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prime Jordan transplanted to today's time would do worse but that is only because he molded his game for a different time. If he were brought up to play in this time he would've simply worked on different aspects of his game (3pt shooting etc) and eventually imo dominated just as much as he ever did.
[QUOTE=HurricaneKid]So wrong. Again.
Thibs completely revolutionized defense in the NBA. The mere suggestion that you think it is a possibility that you know more than he does is strikingly comical to those of us who know the game (and know you do not).
I can't imagine you even know what the defensive help rules were.
In today's NBA the average ISO manages to score ~.54 points/possession. That is WAY less than HALF the efficiency of a pass to a cutter. In MJs day the NBA NEEDED superstars and the rules made it FAR more difficult to defend them. ISO plays by the best players were among the most efficient usages of a possession. You CERTAINLY couldn't frontside help, etc. This is why when MJ was off scoring 37ppg 37 players averaged 20ppg or more. Kiki Vandegwe avg 27. Walter Davis was going for 24. Basketball was simple. Give the ball to your best player. Thats your best offense. Now the defense is allowed to provide strongside help, shade off lesser offensive players, etc. And individuals simply cannot beat defenses. Now offenses have to misdirect and attack defenses on the weakside. In 2012-13 the number of 20ppg scorers was all the way down to 9. There is just no argument to be made that English could score 29ppg in today's game. So yes, OF COURSE any player who had tremendous one on one skill has their impact magnified in that game over the game today.[/QUOTE]
Damn, you just shut all the MJ stans down with one post. :applause:
[I]“Jordan kept so much pressure on you in so many different ways, and it’s a different game now than it was,” Thibodeau said. “Back then, it was a lot more physical than it is today. But you couldn’t play zone defense the way you can today.
“Not being able to be as physical hurts you some. When Jordan was playing, you could play a lot more physical. He took a beating.
“Great players take beatings, but it was probably to an extreme in the ’90s.”[/I]
[B]Thibodeau, October 2012
[/B]
So in the above Thibs says it hurts you some defensively to not be able to be as physical.
But today you can play zone defense whenever you want (although stats show that teams only play it [I]1-10%[/I] of the time, which translates to single minutes), to help counter the lack of physical defense in today's modern game.
He says Jordan took beatings, beatings that were to "an extreme."
So would Jordan excel in today's less physical NBA?
[QUOTE=atljonesbro]Damn, you just shut all the MJ stans down with one post. :applause:[/QUOTE]
FWIW, I am a Jordsanstan. But thats no excuse to ignore reality.
[QUOTE=BIZARRO]I watched a 36 year old run down Kobe Bryant basically get any look he wanted last night. He just missed most of the shots, but they were great looks for the most part.
A 27 year old MJ would have completely torched it. Hell, a prime Kobe Bryant would have torched it, and he still had 16 in the first half.
With what I watched last night (Harden getting 32), a 27 year old Mike would have had 40 without breaking a sweat. And easily could/would if he chose have had more. So it's a total GTFO to anyone who thinks prime MJ would have a tough time today.[/QUOTE]
:applause: Always good to see BIZZARO post
Umm... didn't Lebron just post 27 on 57% last year? 57%??? Mostly off layups, dunks and wide open jump shots?
The only way to really slow MJ down was by being physical with him. Play flag football with him and he'd torch you. Look at the scouting report the 96 Knicks had on him... [url]http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=4r28b4&s=5#.VFE4OsmwVvI[/url] --> [I]BE PHYSICAL WITH HIM AT ALL TIMES[/I]
They took physicality out of the game. Moving your feet sounds great and is a fundamental way to play defense but if you can't grab and hold MJ [I][U]in addition to that[/U][/I], you can't slow MJ down from getting whatever look he wanted.
Thibs is right but it doesn't mean MJ would be less effective now. Oh, and bigs still found a way to shadow Jordan in his more versatile / drive-centric game style from '87 - '93.
MJ from '96 - '98 scored almost exclusively on jumpers. His point about drives becoming jumpers. Which means MJ put up 30.4 ppg, 29.7 ppg, and 28.7 ppg from ages 33 - 35 on post up, elbow, and mid range jumpers. So an extra wall of defenders means nadda.
It's all how you perceive things. The influx of Europeans brought more ball movement, soft zones, and different set of rules to pretty up the game considering how ugly it got from the mid 90s until the mid 2000s.
One could consider this era harder to score in due to the zones. One could consider the 90's era more difficult to score in due to the increased physicality, and ability to be physical on the perimeter guarding your opponent.
More isolation play, with less room for help defense. But the man in front of you could physically impede you. That can't happen now.
There is no way prime MJ from '88 - '93, who was like a mix of prime Wade and prime Kobe wouldn't be torching this league.
