Oblique Reference Blogging

Here I was reading a somewhat outdated Bill Simmons chat and what did I see but this:

I think that Hollinger is making the assumption (which you have to in an "objective" system) that the quality of play is constant. Otherwise, it devolves into argument about the level of play, which can't be proved, and you wind up with (as I saw on a blog this weekend, referring to the statements you made in a column) someone saying that the Celtics and Lakers of the eighties can't be among the greatest ever because Bird and Magic weren't "athletic" by today's standards -- like they were considered athletic then.

That was my blog. And to be clear, all I was doing was observing that the overall level of athleticism on display in elite 1980s NBA matchups was extremely low by today's standards. The question of how 1986-vintage Larry Bird would fare in the NBA of 2007 is, as Mitt Romney would say, a "null set." If '86 Bird played in today's league, he would train like today's players. All things considered, it does seem to me that it's best to try to avoid making literal comparisons of players (or teams) across eras because it makes things imponderable and irrelevant.

Thus, there's nothing wrong with saying that the '86 Celtics are one of the greatest teams ever -- they dominated the league that year. There's just no real sense in arguing over whether or not the 2007 Spurs could have beaten the '86 Celtics. What we know is that the '86 Celtics performed better in terms of W-L record, point differential, etc. and that the game changed substantially over the 21 years that separate them.

Comments

I agree completely.

Posted by Freddie | June 16, 2007 9:57 AM

I really hope that Bill Simmons becomes the Marty Peretz of your sports world.

He's already misreading you. How long until he calls you an anti-NBA bigot?

Posted by goosen | June 16, 2007 10:10 AM

all I was doing was observing that the overall level of athleticism on display in elite 1980s NBA matchups was extremely low by today's standards.

Don't assert, show. Walk your way through the rosters from the Finals teams of this year, and those of the 1985 Finals. Tell us which players strike you as more athletic. Maybe, for the hell of it, define "athletic."

I don't think it's true. It's certainly not self-evident.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | June 16, 2007 10:27 AM

But Simmons has a stronger beef, which you're missing. He's suggesting that that the league of the 1980s was more imbalanced, with a few teams (Sixers, Lakers, and Celtics) possessing a larger number of star players than any team since expansion.

The Bulls get overrated because they never played a team of the caliber of the 1983 Sixers (2 HOF, 4 all-stars), 1985 Celtics (4 HOF), or 1986 Lakers (3 HOF).

Posted by AWC | June 16, 2007 10:36 AM

Don't assert, show.

Look, I'm no expert. I was born in 1981. My sample is a handful of games I've seen on ESPN Classic. Watching them, though, one repeatedly sees plays where guys get lanes to the rim and shoot layups where my eye is trained to expect a jump. Similarly, you see many more below-the-rim putbacks than you would today. The players are also look much less muscular than today's guys.

But, as I say, small sample. If a clear majority people who watched the games regularly in both eras want to tell me that mid-eighties NBA players were generally quicker, stronger, and higher jumping than today's guys, I'm prepared to believe that.

Posted by Matthew Yglesias | June 16, 2007 10:43 AM

Dear Matt: As an old fart, allow me to disagree with an implication of your overall premise. The LESSER NBA players of today are way more athletic than the lesser ones of yesteryear, but the top players have been pretty constant. To take some cases in point from several positions from, my god, the '60s, not the '80s.
C: Wilt Chamberlain
F: Gus Johnson, Connie Hawkins
G: Earl Monroe, Oscar.

John Havlicek was a freak of athletic nature, and he'd average 20 plus today. You CANNOT judge athletic ability through video. The old time stuff always looks dated and of lower quality. I don't know why that is, but it is true in every sport, even baseball, which hasn't changed a bit without steroids in the mix. It's true of old boxing films of Sugar Ray Robinson. It's a subject for your philosophy hat, not your NBA hat.

Posted by JMG | June 16, 2007 10:47 AM

"I don't think it's true. It's certainly not self-evident."

You're wrong on both counts.

The improved athleticism of today's game is so self-evident that it's not a particularly interesting question to explore in detail.

Posted by Petey | June 16, 2007 10:49 AM

Speaking of Simmons, I finally got around to watching episodes 1 & 2 of John From Cincinnati.

Matt is wrong about "TV built around a Central Mystery". It's just garden variety magic realism.

