Kareem at 42 years and 56 days old game 3 of the finals.

[Kblaze8855]

24/13 in 33 minutes.



Deandre Ayton 22 years old. Game 3 of the finals.







I don’t have some big point to make and I’m not even comparing the two players. Just a look at a couple top pick bigs drafted 50 years apart and how they were used in very different parts of their career.

Kareem only played one more game and retired and wasn’t that every night at that point obviously. Just….something to glance at.

[SouBeachTalents]

What's crazy is he scored all those without Magic setting him up, he missed virtually the entire game. Michael Cooper had 15/13 and played all 48 minutes. And to further demonstrate how different the league was back then, the Pistons made one 3 the entire game and won

[Kblaze8855]

Yes they did. And then the very next finals Laimbeer was lighting Portland up outside:








He set the finals record for 3s that game that Kenny Smith broke in 95.



I wonder at times how quickly some of those teams could adapt

[Shogon]

Yes they did. And then the very next finals Laimbeer was lighting Portland up outside:








He set the finals record for 3s that game that Kenny Smith broke in 95.



I wonder at times how quickly some of those teams could adapt

There hasn't been some seismic shift in human evolution which prevented players of the past from being able to make threes.

They just didn't practice them and they certainly weren't encouraged. The mindset was radically different on a league wide scale.

I don't think they could end up as good in a single season, but maybe like 5 years or less, yes, no problem.

[Kblaze8855]

I don’t think it would take nearly so long. A lot of those guys were pretty well rounded scorers who just never had a system demand what guys do these days.






Joe only took 29 threes that year but he displays the ability.


He, Laimbeer, Isiah, Vinny, and Aguirre could all play fairly modern ball if they had to. Dennis would be valuable switching onto most of the league these days. They would get it together. Probably do a lot of small ball and limit Laimbeers minutes for defensive reasons vs some matchups.


Rodman/Aguirre at the 5 and 4 would probably be fairly common.

It would work itself out. Rodman and Joe would have some heavily lifting to do on D but they would figure it out.

[Shogon]

It wouldn't be within a season.

While they would already have the basic mechanics of their jump shot in place and that would cut down on their learning time by quite a bit, it takes a lot, a lot, a lot of practice to become efficient at something... and now you're thinking they're going to become as efficient as today's nba players who spend their entire careers doing nothing but shoot 3s and they're going to do it fast? Maybe, but I doubt that.

And yes shooting a 12-15 footer is quite different from a 3, otherwise we would have seen them already reliably being jacked up in the past.

How much practice time do you think it would take? 500 hours? 1000 hours? 5000 hours?

How much practice time do you think guys of the past were putting into their jumpers? Just saying.

[Shogon]

I would wager a guess that today's NBA players put more time into their game than players of the past. Not that they're better players, but with shooting specifically? I do think so.

[Kblaze8855]

When you mentioned being good I was thinking….a good team. Not a top level outside shooting team. 10 guys on every team today work on shooting 3s. Rosters then were built entirely different. They might have 5 traditional bigs. Most of them would never convert.

[L.Kizzle]

I would wager a guess that today's NBA players put more time into their game than players of the past. Not that they're better players, but with shooting specifically? I do think so.

Just playing basketball, no. They do more other things like weight training, and what not. But just practicing ball. I think the older guys did more. By a Longshot actually.

[Jasper]

obviously big men can dominate a game , probably easier than a guard , because they are close to the basket.
At one time 10 years ago ISH had several conversations about elimination of the 5 because the floor was spread.
I think Giannis and Ayton changed that topic emphatically.

[FKAri]

I wonder at times how quickly some of those teams could adapt

Very slowly. You'd need personnel changes especially on the bench. And the pecking order would be reshuffled. Some stars will turn into bench players and some bench players will turn into stars. I've seen sports with more minute changes take place over the course of an "off-season" and it resulted in a pretty seismic deviation from predictions as a result. (In a sport that is otherwise quite predictable[track and field]). Basketball has changed a lot in 30 years.

[Charlie Sheen]

What's crazy is he scored all those without Magic setting him up, he missed virtually the entire game. Michael Cooper had 15/13 and played all 48 minutes. And to further demonstrate how different the league was back then, the Pistons made one 3 the entire game and won

KAJ was never dependent on Magic like Malone was to Stockton. Showtime had a roster of capable passers that could deliver the ball to KAJ without him giving up the position he worked for. The ball was coming from Worthy, Green, Coop, Campbell and even Klay's dad when they ran big. A big part of that is continuity... guys played together for longer back then.

Besides Chris Paul, Ayton doesn't really have anyone capable of consistently getting him the ball when he wins the battle for position.