Tuesday, July 25, 2006
When the NBA was king (part two)
When the NBA was king Part Two
Tonight I will be looking at the players, lack of talent today and the ill effects of the Bulls and to a lesser extent the Laker Dynasties.
I think we can all agree that the level of play in the NBA today is pretty enemic. Yeah, I hear the younger folks saying Kobe and Lebron are legends and all that but what these people fail to realize is that these guys are excelling in what is basically a watered down league where marginal players are over-valued because there is a dearth of talent overall.
Let's take the wayback machine to the 1980s and while the players were not as athletic as these guys are today they had fundamentals. Most of the stars of the NBA in that time had full college careers behind them and learning from some of the best coaches in the college ranks. Today you have kids that literally can't wait to bust out of collegiate "prison". They will only marginally buy into their coach's system when they know full well that they'll be making the big bucks of the NBA and shoe endorsements etc etc.
So now we have college coaches recruiting kids that they feel are more "polished" so they can win now rather then building a program from the ground up because they don't have the luxury of teaching their kids the fundamentals of the game. There are certainly exceptions to this but by and large this is what college basketball recruiting has turned into. So when these kids get drafted into the NBA their basketball IQ is stunted to a large degree.
Let's also look at what the NBA is touting as it's future in the Euro players. I saw a guy at Operation Sports complain about Euro players and how they're no good but au contraire my friend they ARE good. These kids are for a lack of a better term indoctrinated into basketball. They're taught the game from the ground up and the European coaches have taken the drills that American coaches USED to teach and have made it into an art form. The problem is that these kids have the basics drilled into their heads so much that they've lost something that players back in the day and yes, even players of today posess and that something is creativity and the playground mentality.
You see, the Euro players succeed through repitition, so much so that they become almost machine-like in the way they play. They don't have the creativity to improvise or the loose playground feel to try something different. I believe this is mostly due to their coaching rather then anything to do with their skill. A good example of this was Jose Calderron with the Raptors last year. He was finding some success early on with his jumper and he was mixing in a slashing, to the hoop style of play to go along with it. When he got cold, he became very tentative, passed up the open shots, didn't drive to the hoop and when he did shoot they were always long range jumpers that require feel and timing to get in. He didn't have the creativity to just try something different or be aggressive with the basketball at all.
On the flip side the major problem with today's players is that they're TOO in tuned with the highlight reel plays. They're TOO flashy and want to make the SportsCenter highlights. Mainly what this does is mask the lack of fundamental skills most players have. They're too insecure to just play the game the way it's supposed to be played. In some ways you have to put a little bit of the blame on the prolific high flying antics of Michael Jordan and Dominique Wilkins as they took what Dr. J popularized and put it into the stratosphere.
Last but not least, I truly believe in my heart of hearts that most of the players back in the day would be highly successful today. Some of them may not be superstars like they were then but they'd be damn good. You have to remember they played in a league that was either lightning fast up and down the court action or rough and tumble with big guys banging all over the place. Hell, you had two teams in that time period that made a living out of abusing their opponents in the "Bad Boy" Pistons and the Pat Riley coached Knicks. Do you honestly think that Lebron or Wade could succeed in an enviroment where they're constantly being pushed around? Hell, a guy like Rasheed Wallace would be kicked out at the end of the 1st quarter every game because he's being "fouled" all the time.
Seeing that this post went a little long i'll save the Dynasties part for Part Three.
I think we can all agree that the level of play in the NBA today is pretty enemic. Yeah, I hear the younger folks saying Kobe and Lebron are legends and all that but what these people fail to realize is that these guys are excelling in what is basically a watered down league where marginal players are over-valued because there is a dearth of talent overall.
Let's take the wayback machine to the 1980s and while the players were not as athletic as these guys are today they had fundamentals. Most of the stars of the NBA in that time had full college careers behind them and learning from some of the best coaches in the college ranks. Today you have kids that literally can't wait to bust out of collegiate "prison". They will only marginally buy into their coach's system when they know full well that they'll be making the big bucks of the NBA and shoe endorsements etc etc.
So now we have college coaches recruiting kids that they feel are more "polished" so they can win now rather then building a program from the ground up because they don't have the luxury of teaching their kids the fundamentals of the game. There are certainly exceptions to this but by and large this is what college basketball recruiting has turned into. So when these kids get drafted into the NBA their basketball IQ is stunted to a large degree.
Let's also look at what the NBA is touting as it's future in the Euro players. I saw a guy at Operation Sports complain about Euro players and how they're no good but au contraire my friend they ARE good. These kids are for a lack of a better term indoctrinated into basketball. They're taught the game from the ground up and the European coaches have taken the drills that American coaches USED to teach and have made it into an art form. The problem is that these kids have the basics drilled into their heads so much that they've lost something that players back in the day and yes, even players of today posess and that something is creativity and the playground mentality.
You see, the Euro players succeed through repitition, so much so that they become almost machine-like in the way they play. They don't have the creativity to improvise or the loose playground feel to try something different. I believe this is mostly due to their coaching rather then anything to do with their skill. A good example of this was Jose Calderron with the Raptors last year. He was finding some success early on with his jumper and he was mixing in a slashing, to the hoop style of play to go along with it. When he got cold, he became very tentative, passed up the open shots, didn't drive to the hoop and when he did shoot they were always long range jumpers that require feel and timing to get in. He didn't have the creativity to just try something different or be aggressive with the basketball at all.
On the flip side the major problem with today's players is that they're TOO in tuned with the highlight reel plays. They're TOO flashy and want to make the SportsCenter highlights. Mainly what this does is mask the lack of fundamental skills most players have. They're too insecure to just play the game the way it's supposed to be played. In some ways you have to put a little bit of the blame on the prolific high flying antics of Michael Jordan and Dominique Wilkins as they took what Dr. J popularized and put it into the stratosphere.
Last but not least, I truly believe in my heart of hearts that most of the players back in the day would be highly successful today. Some of them may not be superstars like they were then but they'd be damn good. You have to remember they played in a league that was either lightning fast up and down the court action or rough and tumble with big guys banging all over the place. Hell, you had two teams in that time period that made a living out of abusing their opponents in the "Bad Boy" Pistons and the Pat Riley coached Knicks. Do you honestly think that Lebron or Wade could succeed in an enviroment where they're constantly being pushed around? Hell, a guy like Rasheed Wallace would be kicked out at the end of the 1st quarter every game because he's being "fouled" all the time.
Seeing that this post went a little long i'll save the Dynasties part for Part Three.
# posted by Chris Fung @ 9:34 PM 
