance to the second round. The East is not competitive at all. The top teams just slipped and I am pretty sure they will rebound. Miami still needs time. Next year they will be a lot more consistent. The Celtics have declined, but the Knicks don't look like they can do any harm. Orlando shot themselves in the foot with the midseason trades but Atlanta doesn't look impressive at all.
I would say its very good when teams like Memphis, NO, OKC and Chicago compete on such a high level, you can't complain about great basketball I was sick and tired of the San Antonio, Utah, LA era
