Chris Bosh asks a question… “Is today’s pace and space, the fast 3 point shooting play… Is it good for the league? I’d don’t think it’s good for guys careers… We’ll see how it goes”.
Old heads think today’s game is “easier” but guys today are much more skilled and they have to cover a lot more ground when defending. Dead ball and era and prior was guys just giving the ball to the star player at the elbow and defenders stay home while sending a double here and there or meeting them at the rim for a hard foul which was a lot easier on a players body.
Dead ball and era and prior was guys just giving the ball to the star player at the elbow and defenders stay home while sending a double here and there or meeting them at the rim for a hard foul which was a lot easier on a players body.
Talk about oversimplifying lol. You’re taking a dig at old heads for their dumb takes, but you’re basically doing the same thing from the other side. Defences weren’t just standing around waiting to foul someone, and offences weren’t just dumping the ball to their star every possession. Players today are obviously more skilled in certain areas, but pretending the game back then required less skill or effort is just as ridiculous as claiming today’s game is soft.
Dude, watch the old games. There is a massive discrepancy in the level of effort on both ends. It’s hardly the same sport.
Please turn on a 90s all star game compare it to today and get back to us. They don’t get that way playing low effort.
You also have to watch the best teams. Watch Jordan’s Bulls where every player got involved, Hakeem’s rockets, Webber’s kings, these were dynamic and extremely entertaining offensive teams and they played defense.
Of course there were bad teams then. There are bad teams now and no I won’t watch them just because they run around all over the place more than the past just to get out at the 3 point line. Same to same, just todays game appears to be very clearly harder on the body, and/or players aren’t training right, or specialing too early or some combination of things.
I literally watched Jazz Bulls last year during the finals for a comparison and it’s not even close. Maybe YOU need to go watch the old games again, honey
Well stated. People think that back in the 80’s and 90’s people just stood around while the stars did their thing is just asinine. I do think the great neck pace today doesn’t bode well for players bodies. We have seen the increase in lower leg injuries (knee, ACL, etc.) because of the insane amount of speed needed to get down both ends of the floor. The body can only take so much wear and tear.
is it asinine? because if you just took a look at 80s and 90s film you’d see exactly that. The game moves super slowly, the PG doesn’t usually do much other than bring the ball up and pass it to the elbow. There’s 2 bigs inside but the defense is no where near as robust as it is today.
Yea it’s not really that big of an exaggeration. I remember watching 90’s basketball and guys only had to cover certain areas of the floor most of the time, particularly bigs who could just roam around the paint. And I mean it makes sense the 90’s was 30 years ago so the difference between today’s athletes and playstyle is the same as the difference between the 2000’s and the 70’s.
Zone defense was illegal in the 1990s which lead to the 3 second violation and illegal defense for big men just standing in the paint. The spreading out you see in today’s game is zone defense where players rotate with the ball. There were teams that played fast pace run and gun offenses in the 80s and 90s. Most teams played a half-court set in the 1990s. The NBA eased the rules for more offense by adding zone defense and removing hand checking in the early 2000s. Among getting looser with wrist carries, travels, etc. Today’s game is built for offense they changed the rules for it. Not taking anything away from today’s players.
Players today are obviously more skilled in certain areas, but pretending the game back then required less skill or effort is just as ridiculous as claiming today’s game is soft.
lol? you have no clue what you’re talking about. There’s a ton of metrics to show that the game was slower and played more in the halfcourt specifically in the post and elbow than there was today due to defensive rules and offensive principles back then.
Lol, where did I say the game wasn’t slower or more focused on the halfcourt? You’re arguing against something I never said. A slower pace doesn’t mean the game required less skill or effort. And you’re completely ignoring how the rules shaped the way teams played. Illegal defence rules, hand-checking, spacing and the lack of three-point shooting all influenced offensive and defensive strategies. You’re doing exactly what you accuse old heads of doing, judging an entirely different era by today’s standards and pretending you’ve made some profound point.
