Depends on what type of deer. Deers today can out run and out jump Deers in the 80s because of better grass and water. 290 lb Deers today can clear a backyard fence and turn tight corners in backyards because houses in the suburbs are getting smaller and they have to be able to do those things to survive. They simple an move like those 180lb Deers in the 80s could but with all this extra power and strength.
Not to mention the advancements of genetically modified crops, which cross bred with wild strains and provided the deer with better nutrition overall. Genetically modified foods simply weren't that popular in the 80s but globalism made it big around the world now European Deers are making the jump to North America, and you can see that native North American white tailed Deers went from 25% of the population down to about 7% today. The fact that you had so many native white tailed deer back in the 80s basically tells you about how weak Deers were in general back then.
Finally, Deers in the 90s were boring. You can't really watch them run because they just poor around. The Deers nowadays run with purpose and agility. Just so much more aesthetically pleasing.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/BOS/1986.html
Look at how light players used to be, damn.
Bird was 6'9 220, 230 at the most late in his career and it wasn't muscle he put on. He's not going to d up any PF's lmao. He was built a lot like last year's Kyle Anderson (rookie), except 10lbs lighter. He'd get destroyed out there on defense.
Aldridge-6'11 270+
Griffin-6'10 260+
Green-6'8 240+
Nowitzki-7'0 250+
Millsap-6'8 250
Bosh-6'11 250+
Davis-6'10 250+
Randolph-6'9 270+
Favors-6'10 265+
Porzingis-7'3 240
Cousins-6'11 280+
West-6'10 250+
Diaw-6'10 270+
Bonner-6'10 240+
etc.
80's PF's featured players like:
Rambis-6'8 213lbs
Mchale-6'10 210lbs
Thirdkill-6'7 195lbs
Nance-6'10 205lbs
Buck Williams-6'8 216lbs
Thorpe-6'9 225lbs
Issel-6'9 235lbs
Sampson-7'4 228lbs
etc.
Most of those guys were not athletic either, most of them were stiffs, they weren't the PF's you see today that are heavy but explosive. Players started to get bigger mid 80's-early 90's as they utilized new workouts and strength and conditioning coaches became widespread. Players did put on muscle IF they actually lifted weights but a lot of times they just got all bulky like Magic Johnson or Aguirre, even Malone was pretty damn bulky.
Players add lean, explosive muscle in today's league, better nutrition, workouts and actual strength and conditioning coaches make it so easy.
Even a guy like Damian Lillard was benching 300lbs in college, nobody thinks of him being big or strong at 6'3 200lbs but he is lol.
I was expecting him to say yes, and it was dead.
Nice job tweaking the weights.
Dirk is 250+riiiiiiiight.
Bolt is one athlete, an outlier. You can't just refer to him as an example of athletic evolution across the board as much I can't use David Robinson (still unequaled as far as size/speed/athleticism ratio go in the NBA) as an example of how much better athletes were overall in the 90's. All of Bolt's comp aside from Powell still has the traditional ~6ft, 160-180lb sprinter build.
I also see you keep referring to the jump shooting, ball handling, passing evolution among bigger players. That is a SKILL evolution, not an athletic evolution, and with regard to perimeter oriented bigs who can shoot and dribble (many bigs still can't even do that), that is an evolution that was dictated by rule changes more than any kind of natural progression. For all the skills gain in those areas, bigs lost skills in the post. DeAndre, Dwight Howard, Whiteside, Davis are all flat out in the post. Again, why do you think Duncan can still play against these guys on one leg? Bird and Magic were Boris Diaw 30 years ago. I also like the way you deflect to his weight as if that's a positive. If he wasn't a fatass, he'd be even more dangerous, as he was when he was a lean 210-220 when he first came into the league. And
So yeah, you haven't proven there has been any great leap in athleticism from the 60's to today. There's been progress with better training methods and nutrition, but not some exponential leap that has produced 50" verticals for most NBA players.