The particulars of John's mystery are not the primary focus here. We already understand them well enough.

Good TV. Better than Deadwood. I'm eager for the next episode.

Posted by Petey | June 16, 2007 10:59 AM

There's a story. Ty Cobb's at a Yankees game in the 1950s to see Mantle play. And a reporter sees him and goes up to him and starts chatting him up. He mentions how the players are much more athletic now (in the '50s) than they were in Cobb's day, and Cobb agrees.

"Well, if you were playing today," the reporter asks, "how do you think would you do? What would your batting average be?"

"Oh about .300," Cobb replies.

Now the reporter is shocked. Cobb has the highest lifetime average of anyone ever (.367) and had a couple seasons where he batted over .400. He's one of the greats. Plus, Cobb isn't known for modesty.

"Seriously, Mr. Cobb?" the reporter says, incredulous. "I know we were saying the game is more athletic now, and maybe your batting average would fall a little. But you think you'd bat ONLY .300 in today's game?"

Cobb replies, "Well, you have to remember, I'm 90 years old."

Posted by marc | June 16, 2007 11:04 AM

that mid-eighties NBA players were generally quicker, stronger, and higher jumping than today's guys, I'm prepared to believe that.

The '85 Finals offer a nice comparison that points in both directions. The Celts are wildly unathletic, where we agree to "athletic" by eyeball judgment. Maybe Maxwell and Johnson are athletic. But the Lakers have four players--Worthy, Cooper, Scott, McAdoo--who were more athletic than anyone but LeBron and maybe Parker. (Mac's at the end of his career, IIRC, so maybe he had slowed down a bit; not enough to make him less athletic than anyone but LeBron and Parker, though.)

I think that what drives perceptions like yours is that players are taller per position than in the past. A six foot plus point guard is now small, a small forward can be nearly seven feet tall, and even power forwards can shoot the three. And scoring guards really are athletic freaks now.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | June 16, 2007 11:05 AM

Even though today's players are more athletic, the change is probably smaller than we think. Looking at athletic competitions like high jump and 100 metres, you see a pattern with decreasing improvements, especially recently. The present high jump record was set in 1993, for example, and it was exactly 3 centimeters higher than the previous 1987 record. But the high jump record improved by 12 centimeters between 1960 and 1970.

Posted by Carlos | June 16, 2007 11:20 AM

"Even though today's players are more athletic, the change is probably smaller than we think. Looking at athletic competitions like high jump and 100 metres, you see a pattern with decreasing improvements, especially recently. The present high jump record was set in 1993, for example, and it was exactly 3 centimeters higher than the previous 1987 record."

Meh. What is different in the league between now and 20 years ago is precisely that the median player today is much more likely to have a high jump close to world record standards than was true 20 years ago.

Today, a lot of players make it to the NBA on pure athleticism despite the fact that they haven't developed a game yet. This wasn't nearly as common 20 years ago.

Posted by Petey | June 16, 2007 11:30 AM

Yep, that was your blog, and me asking the question.

Posted by Mac | June 16, 2007 11:49 AM

Am I the only one who finds this whole fixation on "athleticism" bizarre? For the argument, it really only matters whether the teams in question had better or worse teams, which is a function of much more than individual athleticism. You can freely grant (and I do) that the average NBA player is more athletic now (and at every SD if you want), but if the '86 player was more polished in terms of fundamentals like passing and shot selection, then you could have better players then, and more importantly, better teams.

No one would contest that the US has had the most athletic team at every single international tournament.

Posted by nolaboyd | June 16, 2007 11:50 AM

"Yep, that was your blog, and me asking the question."

When you you guys get connected to the internet in Alabama? I would think indoor plumbing should be a higher priority.

Posted by Petey | June 16, 2007 11:52 AM

I really hope that Bill Simmons becomes the Marty Peretz of your sports world.

Simmons is a lot more fun to read.

Posted by Bill Gardner | June 16, 2007 12:10 PM

The improved athleticism of today's game is so self-evident that it's not a particularly interesting question to explore in detail.

Agreed. It results from secular trends in nutrition, better identification of talent, fundamental advances in exercise science, and -- you have to figure -- chemical enhancement (steroids, etc.). The training of modern athletes in any sport is far more intense and systematic than 20 years ago, thanks in large part to the Eastern European coaches. Roger Bannister trained to break 4 minutes while he was at medical school. Has anyone heard of a modern competitive endurance athlete with another life?