To add to your point the 70s had some of the highest recorded pace in the history of the league. You wouldnt say those players are better just because the game was faster. Just false equivalency. I do think players are overall better now but that doesnt have anything to do with the players but just the evolution of the game.
Yep. Pace and space requires A LOT more running and athleticism.
Wasn’t pace higher in the 60s? Guys weren’t breaking down then.
They werent stopping on a dime or doing negative step crossovers back then. Converses probably werent helping tbf
Stopping on a dime has been a basketball concept as long as basketball has been around. Educate yourself.
Pace is just a reflection of possession changes, it doesn’t really tell you anything about the way the game is played and how demanding it is on your body. The game was much different then, far less off ball movement, fewer aggressive cuts on both sides of the ball, people were generally slower and had less bounce, etc.
Yep, the 60s had players going fast in transition, which is straight line running, and then dumping it through their star, usually a center, or just whoever is open and tossing up a shot. If they weren’t able to find an opening, you’d often see the kind of 4 corners offense where players just pass around the outside until the center is able to fight his way into position that you used to see all the time at the high school level until the takeover of AAU ball. Today, they don’t necessarily transition up court and shoot as quickly as the 60s, but the amount of lateral movement and herky jerky start-stop movement as players fly around in the half court means that they are putting way more stress on their joints and tendons than they would with simple straight line movements, the kind the body is designed to handle.
A more normal, non stat, definition of pace still applies in basketball. But whichever you choose, they do both tell you more than nothing about about the way the game is played.
Looking back at Jordan highlights this is 100% accurate. I was even old enough to watch MJ play which at the time seemed like he was superhuman but looking back now, many of his highlights were just him on an island with 1 defender while the other 8 guys on the floor just stood to the other side watching MJ cook his defender. A ton of guys in the NBA now could easily do the same if zone defense wasn’t a thing.
That’s why the Jordan rules were so effective for the pistons. They basically played a zone and Jordan always saw 2 or 3 guys anytime he dribbled. Before Pippen and Grant took it to the next level and the strat no longer worked
You should pull up some games from the 90s and early 2000s (and 80s too) on youtube if you think this. You’re describing a caricature of the era rather than the actual play style.
Can you link some? Every game I’ve watched in the 80s and 90s is as the OP describes it
I’m not going to do the search for you but off the top of my head you can watch: Showtime Lakers, mid-80s Celtics, Run TMC Warriors, KJ and 80s/early 90s Suns, 90s Bulls, 90s Jazz, Payton/Kemp Sonics, early 2000 Kings, D’Antoni Suns (towards end of the deadball era).
The Spurs were a pretty deadball era style, especially in Timmy’s first few years, which is probably why a lot of what you watched is like that. The Knicks, Heat, and a lot of the east played that style of ball too.
it’s always hilarious watching someone tell people to do research when they haven’t done it themselves
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNmApPB9lfM
It’s funny that when asked for a link you didn’t provide one because it would probably instantly expose the truth. The fighting over screens, the cuts, the chasing offensive players all over the court just isn’t there. It’s an entirely different brand of basketball.
It’s exactly as described and this isn’t even deadball era.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNmApPB9lfM&t=321
If anyone wonders why Wemby doesn’t sky hook like Kareem it is because this is a post up foul when Kareem played.
There is more spacing today and more ground to cover, but this is like completely not what the Bulls did where they could and did involve every player. Jordan got 30 a game within the natural flow of the triangle offense.
There were teams with fantastic ball movement like the Rockets and the Sacramento Kings with Webber and Divacs and Jason Williams.
There was definitely less running around in the half court because less threes and more midrange and post play, but the best teams played with great passing and ball movement.
That’s also what made the fast break so special, because point guards scored less they were passing dime after dime on the break and the 80s/90s/00s were the best passing we may ever see by guards. No one really specializes in it today like they did in the past. A very different game
Everyone tries to play at a break-neck pace and then wonder why their bodies don’t hold up.
I’m still a supporter of less minutes for everyone and having to play 12’guys deep.
