I wonder if today's NBA players are faster than the ones from like 30 or 40 years ago

[Street Hunger]

We know that today's NBA players are more athletic than the ones from 30 or 40 years ago. Like they jump higher, can clearly dunk way better, etc.

But purely from a speed standpoint, like literally running from point a to point b I wonder if today's NBA players are faster in that way. Not quickness or athletic ability but pure speed in a straight line

[Kblaze8855]

As small as NBA courts are virtually nobody has ever reached full speed sprinting. Maybe someone painfully slow but most never get a true all out sprint. Guys in the Olympics are fastest on the back end of the 100 and nba courts are only like 30 meters.

I do remember an Olympic track coach who worked out with Gilbert arenas saying if he cleaned up his technique, he would be legitimately world-class fast and we don’t even think of him as a top NBA athlete.

There’s no way to track it really at basketball playing speeds. Even a “sprint” isn’t long enough to go full speed. All you can really judge is explosiveness and quickness.

[bison]

Very marginally due to improvements in training/roids, but stop acting like there's been a significant advancement in human evolution over the last 30 years that men are jumping higher and running faster. In track and field the 100m world record was 10.8s in 1891 and 9.58s by 2007, but that's a sport entirely dedicated to speed. But like I said its training/roids, humans haven't evolved since thousands and thousands of years ago