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OT- Have athletes gotten worse in the NBA/MLB?

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DMoney said:
Skilled, maybe. Athletic? No. Look at the All-NBA guards from the mid-90s. Jordan, Penny, Payton, Kevin Johnson, Drexler.

The least athletic guy is Stockton, and he is miles ahead of Curry, Kyrie and Trae Young as an on-ball, lateral defender.

And that’s just the guards. It’s unfair to compare an athlete like David Robinson to Nikola Jokic. Embiid stands out today, and there were at least 4 centers physically better than him back then.

We can all agree that shooting is more important than ever. You can’t have it all and, as someone who watched both eras, shooting is taking priority over athleticism and man-to-man defense.
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DMoney said:
I would say the rule changes and analytics emphasize skill moreso than athleticism.

This year’s Heat were tossing out lineups with four white shooters and playing zone. You couldn’t really do that 25 years ago.
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The point guards are more athletic now. Shooting guards are not. The athleticism at the Forward spot is what makes people sleep on the old guys. Today’s threes and fours are FREAKS. Not that there weren’t some in the 80s and 90s but it’s like the 6’4 to 6’7 stud athletes of old are 6’8 to 6’11 now.

The tops centers are less athletic than the top centers of the past, but I think the overall athleticism at the position has gone up while height has gone down. There aren’t very many 7 footers now. You won’t see guys like Manute Bol or Shawn Bradley in the league anymore.
 
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DMoney said:
Swingmen were stronger, tougher and more explosive back then. Switching favors their talents.

Take the 1996 Bulls. If modern teams played small with them, they would move Rodman to C and Kukoc to PF with Harper/Jordan/Pippen on the perimeter. That would be the best switching team in history.
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This is what people who think the Warriors would run away on that team just don’t get.

The Warriors lost a series against Kyrie Irving and JR Smith as starting guards.

They have never faced anything like that as an offense. Harp, MJ and Pip would not necessarily shut them down, but hold them under their percentage.

That series would come down to rules and officiating. Michael would live at the free throw line and that is the most devastating shot. Many think the three is most important but it is not close.
 
DTP said:
Rule changes killed low post game. In the 90’s you couldn’t double until they got the ball. Now, you can play a man in front and another behind. Big guys can’t just post up on the low block anymore. That’s why they have to be able to shoot now.
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Even when they get opportunities, they don’t have the same level of skill to finish.

Dwight Howard drove me crazy in Orlando. He tried his damndest, but he couldn’t finish unless it was a dunk most of the time.

Dwight was strong, but not Shaq strong. There were times he needed to finish with finesse, but he couldn’t do it. These guys don’t have the same level of body control, footwork, and touch. Why would they? They shoot threes.
 
Nba lacks skills and heart. The athletes are not bad. They just lack drive. It’s like watching 13 year old kids play

baseball is about stats too. Guys are Not embarrassed fo strike out and the influx of dominican player ruined the game in many ways. They don’t play the game the right way and so many are tied to roids. They aren’t as skilled as the Cuban and Puerto Rican players were.
I mean Dominican born not Americans like A-rod
 
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Coach Macho said:
"I have a secret...

...I worship the devil."
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His response was priceless when she said that. They could have edited the scene to make this his response as well...

drExZ_s-200x150.gif
 
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Kyle Liburd said:
View attachment 115564

There's another white guy trailing the play too. So 5 white guys although Chapman was a good athlete.
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That was 30 years ago before the whites were purged from the league. When Bird broke down, it was the end of an era.

Chapman was one of the few who survived into the mid-90s because he was athletic. Bobby Sura was another.
 
DMoney said:
Had this discussion with some friends and wanted to bring it to the board: Have players gotten less athletic in the NBA and MLB since the 1980s and 1990s?

Football players have gotten more athletic since the rules began favoring passing. But in basketball, the rules have been favoring more of a European game based on shooting and less man-to-man defense. Stars like Curry, Harden and Doncic are extremely skilled but only average athletes by NBA standards. Would a player like Duncan Robinson survive in the 80s and 90s with the amount of minutes he plays?

Same in MLB. The game is phasing out steals and there is less contact, which means less athletic defense. Walks and homers are king. Has the game lost athleticism?
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Well if you asked Larry Johnson, the NBA is becoming feminine with slender body structures.
 
DMoney said:
That was 30 years ago before the whites were purged from the league. When Bird broke down, it was the end of an era.

Chapman was one of the few who survived into the mid-90s because he was athletic. Bobby Sura was another.
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1998 Finals was 50/50 black white split in starters. Kokuc, Longley, Stockton, Hornacek, Ostertag.

The amount of white dudes/international players making All-Star teams and getting drafted in the Top 10 has been the same in the 80's, 90's, 00's, 10's

That's stayed the same for the last 40 years
 
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Tetragrammaton Cane said:
I recognize that @DMoney is talking about MLB/NBA, but since a few have mentioned NFL (and some track) I just wanted to add a few things.