I think this will happen one day if this keeps up, it’s the most realistic thing because we’re not getting shorter seasons or rule changes. One team will have to be deep enough and brave enough to pull the trigger even if they lose a few more games, I would’ve said OKC but they can’t afford to do that now
it’s prisoners dilemma. first team to do this tanks their regular season at least a little bit. the only teams that would be able to afford this are the contenders. think pop spurs, steph warriors.
mark jackson was ahead of his time. he used to sub out 5 starters for 5 bench guys lol
Spurs didn’t have any player play more than 31 MPG last season and they went 62-20.
40 minute games?
Or max minute count for players, like 35 minutes.
Make it like hockey, 3 sets of 5 guys. Double shift if you want
I think that’s what needs to happen, but it’s hard to get away with playing guys who suck. And going 12+ deep is playing some guys who suck. And if you are a team in the 5ish range of the conference standings but you play the whole roster, you will just lose too many games to be in the play in now while teams who still play 9 guys beat you.
Oh yeah and expansion is coming so going 12 deep is going to be even harder.
The current issue is teams are not at all built for this, though it could be interesting to see if it worked that way in the future. The average NBA player is better than they’ve ever been, but the guys out of the rotation are often young prospects or occasional vet player coach types. The rest are guys who are washing out but not yet off the books. Teams would have to rebuild around having a more guys you can trust on the floor for a stretch, but even if you tried to have a lower individual salary every across the floor team you’re gonna get cooked by the opponents A squad.
This exact change is what would make it very interesting imo. Roster constructions would be varied. A team could go with lower average value but higher quality depth to end up a better regular season team versus a super star centric team could struggle to make the post season.
Playing 12 guys deep isn’t realistic for a number of reasons
New star players want to chase old records. Luka/SGA/Wembanyama won’t like getting stuck down the leaderboards under obviously worse players because the meta changed.
It would drop interest in the league from casual viewers. They tune in only to watch the biggest stars and the most popular teams anyway. The owners won’t like losing money by trying to push every casual fan to remember more player names and complicated rotation/lineup implications.
Without an explicit rule mandating this, some teams will keep playing their starters big minutes still. That will incentivize other teams to do the same to keep competing. If an explicit rule is made, it’s unfair to teams that have more resilient superstars like SGA/Jokic who rarely miss time to injury.
I’m talking about a mandatory thing, maybe an in season limits restriction and minimum per player. You can manage them however you want.
I totally think this is crazy and would never happen but just throwing ideas into the internet
Then they shouldn’t whine about injuries. Chase stats, accept the risk, play less minutes make more money.
I haven’t seen any significant number of currently active players “whining about” injuries. It’s all former players, usually someone on a tv broadcast.
Every team is pressuring full court. Getting injured. Gassing out in the playoffs.
Meanwhile the Knicks look like the don’t even know the ball is live until their opponent gets to the 3-pt line 😂 gotta preserve bodies.
We don’t even turn it on until we’re down 15 points in the third. Gotta conserve that energy!
We learned that the hard way last night
Yeah. You want your lead to be 8–12. You go over that and you trigger their transformation.
I feel like they’ve learned their lesson after playing under Thibodeau for so long.
I really believe part of the reason the Spurs lost the Finals last year was they went so hard to start those games meanwhile the Knicks were just kind of playing their way into it and then by the 4th quarter the Spurs would always looked gassed and their shots were all of a sudden not falling meanwhile the Knicks would look fresh.
The Knicks players talked about it in the off season. They believed the spurs couldn’t keep up that level of intensity for 48 minutes.
I believe that OKC series was incredibly brutal in terms of focus and stamina tax. That’s my headcannon
We didn’t even realize the season started until we were 0-3
I was worried last season with the effort but it was very obvious in retrospect that they were conserving and keeping a lot of their tricks close to the chest until April. The seeding does not matter as long as the play in is avoided.
