Bob Cousy is the oldest living NBA player ever. Will be 97 in August.

[L.Kizzle]

NBA should be recognizing him, like every chance they get.
I'm not sure how many players reached 90+ years old but it's not a lot. Bob Pettit is 92. Russell didn't reach 90. Mikan passed away at 80. Wilt at 63.

[Im so nba'd out]

People say with a straight face that bob cousy and jerry west couldn't make the league today but reed shepard and marcus sasser can....

bob pettit and elgen baylor wouldn't make an impact but josh hart and Royce oneal can

Bill russell wouldn't see the court but jarret allen is a fringe all star


make it make sense

[90sgoat]

Dribbling away from death.

[L.Kizzle]

After a quick Google search, 3 other players are older then him. Harry Donovan will be 99 come September.

[Da_Realist]

[Baller234]

What's even more criminal is that his name never gets brought up in the all time PG discussions. The guy helped to define and revolutionize the position. 6x champion, 10x first teamer, MVP winner.

Only Magic and Oscar have a case over him if you ask me.

[warriorfan]

People are obsessed with comparing players from that era to players of today, and the whole process is beyond retarded.

You can only judge these guys for what they did amongst their peers. And also realize that today’s players are standing on the shoulders of past giants.

[Kblaze8855]

People say with a straight face that bob cousy and jerry west couldn't make the league today but reed shepard and marcus sasser can....

bob pettit and elgen baylor wouldn't make an impact but josh hart and Royce oneal can

Bill russell wouldn't see the court but jarret allen is a fringe all star


make it make sense

Bob Cousy couldn’t make it in the NBA today. That isn’t particularly insulting if you consider actual skill set size and the way he played.

Bob was already saying in the 70s that every guard in the NBA then was capable of things he could never do.

He was a bad defender for his time. He would be such a target at this point there would be no justification to have him on the floor when his scoring was also predicated on incredible volume at efficiencies nobody would accept right now. That guy would go out there and shoot two of 20 in big games. They won a finals when he shot 31% in it. The best team they ever had was a year after he retired and all involved acknowledge is because they were playing the best defense in history to that point.

You can find old articles where he’s pretty honest about it at the time. The game passed him by while he was playing it, but the team had such respect. They wouldn’t bench him even when he himself suggested he should be.

Bob Cousy couldn’t defend the other guards of the 50s and 60s. You can’t put him in the league 70 years later with the rules as they are now and expect him to guard SGA.

Bob Cousy right now would be scored on like you or me. He would probably get scored on more than I would in my prime. Not because I was better but because he’s the size I was in the 9th grade, but he might well have never touched a weight.

whatever effectiveness he might show leading a fast break, the man did not have a modern jumper(Even if you’ve seen six clips of him making a shot in games he probably shot 26% from the field) and he would be the biggest laughingstock you can imagine on defense. He couldn’t defend point guard 70 years ago who themselves did not have a jumper nor the training available right now.

Saying Bob Cousy couldn’t play today is not disrespectful as much as it is honest. That said, of course, most people who do say it are being disrespectful, but not with a true or false aspect of it.

Bob is not those other players you mentioned just because he was in the same league.

Jerry West had the size the wingspan the athleticism, and the will and definitely the jumper that you could drop him in his prime in the league right now And with a modern haircut, you might not immediately realize he was from a bygone era until he dribbled. I was following the actual rules of basketball.

Jerry West wouldn’t look out of place on an NBA court right now Immediately. He wouldn’t do anything outside of his style of dribbling that would have you assume at a glance that there was an imposter out there.

Bob Cousy could potentially be abused on defense to the extent it would look like a fan was on the court. And as mean as it sounds is not that much worse than what he was saying himself if you listen to him talk about the progression of the game in the 70s and the 80s.

Bob is from a time when you can actually say that There has been an unbelievable leap in the bigger/stronger/faster/more skilled aspect. People say that shit about times it doesn’t honestly apply to but it does apply to the 40s which is when he learned to play. The game just advanced so quickly that he was still around to play with a lot of people who were miles beyond him.

Both of them being in the NBA at the same time does not mean Oscar Robertson and Bob Cousy are equally equipped to play in later eras.