Even though today's players are more athletic, the change is probably smaller than we think. Looking at athletic competitions like high jump and 100 metres, you see a pattern with decreasing improvements, especially recently.

Yes, but improvement in athletic performance can't be measured on a linear scale. Smaller improvements (measured in seconds or meters) aren't necessarily less impressive achievements.

And then there are performances like Michael Phelps's...

Posted by Bill Gardner | June 16, 2007 12:29 PM

That's extremely mature, Petey.

Posted by Mac | June 16, 2007 12:56 PM

Agreed. It results from secular trends in nutrition, better identification of talent, fundamental advances in exercise science, and -- you have to figure -- chemical enhancement (steroids, etc.).

The more I think about this, the crazier the underlying assumption seems to be. When I look at the league, it appears to be getting less athletic at the top levels than it was a five years ago. Last seven MVPs: Iverson, Duncan, Duncan, Garnett, Nash, Nash, Nowitzki. I count two supreme athletic talents out of seven.

Can someone please name the elite NBA team of today that is suffused with athleticism that is without parallel in the 80s? This isn't a challenge; I'm genuinely befuddled by the claim.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | June 16, 2007 1:24 PM

I'm still a bit baffled by Matthew's focus on "athleticism". This isn't the decathalon, it's basketball. And while strength and athleticism certainly play a part in the game, they are certainly not the most important aspect to a player's ability. To me, skill level is far, FAR more important than athleticism. And basketball smarts is also more important than athleticism.

To the extent that players are improving their strength and athleticism, they are not improving their skill level. Atheticism is up, shooting, passing, post moves and the like are down. Magic and Bird might be stronger if he played in today's environment, but maybe Bird would be as good a shooter, and maybe Magic wouldn't develop his baby hook as much.

All in all, is the product on the floor better today? Who knows. That's impossible to tell, mostly because the extra teams have diluted the talent.

Posted by Al | June 16, 2007 2:22 PM

Matt,

You are just not right abut the athleticism issue. There were tons of immensely athletic players in the NBA in the 1980s - Dominique Wilkins, Julius Erving, Andrew Toney, James Worthy, Sidney Moncrief, Marques Johnson, and a host of guys I've forgotten and you've never heard of. The bottom line is that McHale and Bird took on all comers in this regard and generally got the best of them. Both, by the way, were quite athletic if you use that term to be broader than simply speed and jumping. Hand eye coordination, shooting touch, strength, ability to catch the ball in traffic, nose for the ball in rebounding situations, timing -- all of these things are part of athleticism. Remember these two guys were 6' 9" and 6' 11" and had great wingspans. McHale was quick enough to cover guys like Erving and could block shots with both hands in a way you seldom see.

This is not even getting into the issue of knowing how to play the goddamn game. There are more morons throwing up bad shots in the NBA right now than I care to think about. It's one of the reasons that the game has faded with the public. You watch those Lakers and Celtics teams move the ball and I defy you to think that they would be cannon fodder for the likes of the Cavs. It was a much more pleasing game to watch. One you have to turn to Phoenix, Dallas or San Antonio to see anymore.

Posted by Klein's Tiny Left Nut | June 16, 2007 9:40 PM

Athleticism isn't really a major difference in the game between now and the 80s. The primary ones that jump out at me, from watching the NBA from before Matthew was born:

(a) Half Court Defensive Intensity & Game Planning

Shots that weren't challenged in the 80s are challenged now. You started seeing that shift in the 80s with teams like the Lakers (under Pat Riley) and Pistons (under Chuck Daly) began to perfect (for the era) variations of hidden zones and chasing shots at the perimeter. One of the things you would see with the Pistons half court offense of the title seasons was them begining to offensively react to the changes - whipping the ball around the perimeter to eventually find an open shooter rather than simply playing a simple in-and-out game where the kick to the outside got a shot instantly. The example being that the Lakers, throughout the decade up to that point, had been able to work a very simple in-and-out half course offense. Dump into Jabbar. If he got the double team, his pass off the double would often lead a shot, either to a cutter going to the basket or outside to set up shooters like Wilkes, Nixon, Cooper, Scott or even Johnson once he learned a simply set shot.

