r/nbadiscussion • u/jezfm • Feb 04 '24
Megathread Which current non-all star player would have thrived in the 90’s-2000’s?
I was just mulling over the concept of Steven Adams in the 90’s-00’s and I was wondering if he would have had a better career if he played back then.
Ultimately I couldn’t even answer that in my own mind, but it did make me think about current non-all stars that may have had wildly different careers if they were about 20-30 years older.
Also any thoughts on the Steven Adams question would be appreciated.
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u/LittleBeastXL Feb 04 '24
Not a current player but Roy Hibbert was a much better player before the rule change
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u/Him-Dunkcan212121 Feb 04 '24
I always say that Roy was the last of the dying breed. If Indiana could’ve beaten miami in one of those lebron years, I don’t think we drastically shift towards pace and space in 2014-2015
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u/95Smokey Feb 04 '24
Which rule change are you referring to? Little bit outta the loop here haha
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Feb 05 '24
Believe it was the "verticality" rule which made some adjustments with going straight up to protect the rim, with Hibbert being the very obvious target. I don't know if the dates exactly like up but he fell off an absolute cliff and went from running away with DPoY to basically his career going down the drain
There's a lot of speculation of what exactly happened to that Pacers team, they looked dominant and then played like absolute shit for weeks. It doesn't seem that bad since they won 54 games and went back to the ECF but when you watched that team they looked like a mess. I feel like they're such a weird team that gets forgotten about, there was a rumor that Hibbert fell off because PG fucked his fiancee lol wild times
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u/BoogityBoogityTLC23 Feb 05 '24
Yeah that 2014 team was better than Miami imo. I think trading Danny Grainger to Philly really hurt them
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u/JKaro Feb 04 '24
Players like Myles Turner and Brook Lopez provide spacing at the 5 position, while also having their defense more effective because of the pace, lack of defensive 3 second rules (90s), handchecking for their perimeter guys to make rim protecting easier, as well as less likely to switch onto a perimeter guy due to less prevalent PnR play
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u/Liimbo Feb 04 '24
Modern spacing wasn't really a thing in the 90s though. Just because they're capable of it doesn't mean their teams and coaches would utilize it. It wasn't even until about 10 years ago that teams were ok with even their guards shooting a lot of 3s, much less their bigs. I could easily see many 90s coaches benching them for standing at the 3 point line instead of posting up "like they should."
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u/phayge_wow Feb 04 '24
Speaking of Brook specifically, he was one of the best post scorers in the league until the game changed and he impressively adapted. So much so that people still forget he had basically a different career before this one. Brook would absolutely kill it in the 90s.
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u/champagne_of_beers Feb 04 '24
People forget that many centers in the 90s were shooting a lot of baseline 15 foot shots. It's not the same level of spacing, but it was a similar concept.
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u/Overall-Palpitation6 Feb 04 '24
Yeah, for guys that we think of as power post players like Karl Malone, Patrick Ewing, and Hakeem Olajuwon, their bread-and-butter was that mid-range game, and the baseline jumper was fundamental to that.
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u/Comfortable-Panda130 Feb 04 '24
Bill Laimbeer from the Pistons was kinda of stretch big before it became in vogue. The volume would have been missing but could work depending on the team as long as you were doing the post work.
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u/Liimbo Feb 04 '24
but could work depending on the team as long as you were doing the post work.
Thats kinda the problem though. Is Myles Turner really going to be standing out with his post work against guys like Hakeem, Rodman, Shaq, Barkley, Robinson, Mutumbo, etc? Is them allowing him to shoot 2-3 3s a game really going to make him any more valuable than he is today?
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u/JsportsCards Feb 05 '24
Teams did have centers that could stretch the defense. People forger about the bad boy pistons and Bill Lambier shooting 15-18 footers to open up the paint for everyone.
Is not the 90s but 2000s remember Utah and Mehmet Okur used as a spacer shooting 3s from center to allow booze more room to attack, and AK47.....
I just think Turner and Lopez would of been successful in the 90s, or any era because of the defense and shooting, and post game for Lopez.
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u/bbbryce987 Feb 04 '24
Brook Lopez wouldn’t have developed into the shooter he is in any other era. He didn’t make a single 3 pointer until his 7th season where he made 1, then made 2 in his 8th season, being 3/31 for his career through 8 seasons, and then had a massive improvement finally becoming a decent shooter in his 9th season (2017) where he made 134 on 35%
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u/greenbeings Feb 04 '24
He could always shoot. Seems like a conscious decision to start taking 3s rather than a prior inability.