Do you know what "much" means? You think a microsecond gain in the 40 is a "leap." Or a 100th of inch in vertical leap is a leap. I don't. And I would contend that point. The Patriots won the Superbowl with a midget, white receiving core and a running back by committee who are all pretty underwhelming athletically. Gronk is the only "freak" in that bunch. The 80's had Deion Sanders, Bo Jackson, Ronnie Lott, Rod Woodson, Lawrence Taylor, Walter Payton, etc, etc, all with pretty much identical size/speed/athleticism ratios to their modern superstar counterparts. Even Charles Woodson, who was a young contemporary of that group in the 90's is leading the league (or was) in INTsYou completely ignored how much bigger, faster, stronger athletes in the NFL have gotten. To say there aren't better athletes in the NBA is to say there aren't better athletes in the NFL because they literally both benefited from the same types of workouts, nutrition, etc. why are you ignoring that fact?. Yeah, "modern" athletes have "exponentially leaped" over their past equivalents. I'll concede tight ends have gotten more athletic, but that's out of demand, once again prompted by certain rule changes and strategies, rather than some kind of natural evolution. The point you continually fail to get and acknowledge is that as the game changes, a player will change with it. If more size and explosiveness is required, they'll train that up. If they need to improve ball handling, they'll improve. You act like Bird, Magic, any past great that was an athletic or skillful freak by any measure wouldn't be able to evolve because they're playing with human beings who have gone through some kind of magical athletic evolution in 50 years. Bill Russell was a freak. Give a 20 year old Russell a year of development under modern conditions, and he's terrorizing opposing offenses and dominating in the pick-and-roll. Same with Wilt. Oscar. Etc.
See above. If you're an athlete, lateral quickness is not something magically foreign to you. If they need to train that attribute, they would.Bigs today would be able to take a lot of those guys out on the perimeter and break them down with ball handling or by getting wide open jumpers, in the 80's if you got blown by you could hand check and easily slow them down. It's MUCH harder to defend ball handlers when you cannot hand check, you actually need lateral speed in today's league.
245lb big men could not do this in the 80's, this 20 year old Willie Cauley-Stein is as big as Patrick Ewing but moves like a guard on defense:
I've also seen D-Rob cross Cedric Ceballos out of his shoes (literally). And there wasn't some leap from 80's basketball to the early 90's. And where is your cut off point for bigs?
6'9, 260:
Most of those clips are of past his prime Malone. He was even better on the break and open floor in the 80's/90's. Still a choker, though. And lol at bigs being as mobile as Hakeem, David Robinson, Orlando-era Shaq, 20-25 year old Sabonis. Duncan still ranks ahead of all these modern lops. Yeah, bigs today have very imposing and unstoppable athleticism that the supposedly slowfooted bigs of the past can't handle on either end. And yeah, Duncan can't step out and guard stretch 4s. I mean, he is 40 with one leg. In any event, for as much as a Kevin McHale couldn't guard Blake on the perimeter, Blake couldn't guard him in the post (and neither could DeMonkey).
Boban runs the court like a deerDo you see how mobile bigs are? The balance it takes, the mobility, the explosiveness? Players this big and this agile did not exist back then. How many bigs in this league cannot run the floor? Even Marjanovic at 7'3 290lbs runs like the court like a deer.
Sure, but an evolution of medicine isn't an evolution of innate human athleticism. If you want me to concede the massive superiority of today's players compared to a period like the 80's (which isn't a fair comparison, since they trained very differently for the game back then, since it was much more high tempo), I want to see raw numbers: vertical leaps, baseline-to-baseline times, shuttle times, etc, etc. You seem to be all too impressed by physique and muscle definition. Yeah, they had that even in the 60's.Tim Duncan can't guard mobile 4's, any time you get him out on the perimeter he's a huge liability. Duncan has also extended his career by proper nutrition, proper exercise, and the medical technology we have today. If he was playing in the 80's his knees would've most likely been shot after 10 years, for sure he would not have been playing at this level. This is just another example why the NBA is better, guys are taking better care of their bodies, it leads to longer careers.