Hell, Fadeaway Jordan from the 2nd three peat would be doing the SAME exact thing just to a lesser extent with his decline in physical ability, and versatility offensively.
People forget how much superior MJ was off the ball, slashing, and getting open compared to the ball in hand guys today of: LeBron, Kobe, Wade, and Durant. His catch - shoot game was better too. He could find the hole in the zone, cut to it, catch and shoot efficiently to obliterate defenses.
One of the abilities he learned in Dean Smith's 4 corner offense. Something a lot of the HS / AAU / One n Done cats have yet to implement into their arsenal.
[QUOTE=DonDadda59]Last season set the all time record for highest league wide eFG%. Perimeter players collectively are scoring more and shooting better than they have in past eras, by a large margin.
[/QUOTE]
Don't know if you're being disingenuous or if you genuinely just don't understand. I'm leaning towards the former, as it's apparent that you are purposely eschewing RAW stats.
EFG% is a statistic that's greatly boosted by 3 point shooting, compare raw numbers and the disparity become glaring. Points per possession again is effected largely by the 3 point shot, as there are less possessions today but WAY more 3 point shots made.
Scoring 125 points on 100 possessions is not the SAME as scoring 100 on 85 possessions even though Ortg /PPP says it is.
The pace didn't magically decrease, the league's emphasis on defense as a means of winning basketball games along with the rule changes that make defensive rotations shorter and the 1-4 position getting longer and more athletic has [B]everything [/B]to do with that.
I mean guys like Kiki Vandeweghe and Alex English were scoring in the high 20's on remarkable efficiency (And I'm talking FG % not that math nerd TS% or EFG% crap). Every season you had dozens of wing players scoring on high volume and high efficiency, now you can count on two hands the number of players (not just wings) that are doing that.
[QUOTE=Akhenaten]
EFG% is a statistic that's greatly boosted by 3 point shooting, compare raw numbers and the disparity bDecome glaring. Points per possession again is effected largely by the 3 point shot, as there are less possessions today but WAY more 3 point shots made.
[/QUOTE]
indeed... and the 3-point shooting coupled with the defensive 3 seconds is what creates the phenomenal spacing we see in today's game... and the spacing makes ball movement more effective since the defense has to cover more ground - ultimately, the spacing is what ALLOWS for the optimal shot allocation that we see every team and player strive for today - 3-pointers, FT's and at-rim looks...
so no more tough, low-quality mid-range shots that crater one's FG% and eFG%... however, we know that previous eras lived off these shots - this is how we know that guys like Jordan and Bird that managed 60% TS taking all two's and mid-range (considered the worst shots in today's game), would shoot even better today with the easier and more optimal shot allocation that today's players have.
[QUOTE]The pace didn't magically decrease, the league's emphasis on defense as a means of winning basketball games along with the rule changes that make defensive rotations shorter and the 1-4 position getting longer and more athletic has [B]everything [/B]to do with that.
[/QUOTE]
you made up literally everything in this post - first of all, players were TALLER in the 80's.... documentation:
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_league_average_height,_weight,_age_and_playing_experience[/url]
also, defense and pace was much more clogged and slowed down in the mid-90's or early 2000's than it is now...
the REAL reason pace is slower today is specifically because of the 3-point shot... if you had an advanced understanding of the game, you would know this.
the efg of a 3-pointer plummets with even the slightest contest - so you have to run offense to get decent 3-point looks - this takes time and shot-clock and slows the pace down - historically, as the 3-point shot attempts have increased, pace has slowed.
contrast that with the 80's when everyone shot all two-pointers - good mid-range shooters (like most players back then) can still hit a mid-range shot with guys draped all over, so they would run up and down and jack it up at the first sliver of daylight, or maybe with no daylight.... but the pace was way faster as a result of no threes (i'm in no way advocating for no threes, i'm just making an observation; i quite like the 3 point shot... its the defensive 3 seconds that is overkill).
[quote]
I mean guys like Kiki Vandeweghe and Alex English were scoring in the high 20's on remarkable efficiency. Every season you had dozens of wing players scoring on high volume and high efficiency, now you can count on two hands the number of players (not just wings) that are doing that.[/QUOTE]
it would be fun to see today's 3-and-D player go back and have to take all mid-range amongst no spacing - there are a ton of guys today that wouldn't make the league back then - not only because it was a 300 person league and not a 450 player league (so the bottom 150 players from today would not make it in the 80's), but also because the many 3-point specialists like Danny Green flat-out would be overseas.
For as many Jordan "stans" there supposedly are...Its always the same 2-3 Jordan Haters in all these threads...Just sayin...