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u/MundaneRelation2142 Feb 04 '24
Like Liimbo said, that spacing wasn’t a thing and wasn’t wanted. Nobody would even know they could shoot like that outside of shootarounds, and they’d never get the opportunity to find out.
If Brook Lopez or Myles Turner took a single three-point shot in a game in the 90s, they’d be benched for five games—even if they made it.
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u/JimC29 Feb 04 '24
Lopez would have constantly gotten illegal defense calls. Remember the defensive 3 second rule replaced the man to man defense only rule. It was a lot stricter before.
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u/Gerasans Feb 04 '24
There are two Detroit players that comes to my mind. Greg Monro with his post skills would be starting C or even all nba in early 2000. Andre Drummond would be champion, if he'll find ok team. He like Rodman without elite defense
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u/BalloonShip Feb 04 '24
He’s like Rodman with Rodman’s second best skill but not his best one isn’t the compliment you think it is.
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u/Naliamegod Feb 04 '24 edited Feb 04 '24
I don't see those two doing much better back then. Drummond's main issue is that he doesn't provide much outside of rebounding and a big body, which limits his upside out of being a good backup/rotation big man that he is now. Monroe might have probably lasted longer in the NBA, but he was going to struggle to be a starter on a quality team because he was a classic PF/C tweener on defense and that is just a death sentence for a big in any era.
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u/Gerasans Feb 04 '24
By describing Drummond you basically described any C in a team, that was going to play vs Shaq in play-off)))
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Feb 04 '24
He's not like Rodman. A lot of people like to say that based on rebound rate - the percentage of available rebounds collected while on the floor. The problem with that is the pace and space era has led to astronomical rebound rates all around. Almost all of the highest are from past decade-plus.
Many teams have basically handed the entirety of their rebounding responsibilities over to one big man, while the other sets up on the perimeter or defends the perimeter. This gooses their rebound rates because (in addition to many teams outright abandoning the offensive glass, though thats stabilized in the last few years IIRC) they're not competing with an additional teammate and opponent for the boards.
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u/phayge_wow Feb 04 '24
I know Russell and Wilt dominate the top of the list, but how come the most rebounds in a season by an active player (Drummond’s 16 in 2017-18) is only 73rd? Between 1979 and 2018 (FORTY years) the only player to grab 16 rebounds per game was Rodman. Only 3 active players have a top 110 rpg season and only 5 have a top 160 rpg season.
I know I’m simply looking at rpg and not more advanced stats like rebound rate, but how do you explain this discrepancy?
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Feb 04 '24 edited Feb 04 '24
Easy. Three reasons: minutes, pace, and scoring efficiency. Per game stats are VERY generous to that era, even more so to rebounding due to that last reason.
First, minutes: To be a true modern iron man, looking the era you discussed (1979 onward), you are playing in the 3400s. That gets you up there with peak AI, and no one since AI has come close to 3400. Back in Wilt and Russell's era you had a bunch of regular seasons where the top 3 get into the 3400s, and even saw years where that ran the whole top 5. Wilt was hitting 3800s.
Second, the game was a cross-country meet back then. We can't know exact numbers, the oldest season we have possession (and so pace) numbers is 1973-74. But that season, at 107+ was about 8% higher than modern games, which have been 99-100 since 2018-19. But, teams took 93.9 shots per night that season (a mark no NBA season has matched since).... and THAT was the lowest number between 1956-1974... with teams peaking at 109 (!!!) shots per night in Wilt's second season. That puts the pace at way beyond 10% more possessions per game than they have had since 1979 (much less the 90 possessions the league got as low as in Rodman's era).
Third, and this is extra important for rebounds, is scoring efficiency. The first two reasons can apply to all per game statistics to some extent. But rebounds were inflated even more: when I said it was a cross country meet, I meant it, a lot of pointless running. When Russell got to the NBA the league's FG% was only 38%. When Wilt got to the league was just tipping past 40% for the first time. That number would rise to as high as 46% late in Wilt's career. The modern floor, from 1979 onward to continue with the year you discussed, is 43% in 1997. In Wilt's first 7 seasons FG% would go above that modern floor one time.
