Im Still Ballin
03-13-2024, 02:02 PM
With the "we done with the '90s!" meme going around on social media, I thought I'd share this great SI article from 1991. About 32.5 years ago. I quoted some of the best parts.
https://vault.si.com/vault/1991/10/16/could-cousy-play-in-todays-nba-bob-cousy-was-brilliant-in-his-day-but-would-he-and-his-peers-succeed-in-the-game-of-the-90s
COULD COUSY PLAY IN TODAY'S NBA?
BOB COUSY WAS BRILLIANT IN HIS DAY. BUT WOULD HE AND HIS PEERS SUCCEED IN THE GAME OF THE '90S?
ALEXANDER WOLFF
...
"If you're talking about Hall of Famers, yes, we could play," he says. "There are guys today making a million dollars a year who go to applaud and miss their hands. [Bill] Russell, Oscar [Robertson], guys like that—we would function today, and quite effectively, if not actually dominate. Russ would still be effective. I would be one of the premier point guards. Point guards are at much more of a premium. I don't think there are five or six now who can really run a team."
Cousy is unusual among basketball old-timers in this regard: There is actually a current NBA player, an All-Star, no less, who reminds people of him. Watch John Stockton, the floor leader of the Utah Jazz, and it's not hard to imagine Cousy prospering in the NBA today. Indeed, Jazz forward Karl Malone calls Stockton "Bob Cousy without the accent." Stockton is virtually the same height (6'1") and weight (175) as Cousy, with the same strong legs and the same feel for his teammates. If Stockton somehow doesn't seem as sensational as Cousy once did, it's because the evolution of the game into an aerial ballet has established new standards for the sensational.
How does one determine whether other stars from the NBA's past could play today? It isn't as easy as pairing them off with contemporary counterparts. There is no latter-day equivalent for Wilt Chamberlain, for instance, yet there's no doubt that Chamberlain would be a dominant force in the NBA of any era. As for players like Robertson, Russell, Elgin Baylor and Jerry West, they were all, like their forerunner Cousy, either Promethean in the way they interpreted the game or unique in the physical equipment they were blessed with—or both. They would all be stars today, even if they might no longer stand out as such singular specimens.
But what about the half generation before them, men like George Mikan, Bob Pettit and Dolph Schayes? The 6'10", 245-pound Mikan was so slow that people around the league called the Minneapolis Laker offense "waiting for Mikan," which is what the rest of the Lakers did until Mikan finally took up his position in the low post so the team could initiate its half-court set. In today's NBA, with its 24-second clock and 21st-century athlete, the only waiting around that's done is for Michael Jordan to return to earth. Could someone with Mikan's size, pluck, intelligence and coordination play out the forthcoming 1991-92 NBA season respectably?
Well, so long as the likes of the Orlando Magic's Greg Kite and the New Jersey Nets' Chris Dudley draw professional salaries, the point really isn't worth arguing. But it's safe to say that Mikan, who in 1950 was Noted the greatest player of the first half of the 20th century, is fortunate that he had a chance to earn his place in the Hall of Fame when big men were relatively scarce and coaches were so grateful to have one that they would happily overhaul their systems to accommodate him.
With such prototypes as Patrick Ewing, David Robinson and Hakeem Olajuwon, today's NBA center is so sleek and active that even Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's low-post style seemed quaint by the time he retired two years ago. Guards now sometimes go 6'8" and 6'9". Forwards are similarly large, only they can jump, too. Even the curiosities, the sub-6-foot guys like Spud Webb, have mastered the art of throwing the ball downward through the hoop—the skill that in Mikan's day was known as the duffer shot.
The point here is that, if asked to be more than a role player, many of the players of yore might have blossomed into all-arounders. The same knack around the basket that made Silas a peerless rebounder at 6'7", for instance, might have served him as a scorer, a la Adrian Dantley. Says Schayes's son Danny, a 6'11" center with the Milwaukee Bucks, "A lot of players from that era could have adjusted. Even my dad at six-foot-eight—he was very strong and a good rebounder. The biggest problem would be that the guys were slower, and overall they weren't that big. The guys who would have trouble today would be the six-foot-eight centers."
