Locker room talk: rolling basketball thread

[line b]

and as a bit of an aside I do think theres an element of the institutional hurdles at play for the current warriors team similar to the 60's Celtics, albeit extremely less significant and of a different shape. You watch 00's basketball much of the sets being run are the same as today except the drive and kick ends with a drive and kick to a role player shooting an open long 2. no reason to think those role players couldnt have done what the current do and practice spacing that shot out a few feet and increase their value dramatically. and I think this exists outside of the contexts of rules/playstyle because role players will always get open shots off the gravity of stars. but there was 40 years of conventional wisdom at play holding back whats now recognized as a pretty obvious and easily implemented change in technique. Both Steve Nash and Mike Dantoni have acknowledged this was a factor holding them back in the aughts

 

[Leo]

 

[IdleRich]

I was ages 6-8 watching those series at the downtown sports grill over curly fries, so don't have much of a memory, I'm sure you're right re Kings

Re: Rockets this is hopelessly circular because what are we holding steady but—if you write off the Cavs as a scrubby team, I suppose it's not impressive that the Rockets could probably beat them. Still, they were 50-5 healthy in the regular season, #1 net rating in the league with a top 10 all-time SG, a top 5 all-time PG, and a pretty powerful supporting cast that set multiple records for 3pt shooting.

Anyway, re: Warriors—If you're running historically good, record-setting motion offenses, league-leading defense, and revolutionizing how the sport is played; if you have ('17-19) the three best shooters of all-time in the same starting lineup; if you're basically undefeated in the playoffs while healthy, and have made the Championships every year since 2015 that you had a non-injury-plagued lineup—then I think we should assume that the teams which managed to take them to 7 games, or steal a ring, were themselves great teams. Rather than assuming that the league collectively shat the bed for nearly a decade and didn't have much talent and Ws got lucky. I mean, half of the Top 75 players are from 2010+. You can say "recency bias" but again, IMO the objective, measurable, dramatic leaps in sports the past three decades, in sports with consistent benchmarks like track'n'field, makes this feel reasonable. @IdleRich what do you think? Am I crazy here? I get that inter-era comparison is tough, but like... We basically know that athletes have gotten significantly better since the 1960s, and even the 1980s/90s, in every sport we can do objective comparison.

I think it's very hard if not impossible. Obviously Usain Bolt ran the 100m faster in raw unadjusted seconds than Jesse Owens - but he had the advantage of better training, nutrition and possibly drugs too. I'd say that simply comparing them straight like that is the same as comparing wages, you need to adjust for the "inflation rate" and compare the times in "real terms" - both of which are nigh on impossible to do.

So for greats I tend to look at those who dominated in some way - maybe they were further ahead of everyone than other champions, maybe they stayed at the top for ages - maybe both of the previous things. But again we are getting into problems with how strong their rivals were etc Then you have those who changed the sport with new paradigm - Fosbury or whoever realised you could overtake people by changing down a gear on corners - but perhaps they are one trick ponies.

Plus I can see that in basketball the rule changes and accompanying tactics changes - maybe something deeper than tactics... the way that the game is played - make it even harder.

In short, as a rule, I think most comparison between eras is fairly meaningless - which doesn't mean I don't like to do it. Sometimes I get into debates on who is the best ever out of all sports and eras, which is obviously even worse....

 

[line b]

just to reiterate my point so I dont become the poster boy for fantasy one v one games between jordan and lebron- Im not comparing players/teams between eras. Im comparing the eras themselves.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

my original point was that the league right now is tougher than its ever been

yeah I don't agree with that at all, or I rather I don't think anyone can say that with any degree of certainty

and none of the arguments you or anyone else have put forward have shown it actually is tougher beyond saying "I think it is bc x reasons"

you're making two points. A) both the average skill level and distribution of skill have increased B) therefore, the league is tougher.

A is indisputably true. however, it doesn't follow at all that A, therefore B.

bc you're not just saying "the league as a whole is better" - that that would be true

what you're actually saying is "bc the league as a whole is better, it's harder for any one team to win"

but if every team is on average better than it nullifies the overall improvement in quality across the league

not uniformly, of course, but no era of the league - no human endeavor ever - has had totally uniform distribution, so the point holds

same thing goes for analytics, training methods, nutrition, etc - not uniformly distributed but everyone has access to the same general level of improvement

sometimes there is a Moneyball type inefficiency that early adopters exploit as a temporary competitive advantage

but the nature of professional sports is that as soon as its success is proven, everyone else will adopt

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

a more concise way of putting it is that you can't separate a team from its historical context

what's the famous Marx quote?

men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please. they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.

as with 18th Brumaire, so with the NBA

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

in this case it's the tradition of long 2-pointers clanking off the rim weighing on the nightmare of the brains of coaches

but same thing

 

[line b]

yeah I don't agree with that at all, or I rather I don't think anyone can say that with any degree of certainty

and none of the arguments you or anyone else have put forward have shown it actually is tougher beyond saying "I think it is bc x reasons"

you're making two points. A) both the average skill level and distribution of skill have increased B) therefore, the league is tougher.

A is indisputably true. however, it doesn't follow at all that A, therefore B.

bc you're not just saying "the league as a whole is better" - that that would be true

what you're actually saying is "bc the league as a whole is better, it's harder for any one team to win"

but if every team is on average better than it nullifies the overall improvement in quality across the league

not uniformly, of course, but no era of the league - no human endeavor ever - has had totally uniform distribution, so the point holds

same thing goes for analytics, training methods, nutrition, etc - not uniformly distributed but everyone has access to the same general level of improvement

sometimes there is a Moneyball type inefficiency that early adopters exploit as a temporary competitive advantage

but the nature of professional sports is that as soon as its success is proven, everyone else will adopt

you misunderstand my point- I not saying the league is 'tougher,' Im saying the league is more unpredictable which is a big difference. I used 'tougher' in that sentence as short hand for the point I had already walked out

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

you misunderstand my point- I not saying the league is 'tougher,' Im saying the league is more unpredictable which is a big difference.

I didn't misunderstand anything. you're saying it's tougher to win bc it's more unpredictable.

but it isn't more unpredictable

show me where it is, and show me how that's made it more difficult for a team to win now than it was in 1985 or 1995 or 2005

 

[line b]

"even if we say that distribution of talent has been similar enough to be near negligible, my point is that a league with more weapons- 'good' players, strategic techniques, higher skill floor- increases variable outcomes by the n-th degree. the tree has more branches."

i.e. even if all eras are equally tough- extended dominance over a more amorphous entitity is just innately a more difficult task

 

[line b]

I didn't misunderstand anything. you're saying it's tougher to win bc it's more unpredictable.

but it isn't more unpredictable

show me where it is

for one, the 3pt shot. weve already agreed on this!

 

[line b]

more star player movement aswell

 

[line b]

again this is all unproveable I just dont think its so crazy to say that a room with 50 guns in it is harder to control than a room with 10, even if the outcome will always be that everyone gets shot

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

if the NBA was just a 3-point shooting contest, I'd agree with you wholeheartedly

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

different teams, different eras, different challenges

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

what I don't think you can say is today's greater offensive volatility is a inherently more difficult challenge than the challenges of other eras

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

many of which don't exist today, and some of which would make today's style of play impossible

 

[line b]

all fair points

 

[Leo]

christ.

anyone got a spare miracle?

 

[sus]

I'm sorry Leo I was pulling for you, I was thinking, "This Warriors squad has won enough, give one to the Celtics"