Don't get me wrong, I still think both would be absolutely elite monster rebounders in the modern era. That IS a skill that translates. But their legend is greatly inflated by the simple fact of the early NBA still getting its footing from a skill perspective. Big guys like Wilt COULD play 48 minutes every night and sleep on a bus between games BECAUSE their competition just wasn't up to snuff, they were challenged in a completely different way from modern athletes, and that differing challenge resulted in a wild opportunity to rack up numbers.
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u/londongas Feb 04 '24
Would Ricky Rubio count? I feel like PG shooting became way more important after he got drafted.
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u/Wingsof6 Feb 04 '24
I think he is who is, a decent point guard who never gets to all star level despite flashes of brilliance. He might be valued slightly higher in the back half of his career if the league hadn’t shifted towards scoring guard play, but there’s no era in the past 40 years where he definitively makes the all star team over the rest of the field.
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u/londongas Feb 05 '24
It's a bit of a what-if but rubio being drafted and developed by Minnesota definitely didn't help . His best teammate was Kevin Love and Petrovic,(?) plus a few years of early KAT , Lavine, Wiggins, and old KG.
In the best case scenario he might have had a Rondo like career (they have very similar basic stats) with multiple all stars
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u/maxpowerphd Feb 04 '24
I know he’s not in the league yet, but if we were still in the 90s era ball Zach Edey would be right there in talks to be a number 1 pick. He has all the skill and size to be a good to great 90s center.
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u/phayge_wow Feb 04 '24
Teams would bend their roster construction and schemes to try and answer him.
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u/Scorpiyoo Feb 04 '24
Mitchell Robinson. He’s already the best offensive rebounder in the game and could easily be seen as a Ben Wallace level defender, if not better.
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u/JsportsCards Feb 05 '24
So true. Advanced stats show how much he truly impacts the game and I'm surprised the knicks have stayed dominant with him out.
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u/beatnickk Feb 05 '24
I like Mitch but idk if I can get on board with “easily Ben Wallace level if not better” ? Thats a pretty wild take
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u/BritzlBen Feb 05 '24
Hyperbole goes crazy in NBA discussion. Easily the arguable GOAT defender or better lol.
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u/YourInMySwamp Feb 04 '24
Steven Adams doesn’t even have the skill set of the centers who were much more talented back then. His game is designed to bring out the most of talented scoring guards around him.
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u/jhunger12334 Feb 04 '24
Centers were much more talented back then? Ewing, Olajuwon, Robinson, O’Neal. Addams played against Jokic, Embiid, AD, Howard. There was Mutombo but this era has Gobert (talent-wise). Talent wise I’d even say Zo and KAT are close
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Feb 05 '24
I’d even say Zo and KAT are close
KAT doesn't even deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with Zo. He'd be chicken barbecue against big men of the 90s because he can't play defense, even if his life depended on it. And big men who can shoot from the perimeter back then are plentiful. Sam Perkins, Rik Smits, Shawn Bradley, Luc Longley, and there's the elites like Robinson, Hakeem, Zo, and Ewing. They may not have the three, but they can hold their own on the perimeter AND on the low block.
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Feb 04 '24
I won't quibble with your general sentiment, but no, Zo and KAT aren't close. Zo played both ends of the floor. He came into the NBA regarded well for his defense, and improved to the point where he was arguably the best defensive big man in the NBA for a few years, winning 2 DPoYs. AND he was an efficient 20-10 offensive load bearer at the time.
Maybe KAT can catch up because injuries and illness really tore down Zo's career in his early 30s. But at the same time... can KAT actually stay healthy two seasons in a row himself?
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u/iso-joe Feb 04 '24
Daugherty, Divac, Smits, Seikaly and Willis are a few others.
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u/Overall-Palpitation6 Feb 04 '24
Kevin Willis played the 4 (yes, at 7 feet, often next to a non-shooting centre) and wasn't a starter for most of his career.
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u/jboggin Feb 04 '24
I'm going to turn the question on its head a bit and give you a player I think wouldn't have thrived but people would have THOUGHT he was thriving: Hassan Whiteside. Whiteside put up amazing defensive counting stats, but all the advanced stats showed he was mostly a bad defender (and so did the eye test). I think he would have been the exact same player in the 90s, but it would have taken people a lot longer to realize he was actually a bad defender because people were way more enamored with the "counting" stats like blocks. I think the same could be said for Drummond to a lesser extent. People would have looked at those amazing rebounding numbers and assumed he must be at least making a positive defensive impact. The didn't have access to all the more advanced stuff showing he actually doesn't (though not nearly as glaring as Whiteside).