We will resist the temptation to settle this matter by summoning Dolph and Danny out to the driveway for a little one-on-one and instead take up Danny's point. As recently as the '70s, teams not only started and won with centers in the 6'8" range (such as Boston's Dave Cowens and Washington's Wes Unseld) but also started and won with 6'4" small forwards (for instance, Jim McMillian of the 1971-72 NBA champion Lakers) and 6'6" power forwards (e.g., Dave DeBusschere of the 1969-70 and 1972-73 NBA champion Knicks). Now players of any enormous dimension can cover the distance between points A and B in an instant, even with the ball. "The skill that has made the biggest jump is the ball handling," says West, who's now general manager of the Lakers. "There are just more kinds of players who can handle the ball."
The old-timers have noted all this with an admiration that sometimes verges on awe. But they still stick up for themselves. "Players from my era would be totally different types of athletes today," says Pettit, a two-time MVP in the late '50s as a center-forward for the St. Louis Hawks. "I didn't play until I was a junior in high school. I didn't play AAU ball or in summer leagues. My coach in high school was an assistant football coach. If I played today I'd start at 10 years old. I'd participate in weight programs, clinics, the Nike camp. I'd be much stronger and weigh about 265. [Pettit played at 215.] Who would I relate to today? Someone like Karl Malone. Strong. Pounding the boards. I'd have a three-point shot, everything. I wouldn't have any more drive or desire, though. Every second I played on the court, I was ready to play and wanted to play."
However, toss an entire team of yore into today's NBA and.... Well, even the 1961 Celtics—the team Cousy considers the best he played on, the one that featured the Cooz, Bill Sharman, K.C. Jones and Sam Jones (all of whom wound up in the Hall of Fame, and that was just the backcourt)—couldn't hope to replicate their 57-22 record and NBA title in the '90s. Says Cousy, "Only fools could look at basketball and not say that, physically at least, the jock today is far superior. We shot 40, 41 percent. That wouldn't get you by in a Division III college game today. Shooting skills have gone through the ceiling. I watch the All-Star Came and don't recognize the sport we played 20 or 25 years ago."
https://vault.si.com/vault/1991/10/16/could-cousy-play-in-todays-nba-bob-cousy-was-brilliant-in-his-day-but-would-he-and-his-peers-succeed-in-the-game-of-the-90s
COULD COUSY PLAY IN TODAY'S NBA?
BOB COUSY WAS BRILLIANT IN HIS DAY. BUT WOULD HE AND HIS PEERS SUCCEED IN THE GAME OF THE '90S?
ALEXANDER WOLFF
...
"If you're talking about Hall of Famers, yes, we could play," he says. "There are guys today making a million dollars a year who go to applaud and miss their hands. [Bill] Russell, Oscar [Robertson], guys like that—we would function today, and quite effectively, if not actually dominate. Russ would still be effective. I would be one of the premier point guards. Point guards are at much more of a premium. I don't think there are five or six now who can really run a team."
Cousy is unusual among basketball old-timers in this regard: There is actually a current NBA player, an All-Star, no less, who reminds people of him. Watch John Stockton, the floor leader of the Utah Jazz, and it's not hard to imagine Cousy prospering in the NBA today. Indeed, Jazz forward Karl Malone calls Stockton "Bob Cousy without the accent." Stockton is virtually the same height (6'1") and weight (175) as Cousy, with the same strong legs and the same feel for his teammates. If Stockton somehow doesn't seem as sensational as Cousy once did, it's because the evolution of the game into an aerial ballet has established new standards for the sensational.
How does one determine whether other stars from the NBA's past could play today? It isn't as easy as pairing them off with contemporary counterparts. There is no latter-day equivalent for Wilt Chamberlain, for instance, yet there's no doubt that Chamberlain would be a dominant force in the NBA of any era. As for players like Robertson, Russell, Elgin Baylor and Jerry West, they were all, like their forerunner Cousy, either Promethean in the way they interpreted the game or unique in the physical equipment they were blessed with—or both. They would all be stars today, even if they might no longer stand out as such singular specimens.