Are players today superior? Sure. But not massively so compared to post-merger NBA players (there was a leap from 60's to 70's ball prompted by the ABA, and guess what, great players from the mid-60s EVOLVED their skillsets to keep up in the 70's. You act like this is impossible to achieve). We've seen Jordan evolve his skillset from a wiry, quick penetrator to a more imposing presence who can operate in the post. And even at 40, he was dropping 22ppg per game in '01 on modern players weened on your Eastern Bloc training.
PGs are far superior it's not close with their ball handling skills
SG's are becoming combo guards, shorter, but heavier, more compact and explosive versions which gives the illusion they weigh the same as most 80's-90's guards.
SF's are ing huge, most guys are over 230+ and are very athletic, 230+ was the size of most bigs back then.
Bigs are becoming more perimeter oriented and are much better ball handlers/shooters, their mobility has increased significantly throughout the years.
Btw, Pippen never had to guard the players Leonard's guarding these days. Leonard also has 20lbs of muscle on him too lol, Pippen would probably get torn up against today's perimeter players, he couldn't even guard a rookie Iverson who tore Jordan's 55 win bulls team up.
http://www.nba.com/history/players/pippen_bio.html
SGs like who? A broken down D-Wade is still putting up good numbers. You mean SGs like Bradley Beal, Klay Thompson, CJ McCollum, Eric Gordon, etc, etc? No bigger than SGs of the 90's (admittedly the 80's players were leaner, but it was more of a stamina game then, and those same players put on weight as the game changed).
The SF position has pretty much remained steady at the 6'6"-6-9" height since the 80's. They were even around 230!
http://www.nba.com/history/players/wilkins_bio.html
Bigs are more mobile, but have tier fundamentals in the post. Blame AAU and Kevin Garnett for this, since after KG, every big wanted to play as a jumpshooter. It was only AFTER the rule changes that soft jumpshooting perimeter bigs became a strength rather than a liability as they were in the early-mid-00s grit and grind era. The Spurs and Lakers ate those type pace-and-space teams alive in those days. Don't get me wrong, I prefer pace-and-space, but rule changes are what made it an effective strategy, not because athleticism and skillsets changed necessitating its use.
Last edited by midnightpulp; 11-30-2015 at 04:46 AM.
...DP
I know I'll be arguing with KL2 about this until the cows come home or Kobe shoots 40%, but the proof is in my favor. If the game underwent these massive jumps from era-to-era (which sometimes only last a decade), players wouldn't have the long careers they do.
Case(s) in point:
John Havlicek. A rookie in 1963, which for all intents and purposes is the stone-age of NBA basketball. I would argue that basketball took a much, much bigger leap from 1963 to post-merger than it did from post-merger to today. The 3 point shot was introduced. The league became more integrated and much more athletic. Now every team had a Bill Russell level athlete. More teams were added. Yet, Havilcek was consistent throughout his entire career, At 37, he averaged 16 on 45% shooting in 1978.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/...havlijo01.html
Kareem. The 70's to 80's saw another transition as the 3 point shot was introduced in 1979-80. The 80's style was dominated by speed, stamina, and spacing, similar to today in many regards. Surely Kareem wouldn't be able to transition?
He had no problem.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/...abdulka01.html
Other bigs like Artis Gilmore also seamlessly evolved to the new style of basketball:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/...gilmoar01.html
How about Magic?
80's to 90's saw a transition from an open running game to a grind-it-out iso-fest. The league also took a weight jump as players put on muscle bulk since the game was more physical and interior oriented. This era was arguably the height of the athletic center (D-Rob, Hakeem, Ewing, Zo, Shaq, Dikembe, etc).
A 36 year old HIV riddled Magic with no knees and probably weak stamina came out of retirement after a 4 year layoff and still put up 15, 6, 7 on 46% shooting, and he did so from the PF position.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/...johnsma02.html
Duncan would be my next example, but I doubt I need to go into detail since we all here know his career progression.