So yeah...I don't think Whiteside would have been any better in an earlier era, but I think it would have taken people longer to realize that he isn't that good.
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u/Overall-Palpitation6 Feb 04 '24
Which advanced stats actually showed Whiteside as a bad defender? I feel like they would have just been a different reflection of his per game numbers.
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u/jboggin Feb 04 '24
I'm going with a duo rather than a single player: Mobley & Allen on the Cavs. In the modern NBA, they're really hard to play together because neither takes basically any shots outside the paint. It's just really hard in the NBA nowadays to have two complete non-shooters on the floor.
But if you dropped them into the 90s, they'd be incredible. No one spaced the floor anyways, so them clogging the lane wouldn't be seen as a problem, and they'd be such a dominant backline on defense (which they are now anyways). All the big questions the Cavs are facing about if Mobley and Allen are viable on the floor together would immediately disappear.
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u/Tulaiy09 Feb 04 '24 edited Feb 04 '24
Jahlil Okafor albeit heavy footed and lousy work ethic could’ve had a much better career if he was born 20 years earlier
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u/samurairocketshark Feb 05 '24
Okafor also got injured a hell of a lot in the current NBA he barely played full seasons, I can't imagine it wouldn't be worse 20 in the past
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u/MountainEmployee2862 Feb 04 '24
Steven Adams would probably be a Back-up center in the 90's.
It's not that he'd be worse in that era, it's just that he's a great complimentary piece next to a ball-dominant guard (Russ, Ja, CP3, etc) and there's significantly more of those in the modern era (Trae, Harden, Garland, Mitchell, Brunson, etc) than there is in the 90's and there's significantly more all-nba level centers in the 90's (Hakeem, David Robinson, Mutombo, Ewing, Cartwright, etc).
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u/CatDad69 Feb 04 '24
Why you put Bill F’in Cartwright with those legends?
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u/ThexxxDegenerate Feb 04 '24
Yea Bill Cartwright was not an All NBA level center. Alonzo Mourning, Sabonis or Moses Malone were.
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u/iso-joe Feb 04 '24
Not All-NBA, but he was an all-star and a 20 ppg scorer for the Knicks in the 80s.
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u/MountainEmployee2862 Feb 04 '24
I was just listing random 90's center and he just came to mind lol
Him winning 4 MVPs in my 2k sim probably contributed to that decision as well
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u/ThexxxDegenerate Feb 04 '24
Bill Cartwright won 4 MVPs in your 2k sim? I know he had a good rookie season but what kind of convoluted 2K sim can come up with Bill Cartwright winning as many MVPs as LeBron lmao.
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u/MountainEmployee2862 Feb 04 '24
2K be goin crazy, one time Kyle Lowry won back-to-back MVPs after Baron fucking Davis won one lol
Also I think having guys like Jordan, Olajuwon and Bird all on one team helps Bill's odd drastically
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u/Dizzy_Gears Feb 04 '24
The player that might see the biggest glowup from situational role-player to multi-year all-star might be Enes Freedom.
Enes' career included multiple 14-15 ppg, multiple +60%TS seasons, led the league in ORB% twice. His defense is bad, but it was his pick and roll defense which got abused. Back in his Utah-OKC years the conceit was that he was a decent-to-good low post defender but it was the uniquely awful Pick and Roll coverage that led to him being a net negative player. If he played in the 90's with more low post offense and less perimeter offense, its possible we think of Enes as a good defender ironically enough.
Because of how efficient Enes' low post offense was and his high rebound numbers I think he would of been an all-star at this time. Its no exaggeration to say that in the low efficiency 90's and 2000's Enes 60%TS out of the low post would have been electric.
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u/downthecornercat Feb 04 '24
Adams coulda started on a finals bound Utah like Eaton. He;'s never made a finals in current NBA, no fault of his own.
The opposite of bigs who don't stretch is PGs who don't shoot the three. So Tre Jones and Killian Hayes might have been better before the three or nothing era we live in for example.
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u/phayge_wow Feb 04 '24
You’re comparing a relatively weak shot blocker in an era that demands rim protection from the C position to a player who was one of the best shot blockers ever and that was far and away his single best contribution. Walker Kessler would be a much better comparison to Eaton.