Yeah. It’s one of several reasons I would bet the under on their wins. I just don’t think they care that much as long as they get a top 6 seed
i have to couch every knicks comment i make in my hatred for them but i bet they really are gassed lol
couple of deep playoff runs in a row with lots of injuries on the heels of the Thibs era and Josh Hart’s thumb. and i’m surprised Brunson can still walk straight
Even worse for Josh it’s not his thumb, pretty sure it’s an index or ring finger 😭
yeahhhh that’s actually not the famed digit I was referencing
wild that he’s got two crazy finger stories tho
Brunson had wrist surgery over the off-season which is why he’s been struggling a bit
True, but he also has had slow starts every season.
It’s so stupid im. 4 preseason games the starters might play 2 of, then going straight balls to the walls. Chill tf out and get your guys thru the season.
I only watched the teams my team played in the preseason, but it was 1 game for all the teams the Blazers played. I think Portland was the only team that I saw play their starters decent minutes in more than the last pre-season game. But different teams play different pre-season schedules shrug.
You don’t get to decide to not play at fast speeds now. The other team isn’t going to agree to not run in transition. Running more and being more athletic leads to winning more games. There is some nuance here.
Everyone includes, you know, everyone. The game has changed, and now guys are going to keep getting lower body injuries until it changes again. It is what it is.
Steph lower body probably not getting used off the court with all these stuff his wife be hinting at these days
What lmao
I don’t know what this means, but if I go home and Ayesha Curry is cooking, lower body is getting used at some point.
They’re all putting on too much muscle. Modern training & supplements are too effective.
You’re really blaming the players and not the coaches or GMs…….
Bosh has a good TV voice. He could commentate games or something
Bosh was always a very smart and thoughtful voice when he was playing, and like you said, he has a good TV voice and good presence. I have always assumed he just didn’t want to get into any kind of broadcasting because if he did, it’s ridiculous some of the former players they put on TV instead of him. He’d be so much better than some of those guys.
Does anyone know any background? Was Bosh not interested in doing TV?
I just assumed it’s the same issue that stopped him from playing - the blood clots make it dangerous for him to fly
You’d think he could do a studio show tho.
He recently just had another bad episode
I’ve seen him multiple times around Austin with his family (he sticks out like crazy lol). Seems like he just enjoys retirement and being a dad tbh.
Bosh was always a very smart and thoughtful voice when he was playing, and like you said, he has a good TV voice and good presence.
And he’s better at French horn too, Eric.
I thought he had media aspirations before he ever got to Miami. I recall him tweeting funny appeals to fans when playing for Toronto about how he deserved one of the last all star berths.
the used car salesman video to get all-star votes was great
It could just be he’s a funny sociable guy who was doing that without any ulterior motives
Or maybe anchor a defense
I could listen to him speak all day lol.
“Chris Bosh sounds like a white guy named Dennis”
During the 2019 playoffs, Chris Bosh was on TV for TSN, for the Raptors national Canadian coverage.
He was a natural. He’s made for that role.
If Inside the NBA ends, and ESPN goes in a new direction that emulates Prime’s or NBC’s coverage, they should get Chris Bosh for sure.
I think the reality is that top players’ minutes need to decrease on a night to night basis. Guys should be playing like 28-30 max but no star player is going to want to hear that or do that.
Or coach under pressure to win.
Embiid played 38 last night, which is unacceptable for October. Maybe we lose if he plays 28, but I’d rather be the 6 seed and have a healthy Embiid in April than the 2 seed with a gimpy Embiid.
That’s just Nick Nurse
Wemby does that but it’s detrimental to his MVP case (it was an argument last year, might happen again)
That mentality needs to die lol
Agree. It’s sports, not a circus.
The other thing is do you enforce these minutes restrictions during playoffs too? If not, the players are just not gonna be conditioned enough to suddenly up the intensity AND stamina. Thats what I noticed with Wemby, he was so gassed having to play those extra minutes during playoffs.
It would have to be ramped up. Maybe like a 30 minute hardcap until x day (Christmas, January, or trade deadline are solid options) then the rest of the season no limit. That allows for plenty of time for players to get adjusted to more minutes in the back half of the season.
Which is kinda crazy cause i remember Giannis getting praised for putting up numbers in only 30 minutes when he got MVP
Fans don’t want that either. Wemby could be benched when we go up 20 or down 6. Either way it’s a “bad” time.