If the athletes today are as good, or better because of training, etc., where is today’s Bo Jackson, Herschel Walker - or even Sammie Smith? You can’t even find linebackers today who can run as well as they did - and that was 30 years ago. I left out Deion. It’s easy to dismiss these guys as generational, but all from the same generation? Even OJ Simpson still holds a WR to this day.

Epstein liberally makes use of an “I’m ******” card to skate past topics by calling them taboo - when he was the only one calling them taboo while coming up with disproven theories. He specifically called out Kenya in his 2013 book for not producing Javelin throwers. Julius Yego won gold at the 2015 Worlds and Silver at the 2016 Olympics. He consistently talks about the world as if there were only black and white - as if Asians don’t exist. It showed his stupidity as China and Japan both won 4x1 medals at subsequent Worlds and Olympics. These “predictions“, accordin to him, were “in the blood/genes”.

His Bolt/Owens comparison is rank buffoonery. Bolt would’ve crushed Owens. Had he been a better student of the sprint game he might have used Bullet Bob Hayes … Bolt would have crushed Hayes too.

it’s often mentioned that Jesse Owens long jump (8.13/26’8”) record wasn’t broken for 24 years but what’s lost was that he broke Chuhei Nambu’s of Japan’s WR from 4 years prior of (7.98/26’2”). Is Nambu “better”? i Doubt he had better technology. 90 years later at the 2017 Worlds Nambu‘s performance would’ve qualified for the finals in front of 24 men.

100m. 1991 Tokyo final v 2019 Doha final. Average of the top 6 places? 9.9133. Exactly the same even though 2019 winner was .10 faster.

I guess I agree with D$.
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Do you realize that we just had a 6'4 230+ kid run a 4.3 just a few weeks ago?. Every combine we have a few linebackers hit close to a 4.4. **** i watched Devin Bush do it...Devin Bush Jr was a kid that i honestly thought was an avg athlete coming out of high school. That mfer hit a 4.4 **** near.

There are legitimate Left Tackles coming out running as good of times as Michael Irvin and some other bigtime wr's of the 90s.

Football has definately gotten more bigger and athletic...though there are still some freakshows fromt he 80s and 90s that would be freaks of any era...

Sheldrick Redwine and Devin Hester run the same 40 time......Sheldrick Redwine.
 
DMoney said:
Had this discussion with some friends and wanted to bring it to the board: Have players gotten less athletic in the NBA and MLB since the 1980s and 1990s?

Football players have gotten more athletic since the rules began favoring passing. But in basketball, the rules have been favoring more of a European game based on shooting and less man-to-man defense. Stars like Curry, Harden and Doncic are extremely skilled but only average athletes by NBA standards. Would a player like Duncan Robinson survive in the 80s and 90s with the amount of minutes he plays?

Same in MLB. The game is phasing out steals and there is less contact, which means less athletic defense. Walks and homers are king. Has the game lost athleticism?
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Good topic. In today's world, a guy like John Sunvold would get 20 mins per game. Back 20+ years ago - 11th man on the bench.

I will say that the big guys in today's game are more athletic. Less physical but better athletes since they have to cover more of the floor.
 
TruCane81 said:
This is what people who think the Warriors would run away on that team just don’t get.

The Warriors lost a series against Kyrie Irving and JR Smith as starting guards.

They have never faced anything like that as an offense. Harp, MJ and Pip would not necessarily shut them down, but hold them under their percentage.

That series would come down to rules and officiating. Michael would live at the free throw line and that is the most devastating shot. Many think the three is most important but it is not close.
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Offensively the only thing close to Kyrie is MJ. And Mj doesnt have the ball control of a Kyrie...might be one of the best dribblers ever,and Steph Curry is right behind him.

What Curry and Klay would do tooooo them...lol They never faced a 1 like Curry and didnt have the best of best guys athletically at that spot to deal with them.
The real issue with that Warriors team vs the bulls is the tempo...they would run them out of the gym. When you get into that Bulls bench of non athletic guys and have to still deal with units of the warriors with Iggy, Livingston and company that push the ball....sheesh. Didnt even mention Kevin Durant. Im leaning to the Warriors vs them.
 
gogeta4 said:
Offensively the only thing close to Kyrie is MJ. And Mj doesnt have the ball control of a Kyrie...might be one of the best dribblers ever,and Steph Curry is right behind him.

What Curry and Klay would do tooooo them...lol They never faced a 1 like Curry and didnt have the best of best guys athletically at that spot to deal with them.
The real issue with that Warriors team vs the bulls is the tempo...they would run them out of the gym. When you get into that Bulls bench of non athletic guys and have to still deal with units of the warriors with Iggy, Livingston and company that push the ball....sheesh. Didnt even mention Kevin Durant. Im leaning to the Warriors vs them.
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If they played head-to-head with modern rules, the Bulls would bench Longley and play Rodman at Center. This would make their starting lineup Harper/Jordan/Pippen/Kukoc/Rodman. Defensively, that's deadly. Rodman would eat Draymond alive.
 
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