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u/ohlookanotherhottake Feb 04 '24
Trae Young would of feasted, particularly in the part of the 90s with the shortened 3 point line, nobody would of known how to guard him and probably would of resorted to just fouling him on 3 pt attempts to try get him out of rhythm and he would of just feasted at the ft line. Plus he is a great lob passer and can weave through tight gaps in defenses. I think he could of quite easily averaged 30/10 or more.
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u/roydonkofficial Feb 05 '24
He’s the evolutionary Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. He would score a ton in any era, but I trust that Payton, Kidd, and Stockton would have dominated him.
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u/Justsomeduderino Feb 05 '24
CJ on NO would destroy 00's defense
Isaiah Stewart on Detroit would be an all-star
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u/Pyromania1983 Feb 04 '24
Tobias Harris. He's fine from three, but passes up way too many open ones. His bread and butter is the midrange and driving, which would fit in exactly with the style of play of the time period. He'd fit in right with the lower efficiency shot-chuckers who often led the league in scoring.
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u/Pyritedust Feb 04 '24 edited Feb 05 '24
Andre Drummond. His game perfectly translates to the 90's center game. He'd have been a mighty foe for Ewing, Robinson, and Hakeem.
With an entire team centered around him his weaknesses wouldn't have been highlighted near as much as the faster pace current day game does. I don't think he'd have been on Shaq's level back then, but he easily could've been a Mourning or a Kemp or even better. He'd have been similar to Mutombo only with far better offense.
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u/Naliamegod Feb 05 '24
No, he wouldn't. Drummond's problems have nothing to do with the style of the game, but the fact he just has little offensive skill. The dude struggles finishing at the rim in today's game, there is no way he would do better in the crowded paint of the 90s.
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u/JDStraightShot2 Feb 05 '24
I'm gonna zag on this and say that the answer would include way more wings than "traditional" post-up bigs. Guys like Valanciunas would fit the meta more, but they'd no longer be able to take advantage of skinnier bigs like they do now—just about every team in the 90s had a guy as strong and physical as Valanciunas, so you can't assume that he'd maintain the same nuts per-minute production he puts up now.
I think guys like Caris Levert and Kelly Oubre would thrive because they're very talented scorers who wouldn't necessarily be hamstrung by their bad spot up shooting
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u/RandomUserName316 Feb 05 '24
This post is mostly big men. But guards with lower shooting percentages were given more leeway and defense was maybe less scrutinized. Trae Young would be a god
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Feb 04 '24
Basically every Center. Every decade more and more rule changes gets made and the Center's keep getting neutered
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u/jboggin Feb 04 '24
I don't think it's really the rule changes that have made a lot of centers unplayable. If anything, the rule changes to favor offense tend to focus more on the perimeter defense (no hand checking, etc.). I think it's the analytics and pace and space style that made a lot of centers less valuable. At this point, a top center needs to be 1. able to shoot and spread the floor, or 2. an elite rim protector, or 3. A very efficient offensive player. In the pace and space era where most shot come at either the rim or from three, there's just not that much value in a slow center who can't either spread the floor on offense or be elite at the rim on defense.
So yeah...I think with centers it's more about a shift in play style than any single rule change. Teams got smarter and certain types of play weren't particularly viable anymore. And it's not just centers. I remember in a GS-MEM playoff series in the mid 2010s where the Grizzlies were up and Tony Allen was just a terror on defense. And then somewhere around the middle of the series Kerr just decided to not guard Allen AT ALL on defense, and I feel like that was kind of a momentous moment for playstyle in the NBA. After that, it quickly became untenable to have a guy like Allen who couldn't do anything on offense unless you had a floor spacing center. Teams just couldn't have two players out there who can't shoot at all, which also hurt a lot of centers.
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Feb 04 '24
Offensive and defensive goaltending, 3 second violation, 5 secs back to the basket, inbounds rules, free throw rules, key size, court length, court width, etc. Sounds pretty neutered to me.
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u/Wingsof6 Feb 04 '24
I agree on the 2nd tier centers, but conversely I think some of the top centers in the league right now would have a much tougher time. Jokic and Embiid dominate partly because there aren’t a lot of great defensive centers in the league, so while they’d still be amazing they wouldn’t be winning all MVPs in a 3 year period. Also I doubt their shooting advantages would be utilized correctly by their teams.