Teams like the Lakers and Pistons started taking away the first shot on balls coming out of post, or at the very least challenging it in a way that made it a far more difficult shot. Teams like the Pistons in the half court responded by setting up a second option on the perimeter for the first receiver of the ball to swing it to. Eventually, someone was open.

Today, you see teams defensively "chase" far better in the half court. Offenses have responded to it, but the defensive work ethic really has lept astronomically from the 80s. It's not really that defensive "skill" has improved, but schemes and work ethic are through the roof relative to the 80s. Uncontested shots were common then, and rare now.

(b) Denial of the Fast Break

The Pistons were another team at the forefront of this, though the Celtics prior to them has some success at times in slowing down the Lakers. The practice was two fold:

* get numbers back rather than having too many players on offense (i) crash the glass, or (ii) stand around with their head up their asses to the potential of the transition game

* cut off and/or pressure the outlet passes

If you compare the fast breaking of the Lakers in 1980 & 1982 (vs. 76ers) with that of 1984-87 (vs. Celts) with that of 1988 (Pistons) and then that of 1991 (vs. Bulls), you'll see a continuing decline as each team paid more attention to it. As the 90s and 00s have unfolded, pretty much every team puts the similar effort into shutting down the break that the Pistons and then Bulls did.

The Suns aren't really a throwback to the fastbreak teams of the 80s, but instead a team that brings a different form of uptempo to their offense. They fast break if it's there, but it's more about their their pacing on offense than simply coast-to-coast with little of it being contested well like Johnson use to do in the early to mid-80s.

(c) Cutting off the Lane

People would probably chalk this up to Riley with the Knicks, and that might be part of the case. The Bulls under Jackson also cut off the lane as one of their strengths.

The path to the basket if far more contested now than it was in the early to mid-80s. Both in terms of physicallity (Knicks Thuggishness) and in terms of help and court awareness (Bulls half court defense for lack of a better example). People still get through the lane and to the basket, but a lot of it is via isolation or offensive schemes to open it up (which the Suns and Spurs are good at). The lane has been shutdown from the old 80s (and 70s) revolving door defense that when Lebron lit up the Pistons by driving so much that much of the press talked about how the Pistons should have thugged it up against him. If a Lebron in the 80s (a/k/a Nique or Jordan) abusing a team through the lane like that, the talk would have been more focused on the awesome performance than on the need to mug him when he drove. It would have been expected and to a degree expected that he work the lane like that, and the talk of defensive strategy would more have centered on "playing off" of the Jordan of the 80s to deny him driving and instead force him to prove that he can hit his jump shot (as at the time he was still developing it).

Okay... all of those things are defensive in nature. Athleticism has an impact on a part of that, but far more of it has to do with defensive schemes/planning along with increased work ethic by the players.

Tony Parker is faster than Reggie Theus was, but I'm not at all sold that he is all around in a basketball sense more athletically gifted than Reggie was. Those of you who saw Reggie semi-regularly in the 80s probably can comfirm - he was a graceful, quick, speedy, coordinated and good sized point guard. He also had good court vision as well.

On the other hand, Reggie couldn't be bothered much on defense. It really wasn't that he didn't have the athletic skills for it. Instead, he had the 80s mentality on defense that one only puts so much effort into it. In addition, the typical defensive scheme for him teams wasn't remotely close to what Pop & Co. have put together, developed and evolved for the Spurs over the past decaded.

Reggie's work ethic on defense was the norm, not the exception. The converse is true today - poor defensive work ethic, especially on the top teams, is the exception. Steve Nash isn't very skilled defensive player, has size issues and also speed/quickness issue relative to many of the players he covers. But even if one says that Nash isn't a very good defensive player, one would have to agree that his work ethic on defense is far ahead of all but the very elite of defensive guards from the 80s. That's common today - it's expected.

The work ethic and scheming goes down to the college levels. A large chunk of Duke's success over the past two decades has been from working hard on defense. The Bruins success in the past two years is largely due to Howland instilling an amazing work ethic on a bunch of high school all americans playing ball in LaLa-Land, where the team things defense first and offense second.

There does seem to be more willingness amoung players to work on defense, or at least an acknowledgement that it's expected that they put effort on that side of the game.

