im kinda surprised one guy hasnt been drafted....lotta warts but hes bringing some things you cant really find anywhere else at this point...ill be drafting him if he makes it to me

idk, maybe I'm wrong. Steph is one of my favorite players ever, so I don't mind being wrong here.

Funny you guys having this argument - I’m not in your league in this format but I do coach high school hoops and I have this argument with a group of my buddies all the time who long for the days of 80s basketball...interesting to see your viewpoints

most of my memories of 80s NBA was fast break/run & gun/post dominance with a smattering of Bad Boys there towards the end... but they made such an impact combined with the continuation that was the 90s Knicks/Heat that my mind goes back to that.

Also that clothesline/flop that happened in that one finals...

[edit for context: Bird jokingly called it a flop]

For the record - my answer is spacing in the game today puts extreme pressure on defense that didn’t exist then - as evidenced by many of draft strategies in this league. And comments of physicality are exaggerated - no or minimal penalties for aggressive fouls....but in reality playing 15ft and down doesn’t equal much physicality.
but they get mad at me lol:)

No offense to Cooper, but watching The Last Dance has me remembering how good Jordan and Pippen were defensively. Pippen, imo, is the best perimeter defender all time, Kawhi is mighty close. Pippens game would be so valuable nowadays. He is the stretch wing every team is looking for in the draft.

I also wonder how Jordan would handle today's minute restrictions. Fascinating now much the game has changed since the 90s and how player/coach mindsets have changed.

Posted by 24kpyrite on 6/3/2020 9:53:00 PM (view original):
No offense to Cooper, but watching The Last Dance has me remembering how good Jordan and Pippen were defensively. Pippen, imo, is the best perimeter defender all time, Kawhi is mighty close. Pippens game would be so valuable nowadays. He is the stretch wing every team is looking for in the draft.

I also wonder how Jordan would handle today's minute restrictions. Fascinating now much the game has changed since the 90s and how player/coach mindsets have changed.

Yeah, imagine Pippen playing something like the Draymond Green role as a small ball 4/5 who lets you switch all screens on defense. Draymond at his peak played that role to perfection but Scottie probably did just about everything on the court better than Draymond, including being a better shooter (at least during his peak years). He would be incredible in today's game.

i could see jordan still playing 82...but maybe only 35/36 mpg instead of 38/39

funny the bulls were kinda ahead of their time with the kerr(or harper)/mj/pippen/kukoc/rodman lineup but they never took advantage of the 3pt spacing kerr and kukoc could provide...id like to see that lineup today with a spead offense for mj/pippen to attack with...rodman would be hard to hide tho

Yeah the 96 Bulls and the 17 Warriors would be a hell of a series. Maybe even a younger early 90s Bulls team with Ho would be just as fun watching how young and athletic Jordan and Pippen were at that time.
Once the Warriors added Durant though, the series goes to the Warriors, imo. Even with Draymond turning into an offensive atrocity, having Durant and Klay to match up on Jordan and Pippen and the Warriors offensive power I think would be too much.

it's weird because the counting stat records for things like steals and blocks were set in the 80s (and I realize that's not an ideal metric) but meanwhile the records being set now are for TS/efg after the rules committee has put thru a metric ton of rules changes to make scoring easier (FU James Harden)

not to mention that the stretching of today is at least a product of and benefits from those rule changes (did I mention FU James Harden?)

the Hakeem rockets spread

Isn't the worse era for defense, ever, the early 90s?

I would love to see the 95-96 Bulls play with the current style. Rodman would be an excellent small-ball center. And, Burrell would have a little more value.

One team I was thinking would translate well to today: the mid-90s Sonics. Don't play/pay McIlvane, have Kemp/Smooth at center, with Ervin "No Magic" getting minutes in certain matchups. McKey and later Detlef at PF (and McKey could play some center against really small teams, like the current Rockets). They could get away with GP/Hawkins/McMillan as their PG/SG/SF. If Brickowski polishes his 3pt shot he could get some run at PF/C. I always thought Askew was a decent 9th/10th man. (And, as long as we're dreaming, keep Dale Ellis from the early 90s Sonics. Most of the roster plays good-great defense, they can afford one sieve that hits 3s at 40%).

Edit: I just remembered that SEA got Ellis back later in the 90s. He was past his prime in the mid-90s, but it would've been cool if he never left in '90 and had been on the Finals team. He couldn't have guarded MJ if they let him use a taser, but he might've had an 8-10 3pt night.

Posted by 24kpyrite on 6/3/2020 10:36:00 PM (view original):
Isn't the worse era for defense, ever, the early 90s?

Not sure if you mean that's when defense was worst or that's when it was hardest to play defense. Don't think either is really right. The 80s were higher scoring than the early 90s mainly due to higher pace; efficiency was about the same. The last two seasons (2019 and 2020) are the two highest-scoring seasons in modern NBA history (roughly mid/late 70s through present). After that it's a bunch of seasons in the late 70s and the 80s. Pace gradually (and then steeply) declined from the mid 80s through the late 90s, when it hit rock bottom; pace then slowly increased until the mid-2010s or so, when it exploded (almost singlehandedly because of the Warriors' pace-and-space revolution). Efficiency roughly moved in tandem; it was really low in the late 90s and early 2000s, the grind-it-out, isolation-heavy era that followed MJ's retirement, but then began to rise as pace and spacing improved in the late 2000s.

I would say the "worst" NBA defense of the modern era was probably in the early 80s or so. You could make a case it's worse now, but that's a whole chicken-vs-egg thing with offenses ruthlessly prioritizing efficiency and forcing defenses into impossible choices. Whereas the "best" defense was probably around the time of MJ's second three-peat moving into the early 2000s, with teams like the Pistons and Spurs choking opponents into submission (sucked to watch, though).

The problem with Rodman (especially the Bulls version) as a small-ball center is that he doesn't have the size/skill set that those guys have in the modern NBA. He wouldn't provide spacing or be an effective pick-and-roll rim-runner on offense (every good modern 5 is one or both); and he would provide no rim protection whatsover. He would probably be OK on defense even without the rim protection because he was athletic and quick enough to switch screens and stay in front of guards and wings for a couple dribbles, but I really don't see how it would work on offense. There's not really any model in the current NBA for a guy with such a limited offensive skillset who isn't, at the very least, a major lob threat on pick and rolls.