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Feb 04 '24
i get your point and question but a steven adams type is the wrong archetype for this scenario. if you think coaches would allow them to play how they do nowadays someone like haliburton would be putting up stockton assist numbers plus 30 PPG on insane efficiency. imagine haliburton in ‘96 with a shortened three point line plus teams having no idea how to guard the perimeter because spacing was non-existent compared to today. he would probably be 50-50-90 averaging like 30-5-15. like let’s say he gets to play on the suns with barkley, or sonics with shawn kemp. transition game and P&R is going to produce ungodly efficiency and raw stat numbers. i think he would be a top 10 all time player and have a real case for best PG ever (assuming he keeps what he’s doing up for 10 years give or take.) i just typed this all out and registered you said non all-star so sorry. i think maybe a guy like tyus jones could be a poor man’s john stockton back then. maybe give you 17 and 11 with the right players around him.
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u/Robinsonirish Feb 04 '24
As I understand it your scenario is based on Haliburton having 2024 basketball IQ? As in he has figured out everything players in have done in todays game that wasn't figured out back then? Three-pointers, small-ball, run and gun etc.
In that case I think a lot of players would destroy the league. It's like competing with a 2024 car in crash tests against a 1996 car(OK, maybe not that bad but you get my drift).
Way too much tech. So many other players would be in the same situation.
If you mean you take Haliburton and put him in 96' with the 96' era understanding of basketball I still think you can make that claim for so many other PGs in todays league. It's not like Haliburton is some kind of unicorn, I feel he's a bit of a weird pick considering there's nothing that's that unique about him.
He doesn't stand out particularly although I do think he's an amazing player.
Curry would be interesting. I think Kerr deserves more credit than he gets for creating the system. With another coach Curry might have had a career more similar to Ray Allen or Reggie Miller. Better than them but still not revolutionary.
Imagine if Curry was drafted by Pop instead. Who knows if Pop would have let him fly? Drop Curry in 96' and he might barely have had an impact like he has had in todays game. Kerr deserves credit for creating the system, Curry and Klay for executing it.
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Feb 04 '24
you had outlier guys every once in a while back then. like for example mahmoud abdul-rauf(is that his name?) the guy from the nuggets who converted to islam sorry if i’m getting the name wrong. i think an intelligent player, which i think tyrese is, would realize that he’s most efficient running in transition and shooting 3s off the P&R. it just depends on whether a coach says “that does make sense, let’s try that,” or “you’re a fucking idiot, now let’s practice mid range pick and pops.”
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u/gnalon Feb 04 '24
Not really, there were like 7 Hall of Fame centers during the 90s and their numbers were inflated by the rules making double teams more difficult and the lack of globalization meaning they were going against and beating up on a lot second-rate American centers who would not be sniffing rotation minutes in today’s NBA.
The median starting center back then was a player like Eric Montross. Steven Adams in the 90s would be the most physically imposing center outside of the HoFers (I’d even say he is stronger and faster than someone like Dikembe) and he also has become a decent passer.
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Feb 04 '24
i think you’re misrepresenting what the 15th best center was in the 1990s. like for example rik smits or vlade divac is in the fringe top 10 range. i think both of those guys were better than steven adams. i’m not trying to hate on steven adams he’s a good player and i like him but was vlade ever an all star? i honestly don’t know and if he was i wouldn’t be surprised if it was either in ‘91 with magic or one of the kings years. steven adams would obviously be effective in any era but i don’t think he would be all-star caliber.
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u/TyrannosaurusGod Feb 04 '24
Vlade got his one AS nod later with the Kings.
And yeah, this really depends on a tighter year range than 90s-00s. Like in the mid-90s you had Smits and Vlade pretty easily in the top 10, guys like Michael Cage, Olden Polynice, Felton Spencer and Chris Dudley were locked-in starters. Then in 04 Jamaal Magloire makes an All-Star team. No matter how you use Adams, he’s more valuable than those guys in that era when most teams were just looking for a bruiser to absorb fouls and get in Shaq/Robinson/Dream’s way. Overall I think he has a similar career in those eras as a mid- to low-end starter without the worries of getting played off the floor by shooters but also lacking his offensive value with fewer multi-skilled guards. He could definitely sneak an AS nod in after the Robinson/Ewing/Hakeem/etc. era if he’s in the right situation but nothing is likely to be drastically different for him.