But yeah, it'd be impossible for any pre-1997 player to evolve into this era because Eastern Bloc training and "explosiveness." Never mind the fact that sports history is filled with examples of players doing just that over 15-20 year careers. But 2015-16 NBA basketball is somehow the exception because Kawhi Leonard is 230lb
Oh, and watch Hakeem cross the over cats in this video (start at :55):
Hakeem could also amazingly go into an improvised post move from a perimeter dribble (D-Rob could also kind of do it, but he would just straight use a spin move, more like a guard). You don't see that today with 7 footers.
Midnightpulp been ting on the NBA forum for years.
Missed this post.
If Porzingis played in the 80's, you'd cite his slim build as a negative in being unable to guard the bulked out centers in today's league. You way, way overrate weight/muscle mass. It's not beneficial for every player nor does every player need it depending on their skill set. Your other weights are exaggerated by about 10 to 30 pounds per player (Davis weighs in at 220). More and more players are actually shedding weight as the league is getting quicker/more spaced with all the emphasis on the 3 point shot.
And what's preventing Larry Bird from putting on 10 pounds of bulk/muscle? Furthermore, being much lighter hasn't prevented players like Leonard and even Kyle Anderson from playing good defense on PFs. Since PFs rarely go to the post anymore, having size/bulk isn't as necessary as it once was in effectively guarding them. Most NBA coaches would rather PFs trend lighter now so they can have the speed to step out and guard the stretch 4s/Griffin type players. Kevin Garnett is pretty much the prototype for the modern NBA PF. But yeah, I wouldn't always play Bird at the 4. It'd depend on the matchup and the team he's on. But in any event, he'd be a dangerous weapon to have in the modern NBA. Kawhi, Green, etc ain't stopping him at the SF. And you could use him to draw out players like Zach Randolph and Paul Milsap. Pippen was a quicker leaper than Kawhi, just as long, and roughly the same weight, and Bird shat on him.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/...1&p2=pippesc01
Avery Johnson could bench 400lb and was one of the quickest players I've ever seen. He was the consensus fastest player in the league for a few seasons. Better strength-to-speed ratio than Parker. Tim Hardaway was a quick beast with size to match.
Nance, Sampson, Thorpe, and Buck Williams were pretty athletic. And McHale, of course, had one the strongest post games ever. As I mentioned before, Hakeem was a cutting edge player in 1986, still more cutting edge than 99% of bigs today, and McHale got the best of him.
Players aren't much heavier today than in the 80's:
And check out the 7 pound dive in average weight after Miami repeated. Like I said, expect players to get lighter now as pace-and-space becomes a league wide (not just for a few teams) strategy and where every team will need to have a small ball lineup they can use.
Last edited by midnightpulp; 11-30-2015 at 06:46 AM.
Oakley, Mahorn, Barkley, Moses Malone.....I could keep going. They make the players you listed sound like wimps.
Some when did diaw grew two inches and 20+ lbs?
Bowen although no Kiwi as an athlete overall had really good no, elite lateral movement that Bird Lacked. Watch Bowen in his prime. Really good defensive stance and able to move and anticipate (Bird has the anticipation but not the lateral quickness). Bowen is was like a Slot DB in the NFL. Didnt have the deep speed or range like a Kiwi but was great at keeping guys like Kobe or Nash in front of him. I tell my kids I coach all the time to watch the players (in man to man) watch their waist and the ball. No matter what they do with their feet as long as they dont get that lead leg past you it doesnt matter just keep moving your feet and mirror his waist ... Bowen did this real well and I am sorry I just cant see Bird doing this well enough matching up with PG, Durant or Lebron. Kiwi is not extremely polished but improving enough on offense that he would be a problem as well. And then on defense did you guys see the way he was blocking Durant's high release in the Game one? Are you guys telling me he doesnt do the EXACT same to Bird? How does Bird Defend KD with a live dribble? Not only is Durant quicker but his handles are guard like. People forget this cuz Russ does the creating and is ball dominant but Durant has really good handles for his size.
