The 80s and 90s were stacked with talent and superstars. Evrey team had one or two legendary players and a bunch of great role players.
Jordan, Pippen, Magic, Bird, Stockton, Malone, Robinson, Barkley, Olajuwon, Drexler, Isiah Thomas, Tim Hardaway, Reggie Miller, Shawn Kemp, Ewing, and on and on... That was without comparison with now IMHO and that was the moment when the NBA really started to boom.
Maybe, but I don’t think you understand the difference in Vancouver the last 20 years. Vancouver is a top tier World city now with baffling foreign wealth (especially asian). Basketball has grown exponentially in Canada from the early days of the Vancouver/TO expansion. They have the infrastructure in place to host a team immediately in terms of arena, parking, public transit etc etc.
The NBA started to boom because they were strategic in building international sport. Many of those guys paved the way but that era WAS NOT booming with talent. These days most good teams are 3-4 All-Stars deep. Not us though.
It was the moment that the NBA started to Boom and led to the current state of talent.
Superstars are superstars because they stand out from their peers. As the overall talent levels rise people standout less.
if the spurs ended up in a LA-LA-PHX division i'd commit seppuku
Well they say Roe is dead anyway...
Yup
Unlike in the 90s when talent was scarce resulting in a diluted league and traffic cones and grocery baggers ( o John Starks) starting in the NBA
Yeah exactly. I think right now the league is MUCH deeper than it was then.
Another way to boost revenue without overtaxing the players is to add more games but restrict each player to appearing in 82 or fewer regular season games.
I always thought the league could reduce wear and tear on the stars by keeping the 82-game season and not allowing any player to appear in more than 66 games, but expanding the schedule to, say, 100 games and not allowing a player to appear in more than 82 is even better for the league.
Tons of purists would hate it, sure, and the league would have to expand rosters to 18 or 19 to make up for this restriction. But I think it would provide a big bump to overall league revenue and profits.
I'm not sure adding games -- especially games where stars don't play -- is really what the league should want for revenue. Rather, they need to find a way to charge more per game, or put another way, they need to find a way to add more high-quality/high-value games. That's why the league is pushing for the play-in to stay and why Silver wants an in-season tournament. If it's not exclusive it's basically exclusive that the NBA licenses all of their games to three companies now (Disney, AT&T and Comcast). They don't really have the smaller networks to bully into team contracts. They'll need to get the giants to pay, and simply more low-quality games that they can't show nationally anyway probably won't do that. Big events will be the things that get them to spend more on their media deals.
Considering the rise of injuries during the big-ticket events like guys sitting out ASGs and missing the playoffs, I don't think the NBPA needs to sell the owners on more games being a bad idea. More rest, with more stars playing each night and more spectacle seems to be the way to go for both sides. I don't think the owners will let games reduce with the assurance that they'll make more money in the long run, but unlike the NFL, it's very possible to make all of the ends (medical, financial, marketing, etc) meet in the NBA.
Just sticking with 1991-1995 (pre Canada expansion) you had all those guys plus an influx of young talent - DC, Payton, Mutumbo, Steve Smith, Grandmama, Kenny Anderson, Terell Brandon, Shaq, Mourning, Sprewell, Jim Jackson, Kukoc, Webber, Van Exel, Nickel Hardaway, Vin Baker, Mashburn, Rider, Kidd, Big Dog, Grant Hill, Eddie Jones, and a host of others who had high trajectories but for injured.
Early 90s NBA was entertaining, compe ive, and as athletic as anything you have today. Everyone could throw down alley oops, tomahawks, crossovers, and shoot from anywhere other than behind the 3pt. The era will be forgotten as there was no real coverage in the regular season outside one night on TNT and Sunday NBC games after football ended.
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