From ESPN's JA adande (not a big fan) But some good insight
Can't let two great basketball do entaries slide by without comment, beginning with the observation that basketball sure makes a great do entary topic. Feature films, not so much; other than "Hoosiers," you won't find many basketball-related stories on the greatest sports movie lists. But basketball has the do entary category on lock. You could begin and end with "Hoop Dreams."
Now you can add ESPN's "Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. the New York Knicks" and HBO's "Magic & Bird: A Courtship of Rivals" to the mix. Maybe the sport's abundance of personalities and outrageous extremes makes it better suited for reality than fiction. How many other sports would have a star engage in a trash-talking battle with an acclaimed movie director in the middle of a game? That was the central theme of the "30 for 30" series' "Winning Time." But as the do entary aired, a strange subplot unfolded on Twitter: a nostalgia for mid-'90s NBA ball.
Come on Generation Xers, just because we're adding some gray hairs to our heads doesn't mean we've reached dementia. Let's not fool ourselves. Sure the game was more physical and the rivalries more intense, but the era revisited in this do entary was the league's low point. The game is in better shape today with an abundance of talent represented by LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade et al than it was in that stretch when Michael Jordan played only 17 regular-season games. Things were so bad that Sports Illustrated had a cover proclaiming "Why the NHL's Hot and the NBA's Not." The Knicks-Rockets NBA Finals of 1994 had the lowest TV ratings since the early 1980s. After all, the most memorable moments were the O.J. Simpson Bronco chase during Game 5 and John Starks' 2-for-18 shooting in Game 7.
If you think all was well with the NBA in the mid-1990s, check the movie again. You'll notice part of the Madison Square Garden court looked as if it had been bleached in the 1995 playoff games. That's because 1994-95 was the season the NBA moved the 3-point line from 23 feet, 9 inches, in to an even 22 feet, although you could still see remnants of the old line on the floor.
Why the rule change? To stem the plunge in scoring that occurred the year before when the average team's score plummeted by four points per game-- the largest single-season drop since the expansion season of 1970-71 -- down to 101.5 points, the lowest number since the Syracuse Nationals-Rochester Royals days of 1956-57.
Miller was opposed to the rule change, by the way. He thought the longer line separated the real shooters from the pretenders. But without the gimmick intended to boost scoring, it's possible he would not have made that second, tying 3 in the first game of that 1995 series. With the extra dribble to get back behind the longer 3-point line, Greg Anthony would have had an additional second to get to him and either distract Miller or discourage him from shooting that shot.
The only thing the shorter 3-pointer did was encourage more people to shoot it. Three-point attempts went from 9.9 to 15.3 per game that season and never went back down. But scoring continued to decline as defenses could pack in with even less distance to cover from the paint back out to the shooters. The NBA moved the 3-pointer back to its original distance in 1997.
It wasn't as easy to stop the continued slowdown of the game as too many coaches tried to hold on to their jobs by dictating tempo. If they were going to lose, at least they wouldn't be blown out. It was a smart strategy by Pat Riley, who had nowhere near as much talent at his disposal as he did with the Showtime Lakers. But when Riley had Magic Johnson running the break in Los Angeles and the Denver Nuggets running just as fast and the Boston Celtics making transactions to keep up with them, the league was a better place.
Instead of wallowing in nostalgia for the 1980s, "Magic & Bird" successfully exposes the dark secrets of the two main protagonists of that era. We get a better sense of the anger that drove both of them.
For Bird, the anger came from the suicide of his father and the constant doubts of his greatness just because of his skin color. Has any superstar had to prove as much to his peers as Bird did? Magic talked about how he and his buddies had their doubts, and even Bird's own teammates (or at least Cedric Maxwell) didn't initially believe that the white guy was really as good as people said he was.
We never think of Magic as angry. That broad smile is just as big a part of his image as the no-look pass. Only, the smiling ones can be just as cold-blooded as anyone else. In the do entary, we learn that the day of Game 6 of the 1980 Finals (or World Championship series, as it was called then) Magic found out that Bird had been named rookie of the year over him. That was all the incentive Johnson needed to put on one of the memorable performances in NBA history: 42 points, 15 rebounds and seven assists in the Lakers' championship-clinching victory over the Philadelphia 76ers.