But what about the half generation before them, men like George Mikan, Bob Pettit and Dolph Schayes? The 6'10", 245-pound Mikan was so slow that people around the league called the Minneapolis Laker offense "waiting for Mikan," which is what the rest of the Lakers did until Mikan finally took up his position in the low post so the team could initiate its half-court set. In today's NBA, with its 24-second clock and 21st-century athlete, the only waiting around that's done is for Michael Jordan to return to earth. Could someone with Mikan's size, pluck, intelligence and coordination play out the forthcoming 1991-92 NBA season respectably?
Well, so long as the likes of the Orlando Magic's Greg Kite and the New Jersey Nets' Chris Dudley draw professional salaries, the point really isn't worth arguing. But it's safe to say that Mikan, who in 1950 was Noted the greatest player of the first half of the 20th century, is fortunate that he had a chance to earn his place in the Hall of Fame when big men were relatively scarce and coaches were so grateful to have one that they would happily overhaul their systems to accommodate him.
With such prototypes as Patrick Ewing, David Robinson and Hakeem Olajuwon, today's NBA center is so sleek and active that even Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's low-post style seemed quaint by the time he retired two years ago. Guards now sometimes go 6'8" and 6'9". Forwards are similarly large, only they can jump, too. Even the curiosities, the sub-6-foot guys like Spud Webb, have mastered the art of throwing the ball downward through the hoop—the skill that in Mikan's day was known as the duffer shot.
The point here is that, if asked to be more than a role player, many of the players of yore might have blossomed into all-arounders. The same knack around the basket that made Silas a peerless rebounder at 6'7", for instance, might have served him as a scorer, a la Adrian Dantley. Says Schayes's son Danny, a 6'11" center with the Milwaukee Bucks, "A lot of players from that era could have adjusted. Even my dad at six-foot-eight—he was very strong and a good rebounder. The biggest problem would be that the guys were slower, and overall they weren't that big. The guys who would have trouble today would be the six-foot-eight centers."
We will resist the temptation to settle this matter by summoning Dolph and Danny out to the driveway for a little one-on-one and instead take up Danny's point. As recently as the '70s, teams not only started and won with centers in the 6'8" range (such as Boston's Dave Cowens and Washington's Wes Unseld) but also started and won with 6'4" small forwards (for instance, Jim McMillian of the 1971-72 NBA champion Lakers) and 6'6" power forwards (e.g., Dave DeBusschere of the 1969-70 and 1972-73 NBA champion Knicks). Now players of any enormous dimension can cover the distance between points A and B in an instant, even with the ball. "The skill that has made the biggest jump is the ball handling," says West, who's now general manager of the Lakers. "There are just more kinds of players who can handle the ball."
The old-timers have noted all this with an admiration that sometimes verges on awe. But they still stick up for themselves. "Players from my era would be totally different types of athletes today," says Pettit, a two-time MVP in the late '50s as a center-forward for the St. Louis Hawks. "I didn't play until I was a junior in high school. I didn't play AAU ball or in summer leagues. My coach in high school was an assistant football coach. If I played today I'd start at 10 years old. I'd participate in weight programs, clinics, the Nike camp. I'd be much stronger and weigh about 265. [Pettit played at 215.] Who would I relate to today? Someone like Karl Malone. Strong. Pounding the boards. I'd have a three-point shot, everything. I wouldn't have any more drive or desire, though. Every second I played on the court, I was ready to play and wanted to play."
However, toss an entire team of yore into today's NBA and.... Well, even the 1961 Celtics—the team Cousy considers the best he played on, the one that featured the Cooz, Bill Sharman, K.C. Jones and Sam Jones (all of whom wound up in the Hall of Fame, and that was just the backcourt)—couldn't hope to replicate their 57-22 record and NBA title in the '90s. Says Cousy, "Only fools could look at basketball and not say that, physically at least, the jock today is far superior. We shot 40, 41 percent. That wouldn't get you by in a Division III college game today. Shooting skills have gone through the ceiling. I watch the All-Star Came and don't recognize the sport we played 20 or 25 years ago."