Even if they play well in the same games. You can throw NBA players in streetball games and have street guys put up similar numbers in those games they play. Doesn’t mean they make the same transition to playing today’s NBA.

Just means in a basketball game where 250 points get scored someone has to produce.

I wish I could find some of the old videos I had, but I remember an interview when he talked about his brief comeback as a player coach and how he couldn’t believe how much bigger all the guards were. All he could do was foul people because they were too big and strong and this was 1970 or 71. Of course he was also old. He was probably 40 but I’m not talking about how well he could play. I’m talking about his evaluation of how the game and players had changed. He knew he couldn’t have got out there and played with the 70s Celtics in his prime.

He was all NBA First team when he wasn’t the best Guard on his team and he knew it. He was still all NBA telling red he had to play KC Jones more. He didn’t want to be out there because his name and drawing power.

He knew he was a defensive liability.

He’s always been fiercely protective of the other great players of his time, but generally speaking he’s been pretty real about the game passing him by.

Bob Cousy today would be like giving prime Jason Kidd the athleticism of current Jason Kidd except the strength of Trae Young with no off the dribble jumper at all and legitimately the worst defense you’ve ever seen played at the point.

Great passer. You wouldn’t be able to take the ball from him even if his handles looked archaic. He wouldn’t contribute anything else. And the train that would be run on him on defense would be the stuff of only fans legends.

[ralph_i_el]

^Great post^

My grandpa would be the same age, but passed last Christmas. He used to go to Bill Russell's high school games (risking getting stabbed in his telling). He remembered the time before the jumpshot was invented. He was a Warriors fan who hated the 3 point line, and was mad they traded Monta instead of Curry (at the time).

[Kblaze8855]

People are obsessed with comparing players from that era to players of today, and the whole process is beyond retarded.

You can only judge these guys for what they did amongst their peers. And also realize that today’s players are standing on the shoulders of past giants.

of course. What he could do today isn’t relevant. They totally rebuilt the game from the shape of the court to the rules. He literally was playing a different game that just had the same name. This is a guy who learned to play basketball playing 40s New York church league street ball.

he played before they were any pioneers you had access to to build your game off of.

He played the way someone would play if you explained the rules from 75 years ago, but didn’t Show them anyone else who had ever done it. The people who taught basketball back then were like gym coaches teaching volleyball or whatever else would be in the curriculum to have you do something active during gym class.

That was back when some college teams would have a basketball coach who is just the guy who volunteered to umpire baseball practice. You would see shit like the tight end for the local football team be coaching basketball too.

You shouldn’t expect somebody who learned to play behind the church in 1942 to be what NBA players are today.

[warriorfan]

^Great post^

My grandpa would be the same age, but passed last Christmas. He used to go to Bill Russell's high school games (risking getting stabbed in his telling). He remembered the time before the jumpshot was invented. He was a Warriors fan who hated the 3 point line, and was mad they traded Monta instead of Curry (at the time).

SF Dons back to back NCAA champions.

There is this guy who is 80 plus who owns a bar where some friends of mine works. We have talked basketball a good amount and had good anecdotes about going to Warriors games and seeing Wilt a bunch of times.

[tpols]

Guards from his era had way too different dribbling rules kinda nullifies what they could do today. It effects everything because its much harder to shoot and score dribbling like that. The big guys like Russell Kareem and Wilt would have no problem taking a dump on current NBA though.

[GOBB]

Saying Bob Cousy couldn’t play today is not disrespectful as much as it is honest. That said, of course, most people who do say it are being disrespectful, but not with a true or false aspect of it.

Mic drop. The way you broke down Bob Cousy transparency about his game, later era etc allows for someone to honestly say he couldn’t play in today’s game. It’s the people who don’t do this and just say it. Their intentions are to disrespect. Which is lame.

[GOBB]

Kblaze you remember them videos you used to make with the worst opening of all time. Random basketball going bouncing from left to right on the screen? Ha, but they were well put together clips tho. ISH idiots don’t know what they missed.

[warriorfan]

Mic drop. The way you broke down Bob Cousy transparency about his game, later era etc allows for someone to honestly say he couldn’t play in today’s game. It’s the people who don’t do this and just say it. Their intentions are to disrespect. Which is lame.

Figuring out Bob Cousey couldn’t play today isn’t exactly rocket science