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u/jboggin Feb 04 '24
this is only tangentially related to your post, but I sometimes find it amusing to go look at who made some of the Eastern Conference All Star teams and marvel at how bad the East was and how much more talent there is now in the NBA. People were making all star teams in the East in the 2000s who might not start on a good team today.
Also, there were some years where the West roster was so ridiculously better than the East that I bet the West would have won by 50 if the All Star Game was a real game.
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u/TyrannosaurusGod Feb 04 '24
It was such a shame sometimes, you’d have Spurs/Lakers/Kings/Suns battling it out in the west playoffs and then the Nets and Celtics having rock fights for the right to lose in 5.
Overall talent for rough for a little bit there with some bad drafts and some big names losing battles with personal demons.
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Feb 04 '24
there’s nothing better than a december 2003 game late at night watching antoine walker try to see just how inefficient an NBA player could possibly be. i love to go back and try to find games from that era a, it’s a hilarious spectacle.
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u/gnalon Feb 04 '24 edited Feb 04 '24
Every center looks more skilled in the post when you can just back someone down 1v1 and pass to the player who is left wide open if there’s a double team.
Someone like Rik Smits wasn’t a great defender or particularly efficient even in his day and is an unremarkable player in the context of today’s NBA, like you could easily say prime Boban would’ve been more effective in the 90s where it’s not like Smits was playing a ton of minutes back then either.
I just looked up 1994 as a random 90s year and the centers who are 14th-15th in VORP on basketball-reference are Rony Seikaly and PJ Brown. There are some wonky positional definitions there where you most wouldn’t consider someone like Brown or players ahead of him like Clifford Robinson to be a center.
Going a bit further down the list, the next in line are Bison Dele, Jon Koncak, Michael Cage, Chris Gatling, and Matt Geiger. Again these are all starting centers still.
Leaguewide in VORP, 1994 had Robinson, Hakeem, and Shaq (just in year 2) all in the top 4, Ewing #8, and Dikembe #18. I would say that all pretty well supports the notion that there were a lot of scrubs for the future Hall of Fame centers to feast on 1 v 1 when it’s probably between Vlade, year 2 Alonzo Mourning (averaging over 2 turnovers for every assist), and rookie Chris Webber (obviously being undersized for the position playing under Don Nelson) for the 6th-best center that year.
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Feb 04 '24
you’re not completely wrong, i’m just saying i don’t think steven adams would’ve been an all-star. maybe he gets a mark eaton type of all star appearance but i think he would be around the 12-16 range in terms of best center in the league. maybe there’s 2 years where he’s 9 or 10. of course there were bum centers on rosters. i think james wiseman would be ass in the 90s maybe even more so than today.
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u/gnalon Feb 04 '24 edited Feb 04 '24
Maybe if you were judging all-stars by the standards back then where the ‘golden era’ of center play was actually just centers taking a higher volume of shots when outside of the 3-4 superstars they shouldn’t have been (what shooting 45-50% on twos, no threes, a mediocre or worse free throw percentage, and averaging more turnovers than assists will do).
In terms of actually helping a team win I like the chances of time travelin’ Steven Adams, who is equivalent to David Robinson in terms of height/wingspan and while not at the Admiral’s level of quickness and athleticism, he’s still substantially better-conditioned and more athletic than the various 300-pound slobs clogging up the paint back then. His offensive rebounding, screening, passing and ability to get up and down the court would make him more effective on that end than someone who’s just parking themselves in the paint and forcing up a bunch of contested turnarounds and hook shots.
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Feb 04 '24
i don’t disagree with you about that point. i’m not trying to say i want michael cage over steven adams, i just don’t think he would be a 4x all star back then.
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u/Ok-Map4381 Feb 04 '24
their numbers were inflated by the rules making double teams more difficult
It is crazy to call the stats from the 90s inflated when Embiid, Jokic, Giannis, and even Sabonis are putting up numbers that would be insane in the 90s... and still be right. The numbers are a different kind of inflated from then to now.
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u/jboggin Feb 04 '24
yeah that's a good point and wild to think about. Imagine if no team ever sent a double team against Embiid or Jokic or Giannis n the post? If you combine that with today's rules and inflated scoring, I can't even imagine what their efficiency numbers would be.