It turned out he also needed the overindulgent side of him to keep pushing him to get more. After all, he could have been satisfied with winning a championship his first year in the league, an accomplishment some great players spend their entire careers fruitlessly pursuing. But Magic wanted more. There's always been that dichotomy between Magic and Earvin Johnson, his given name, the industrious kid from East Lansing, Mich. And there are those, most notably magazine writer Charlie Pierce, who say Earvin ultimately was done in by Magic, who led him to become HIV-positive. Lust, greed and pride were all sins visited by Magic. And Johnson doesn't dispute the theory.
"That's probably true, that the Magic ego swallowed Earvin a little bit," he says in the do entary. "But that's OK. Because I couldn't have won five championships without that."
It's an admission that anything would have been worth it to him if he could become the greatest winner of his time. And maybe that's what's missing from the game today, people willing to sacrifice years of their life if that were the requirement for being the best. Instead of being told you're not that good, as Bird was, we have AAU coaches and agents telling young players they're the best, in the hopes the kids will take them along for the ride to the top.
How many realize that unless the players maintain that anger -- that common thread seen in Magic, Bird and Miller in these movies -- they'll never get there
I have argued with many that 90's basketball ESPECIALLY mid to later 90's NBA sucked ...
Horrible offense, good defense but also long boring foul fests ...
the 80's and the past decade were BOTH superior ...
thank God for MJ and the BULLS or the league would of been ALMOST complete then ...
Hakeem and his ROx also get some love as well ...
Ya, that's a strange argument..I don't have a biased to any era, I appreciate all basketball, but today's NBA has A LOT of favorable rules, especially for perimeter players..so that kind of goes against his "rule changes" to make up for talent argument..
As much as Reggie was a , you thoroughly enjoyed how he would be brash enough to run his mouth at e Lee. I don't think you see that much trash talk in today's league and to me, that is a missing element. The whold Starks vs. Miller segment of Winning Time was definitely a highpoint.
Winning Time was definitely fun to watch. Poor Reggie being the whipping boy of his older sister. It's bad enough when your big brother s with you all the time because he's bigger, stronger, taller, better. But, your sister?
LMAO @ Reggie getting all excited when he scored 40 points in a high school game only to find out that was the same night Cheryl scored 105 points.
Man, it would've been awesome to have seen the look on Reggie's face when they dropped that bomb on him...
In that respect, the shortening of the line arguably was the biggest change to the game in the modern era... bigger than legalizing zones or any other tweaks.
It's funny to watch games in the 80s and the three-point line is all but ignored. These days it is a constant threat to guarded... let your guard down for a moment and someone is rising up to bust one before you can even get a hand up.
Look how much more spread the floor is in the modern game with 2-3 players at a time hanging out 22-25 feet from the hoop.
I'd forgotten about that... knew he had a tough upbringing but losing your father to suicide while still in HS? That would really mess with you.For Bird, the anger came from the suicide of his father
He was a hole. But he was an entertaining hole, in the way he played and the way he looked. And it's tough not to respect the chutzpah a player has to have to basically take on the entire city of New York.
Reggie is a lesson for all those who think LeBron or any other superstar "needs" to play in New York. You don't need to play for the Knicks to gain fame; you only need to play well against them, preferably in their own building. Reggie became a legend by how he played against the Knicks in Madison Square Garden.
The draft-day scene where Rick Barry tells Reggie if he plays like his sister he'll be fine is funny and painful at the same time. So typical Rick Barry- say something rude and insensitive without even knowing it.Winning Time was definitely fun to watch. Poor Reggie being the whipping boy of his older sister. It's bad enough when your big brother s with you all the time because he's bigger, stronger, taller, better. But, your sister?
I agree. The first few years of the past decade were nothing special though - too much isos and 2 men game. The new defensive rules made the game better.
I don't think that the problem was lack of talent. On the contrary, I think it was an increase in talent (especially defensive/athletic talent and coaching knowledge) + stationary rules/officiating orientations.
The idea of artificially/superficially increase scoring by shortening the 3pt line was an obvious mistake - teams were putting up more points but the quality of the game wasn't any different. In fact, it helped to solidify the pack defense style.
Some great points made all ...and yes I agree the increases athleticusm helped with defense but KILLED the offense ...
I'll say this ...
The pistons of this past decade and the "Bad Boys" played great dfense but still were good at scoring even the Spurs of this past decade and the bulls proved you could play reall good defense but also not have a 90's Knicks, heat, cavs or Pacers offense ...
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