Look, as I said earlier based on accomplishments Bird is no less than 2nd at Sf on my list. In his prime, one of the best players I ever saw no doubt about it. I just think he would have a trouble matching up on defense with the elite SF of today's game on defense. Comparisons to relatively unathletic Bowen or Duncan are moot because those guys are HOF level on defense, Bird was not. on offense of course he would still be great maybe even greater but also in today's game he becomes more like Dirk or Nash huge advantage on offense but a liability on defense. Same for magic, tbh accept maybe pre-knee injury this not meant to downgrade Bird or his contributions to the NBA.
I am one of the biggest 80's fans there is on here just being real.
Last edited by Killakobe81; 11-30-2015 at 09:05 AM.
Nicely done.
Great points, Mid.I know I'll be arguing with KL2 about this until the cows come home or Kobe shoots 40%, but the proof is in my favor. If the game underwent these massive jumps from era-to-era (which sometimes only last a decade), players wouldn't have the long careers they do.
Case(s) in point:
John Havlicek. A rookie in 1963, which for all intents and purposes is the stone-age of NBA basketball. I would argue that basketball took a much, much bigger leap from 1963 to post-merger than it did from post-merger to today. The 3 point shot was introduced. The league became more integrated and much more athletic. Now every team had a Bill Russell level athlete. More teams were added. Yet, Havilcek was consistent throughout his entire career, At 37, he averaged 16 on 45% shooting in 1978.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/...havlijo01.html
Kareem. The 70's to 80's saw another transition as the 3 point shot was introduced in 1979-80. The 80's style was dominated by speed, stamina, and spacing, similar to today in many regards. Surely Kareem wouldn't be able to transition?
He had no problem.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/...abdulka01.html
Other bigs like Artis Gilmore also seamlessly evolved to the new style of basketball:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/...gilmoar01.html
How about Magic?
80's to 90's saw a transition from an open running game to a grind-it-out iso-fest. The league also took a weight jump as players put on muscle bulk since the game was more physical and interior oriented. This era was arguably the height of the athletic center (D-Rob, Hakeem, Ewing, Zo, Shaq, Dikembe, etc).
A 36 year old HIV riddled Magic with no knees and probably weak stamina came out of retirement after a 4 year layoff and still put up 15, 6, 7 on 46% shooting, and he did so from the PF position.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/...johnsma02.html
Duncan would be my next example, but I doubt I need to go into detail since we all here know his career progression.
But yeah, it'd be impossible for any pre-1997 player to evolve into this era because Eastern Bloc training and "explosiveness." Never mind the fact that sports history is filled with examples of players doing just that over 15-20 year careers. But 2015-16 NBA basketball is somehow the exception because Kawhi Leonard is 230lb
midnightpulp with 0 empathy
One of the biggest misnomers about MJ and his success. Taking away the Nike angle, teh reason Jordan is revered he has great fundamentals to go with athleticism. Other guys like David Thomspson, Roy Marble, kendall Gill etc had Jordanesque athletic gifts. none had the the fundamentals or drive of Jordan ...and I hated Jordan in the 90's (unlike most).
Did some of his 50 point games come against slow white guys or unathletic black guys? Absolutely. But comparing a high jumping gerald green to Mj and saying if he was playing the 80's/90's he would get similar Wheaties type love, is crazy. he would just be a homeless man's David thompson.
midnightpulp with 0 empathy
Oh boy... he made his point in few sentences but as it was not enough he just poured more pain over and over
Imo, one of the best ass whipping of ST history tbh
OP got destroyed in this thread.
Not only that. No hard fouls. No hand checking. No Def 3 seconds. The 80's and early 90's NBA basketball was brutal defensively. The fact Bird put those numbers up in that Era is amazing. Defenders use to be able to mug players.
That is why its hard to compare players from that Era to this era. Players in today's NBA don't have to face the defense that was played 20+ years ago. Bird is a top 10 player easily. He is 7th on my list and I still consider him the best SF to play the game at this point. He was the Duncan of the SF position. Not superior athleticly, but one the of highest BB IQs ever to play the game, which is why he was putting up numbers like this in his 30's.
How is an all time great of all time different from an all time great?
midnightpulp
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