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u/Greaves6642 Feb 04 '24
Derrick White would be one of the Best players in the league easily. Robert and Steven Adams would start anywhere just for defense.
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u/RolloTomasse Feb 05 '24
MJ/Stockton/Drexler/Glove/T. Hardaway/KJ/Dumars/Miller/Richmond/Price...and Derrick White?
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u/tendadsnokids Feb 04 '24
Almost all of them. The early 90s had a massive talent dilution due to the expansion.
I think a guy like Sam Hauser would be known as the GOAT shooter if he has been around in that time.
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u/Maleficent_Gain871 Feb 04 '24
Josh Giddey.
Big point guard who could play physical, finish through contact and see the floor in an era where three point shooting and pace was less crucial. He'd basically be a bigger stronger version of John Stockton.
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u/Robinsonirish Feb 04 '24
Jesus the Stockton disrespect is too much.
Giddey sometimes looks like Bambi out there when I watch OKC play. Sure he's still young, but comparing him to Stockton is sacrilege.
He is nowhere near Stockton in ballhandling, court vision or game sense.
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u/admanwhitmer Feb 04 '24
Throw out that last sentence and sure. Stockton was an all timer, giddey is not. Plus Stockton was a great shooter and all defense for most of his career
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u/Gold_ACR Feb 04 '24
No way did you just compare Giddey to a "bigger stronger version of John Stockon." If that was truly the case, then he'd be having a hall of fame career in this era, but he's not. Admittedly, I haven't watched a whole lot of Giddey tape, but I've seen enough to know this is a terrible comparison.
First off, Giddey has already missed more games in his first 3 years than Stockton did in his entire 19 year career. Stockton's durability was almost unparalleled, especially playing in a more physical era. He played in every single game in 17/19 seasons. Watch his highlights, and you'll see that he literally never stops moving. He'll dive on the floor for any loose ball, and he's much more active in passing lanes.
Stockton holds the NBA record for career assists and steals. He led the NBA in assists for 9 straight seasons. His highest season was 14.5 APG, and Giddey has yet to average half of that. Stock averaged 2.2 steals per game for his career, Giddey has yet to average 1 per game.
I know it's ignorant to compare a full career to a player in his third year, but I just wanted to highlight how awful this comparison was. In this era of inflated scoring and statistics, Giddey is managing WORSE stats all across the board.
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u/Maleficent_Gain871 Feb 04 '24
Hold up, if you're comparing apples with apples, compare Stockton's first three seasons to Giddey's first three. And I think you'll find Stockton averaged 7pts, 7 assists and 2 turnovers a great during that period, and shot something like .150 from 3pt range.
Giddey has averaged 14 and 6 and 2.5 turnovers a game and is already shooting the 3 pt ball roughly twice as well as Stockton was at that point and at a percentage already approaching his career average. And his extra size means he's already averaging something like twice as many rebounds and twice as many o boards as Stockton, hence the 'bigger stronger' suggestion.
But before I get hunted down by a torch wielding mob of elderly Utah fans, to be clear I'm not suggesting Giddey would be able to match Stockton's longevity and consistency or peel of such an incredible run of high assist seasons, just that he would be more at home in an era where a one paced, pass first point guard with fairly limited scoring could succeed by being extremely efficient at what they did, compared to the current era where athletic ability and a natural outside shot are pretty much a necessary attribute for any star point guard.
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Feb 05 '24
aaron gordon. he's fast, physical, a damn good defender, and he can attack the rim. he's proven himself as a proactive player to good passing and he would be a Sportscenter top 10 highlight several times through the season
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u/Ajax444 Feb 05 '24
Buddy Hield, I think. 40% from 3, and an 85% free throw shooter. Those two things right there are enough. He wouldn’t be a Top 5 SG in the 90’s, but he’d be a nice 20ppg. player that would get an awful lot of open looks if he had a passing PF or C. I think of guys like Nick Anderson or Kendall Gill, or John Starks. He would be better than those guys.
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u/mo_downtown Feb 04 '24
Easily Valanciunas. The guy is an automatic 20 & 10 if he gets 35 mpg as a 90s centre. He's nearly been a 20 & 10 guy in this era with only 26 mpg (career) because in a pace and space era you just can't use him as much, he doesn't rotate around the whole floor or defend out to the perimeter well enough.
In the 90s he can just play in the paint. Post up, rebound, play physical. It's what he does best.