[QUOTE=HurricaneKid]You are so ridiculous. There was no def 3 seconds because if your man was past the three point line above the FT line it was illegal defense if you WENT INTO THE LANE (for any purpose except to double the offensive player). And if you took ONE STEP towards the offensive player you had to go all the way to him. Help is now strongside, not weakside. All PnR defenses now incorporate a third defender to play off both offensive threats. Before defenses were forced to guard worthless offensive players 30 ft from the basket, now they can shade to the real threats.
And while total offense has stayed relatively flat, individual scoring has plummeted and the scoring is much more spread out.[/QUOTE]
You will never win. 3ball is literally a Jordan sociopath. You can't win. He would rather kill himself than admit any flaw of Jordan.
[QUOTE=3ball][B]you can't answer the simple question as to why league-wide ORtg (the stat that measures how hard it is to score) has remained stable over the years.
[/B]
all you want to do is act like multiple defenders clogging the paint on every possession was nothing compared to today's weak zones where all defenders must position themselves [I]outside[/I] of the paint.
i also notice that you avoided responding to the post below, which quotes NBA people saying that new defensive strategies are invented to combat rule changes, and that Thibs strategies are designed around mitigating defensive 3 seconds..[/QUOTE]
Jordan would be a 15ppg scorer today, if he was LUCKY. Best case scenario today is a rich man's Gerald Green.
[COLOR="White"]3balls blood pressure rising lol[/COLOR]
Gerald Green can shoot threes. Poor man's.
[COLOR="White"]lol[/COLOR]
[QUOTE=3ball][B]you can't answer the simple question as to why league-wide ORtg (the stat that measures how hard it is to score) has remained stable over the years.
[/B]
all you want to do is act like multiple defenders clogging the paint on every possession was nothing compared to today's weak zones where all defenders must position themselves [I]outside[/I] of the paint.
i also notice that you avoided responding to the post below, which quotes NBA people saying that new defensive strategies are invented to combat rule changes, and that Thibs strategies are designed around mitigating defensive 3 seconds..[/QUOTE]
Christ you are dense. IT IS IMMATERIAL.
You are saying that total offense is flat. OF COURSE IT IS. We aren't talking about total team scoring. We are talking about individual scoring. And scoring distribution is completely different than it was when MJ was destroying defenses. Case in point, in the 87/87 season MJ took 2279 shots. No player in the last 6 years has taken 1700 shots. So we are talking about MJ shooting more than any player in the last 6 years BY 30%+. Defenses are allowed to gear towards the scoring threats of the opposition and force secondary scorers to score more.
You argument equates to "The American economy has maintained consistent growth, therefore VCR sales based on 1987 totals should maintain a linear progression.". Its an idiotic position. Individual stats are inflated as defenses were not allowed the freedom they are today.
You NEED to take a basic math class. You don't understand relationships between numbers at all. You take enormous liberties with subsets of numbers and relate them to unrelateable figures.
do you guys realize there is a stat that measures how hard it is to score?
it's called league-wide ORtg or points-per-possession... and this stat hasn't changed in 30 years.
this proves that the rule changes over the years result in a zero-sum game, where the defense gains in some areas (i.e. quasi-zones allowed), but loses in other areas (defensive 3 seconds, no more physical play), and the overall level of defensive effectiveness remains relatively constant.
and the new defensive strategies result from the rule changes anyway, so in the [I]absence[/I] of the rule changes, the new strategies aren't needed.... the new defensive strategies only ensure that it remains equally hard to score under the new rules as it was under the old rules, and constant league-wide ORtg over time proves this.
[url]http://grantland.com/features/packing-paint-nba-defensive-strategy-forcing-coaches-rethink-their-offense/[/url]
“[I]A lot of the defensive strategies you see now are a natural evolution from rule changes,[/I]” says Houston GM Daryl Morey..
[I]...he (Thibodeau) was the first coach to stretch the limits of the NBA’s new defensive three-second rule and flood the strong side with hybrid man/zone defenses."
[/I]
.
[QUOTE=3ball]do you guys realize there is a stat that measures how hard it is to score?
it's called league-wide ORtg or points-per-possession... and this stat hasn't changed in 30 years.
this proves that the rule changes over the years result in a zero-sum game, where the defense gains in some areas (i.e. quasi-zones allowed), but loses in other areas (defensive 3 seconds, no more physical play), and the overall level of defensive effectiveness remains relatively constant.
and the new defensive strategies result from the rule changes anyway, so in the [I]absence[/I] of the rule changes, the new strategies aren't needed.... the new defensive strategies only ensure that it remains equally hard to score under the new rules as it was under the old rules, and constant league-wide ORtg over time proves this.
[url]http://grantland.com/features/packing-paint-nba-defensive-strategy-forcing-coaches-rethink-their-offense/[/url]