On the offensive side, several things stand out that aren't entirely disctated by defense:

(d) More Perimeter Play

Part of that is due to defenses taking away the ease of the lane and post up play that was there in the 80s. But a majority of it is due to the increase in ability to sink three pointers. Kids shoot outside in college. Guys like Durrant step into college with "three point range". Lebron tosses up a high number of threes, not well this year put acceptable in the prior two years. Jordan never added the three as a serious weapon of his until the 90s. Bird was generally thought to be the best three point shooter of the era, and he didn't get to the 200+ attempt range until the late 80s and even then it was the low 200's. AI is, kindly speaking, a poor three point shooter. He tossed up 450+ in his rookie year. He's never gone that insane since, but he's been over 300 several times since, and would have been over more is he were able to play 80 games a year more consistently.

It's a radical change in the game. Some of it is a continuation of the Pistons half court offense, morphed into the Bulls triangle where the ball moves around the perimiter. But a lot of it is guys isolating, with guys like Kobe shooting over guys off the dribble. And almost all of it is a result of players coming into the league more perimiter oriented.

(e) Less Skill/Polish

I think this gets too much play, as most everyone wants to blame the offensive decline in the league on more high school and undergrads coming into the league without college polish. People tend to forget that after three years each under Dean Smith, (i) James Worthy didn't much care to dribble with his left hand and had major issues shooting beyond 15 feet, while (ii) the buzz on Jordan was let him shoot from 20 rather than drive and get anywhere within 12 feet. Worthy learned his 17 foot jumper, used to keep the defense from playing off him to prevent his quick driving, until several years with Riley and the Lakers. It took years for Jordan to become the outside shooter that people who watched him just in the 90s take for granted.

Ewing went all four years to GTown, and offensively was a close to the basket and post up player on offense. That 15 foot jumped he could drop was something he learned in the pros. Hakeem went to Houston three years, and that wonderful, sureal turnaround jumper he developed was something he perfected in the pros.

So "skill and polish" is something overblown by people who have no recollection of what a lot of players looked like in college.

That's not to say that there isn't some of it, especially team skills. There does seem to be an increase in bringing 1-on-1 mentality to the league, without some of that 1-on-1 skill having enough depth to it to understand what to do when facing NBA defensives that can take away your strengths.

Athleticism doesn't have a great deal to do with either of those items.

I agree with those who earlier in the comments section who say that Magic and Bird (and by extension Jordan) would be athletically different players if they came up through high school now. They all would be bigger, stronger, and faster with better training and diet. Whether they had better coaching through high school and college is debatable. But Jordan and Magic would have learned outside shooting in junior high school these days. Johnson and the Lakers were at the forefront of weight training in the NBA in the mid-80s. In the 00s, he would have been in the weight room in high school with a training program that probably wouldn't be far removed from what was "state of the art" in the NBA in the 80s. Bird would have been in the weight room in high school as well, rather than one of the NBA players who thought it was overrated in the 80s.

A Johnson would likely be as athletically gifted as Jason Kidd, but with the court smarts, drive, passion, size and desire that Magic had in the 80s *and* a better outside shot... which would make Magic one of the 2-3 best players in the NBA right now. 22 year old Jordan would like have been 27-29 year old Jordan in terms of having an outside shot, stronger, though perhaps not quite yet having the burning desire that was enhanced by coming up short his first six years in the league.

One doesn't even want to think of what Wilt or Jabbar would be like if they came up through junior high school and high school with modern training and diet. Shaq isn't remotely close to being as athletically gifted as Wilt was relative to the era. Oden, Duncan, Robinson, Hakeem, Ewing... none of those guys are or were as athletically gifted as Jabbar relative to their eras.

Bird is a unique beast, and one has a hard time figuring out how he would fit into today's game. But the reality of the 80s is that it was always hard to figure out how Bird fit into that era. He simply did, and like Magic it was more due to desire, drive and court sense/smarts that being the most athletically gifted player in the league. As a Showtime Lakers fan of the era, he and his team were the enemy. But I also watched way too much of him in the era doing things that more gifted players didn't to not have the sneaking suspision that if he had been born in December 1981 rather than December 1956, that growing up with modern training and diet that the 25 year old Bird would have been navigating his team into the playoffs, quite possibly to the Final, and would be high up in the MVP voting.

Sorry for the long comment. But the entry, and the response, drew it out.

John

Posted by jdw | June 16, 2007 10:28 PM