IIRC the player minutes situation is due to big changes in the game engine from its early form. I think they made players fatigue much quicker in general at some point, and so it's nearly impossible to log the huge minutes these days, even with 90-100 ST.
You should see a similar thing with Rebounding, which is partially because of the minutes situation, but also because of changes to the way rebounds are calculated. It used to be a solid milestone to hit 1000 career Reb, but it's extremely difficult to do at this point.
I would guess FTs might be the same way too. When they stunted FT improvements and scaled down incoming recruits' FT ratings, it was a pretty big change. Players growing from ~C to ~A were common, as were players coming in with ~A FTs. Now it seems like most players are in that C- to B- range, which I find frustrating.