Some people forget that it is supposed to be entertainment first. That is what generates all of the money.
Let’s be honest, Wemby played that few minutes because spurs were steamrolling the opposition most of the time.
He would absolutely play more if Spurs were losing.
This is the real answer to the issue. In a more sports medicine driven world every player would be on minute restrictions in the first few months of the season (I.e, no player can play more than 20 minutes per game first two weeks, 25 minutes next two weeks, etc.) to gradually ramp up. And b2bs with 30+ minutes per game would be less common. It would go a long way in preserving health but players would not want to bear the impact it’d have on their stats.
And their wallets.
If everyone did the minutes restrictions, it wouldn’t hurt their wallets, would actually likely benefit top players by helping extend their careers, but then all of a sudden there would be an even bigger benefit to playing stars big minutes and so it wouldn’t happen.
I do think the realistic answer would be relaxing some of the offensive freedom of movement stuff and cracking down on both dribbling violations and illegal screening, to reduce the physicality and pace of play a little.
Yeah, it’d have to be an actual implemented rule where players aren’t allowed to play more than 25-30 minutes and must be taken out at the next stoppage once reaching the limit.
Not to mention there’s a sort of race to the bottom there, unless there’s an official rule, every team is going to play their best players as much as they have to in order to win. Would be interesting to have a 3 quarter cap or something
Bosh is right on point.. I get the speed of the game is exciting BUT we are gonna have stars constantly hurt with this play style.. the constant soft tissue injuries because these guys are cutting and and changing direction at top speed on offense AND defense now.
The league is at fault here to possibly a large extent . Someone the other day here said get rid of the 14 second clock(is it on offensive rebounds?), make it 24 again. There are little things they can do to save players bodies and sacrifice some of artificially inflated scoring, call some of the carries and travels on the step backs. They could possibly truly have an impact on the game by calling it the right way, cause if they actually called things the game would slow down
split the court into two teams that can swap rotate in and out with an offside rule.
Doesn’t seem to happen to foreign players as much, no? What is it about 95% of the top American stars have catastrophic career-altering injuries?
Embiid and Porzingis are foreign born players
POTs isn’t related to this though. KP is just a COVID infection sequelae.
KP has an extensive list of injuries to include torn ACL and MCL, an ankle sprain with torn tendons. Pretty sure there was a stretch where he was out for 2 years with injuries.
I have no idea if what you said is true, but if that were the case then you could make inferences about the AAU.
I think it would slow the game down if they called, travels, carries, moving screens. Also get rid of the gather step
Its so much easier on the body to play slow and post up. Explosiveness and speed is what causes injuries.
Lol. Posting up is easy now? Less physically demanding than shooting a 3? I don’t know about that.
If the game has more post up, only two players on the court have action. The post guy and his defender. Everyone else relaxes and stays.
Shooting 3 is just an action. It is how you get open before and it’s also how the defense needs to react to the route and chasing. For every open corner 3 that you think it is not physical demand, there are 9 other guys on the court doing so much - dribble, setting screen, defense double team, chasing the paint, and a kick out for an open 3. In total, it is a lot demanding to the body.
That’s in the rulebook? I don’t recall seeing that as a violation. In fact in watching actual games, I’m pretty sure I’ve see players post up WHILE their teammates were also moving. Crazy, right?
I didn’t ask for your TED talk, though. I asked if Posting up was easy or less physically demanding than a 3 attempt. Equivocating about the work it takes to get in position to take a 3 isn’t answering that question.
Since I happened to have been pulling clips for someone else in the thread I have this handy.
This is what a post up foul looked like in the late 80s. Playing through the post involved a lot of standing around and is so much easier on your legs than the wringer we put people through these days.
Following a guy through off ball screens and then trying to stick with someone getting an illegal on ball screen while he can carry the ball all over the place is really really difficult and exhausting.
Literally the very next play after the foul you can see some serious fighting over the post-up attempt. That looks like low effort to you? Finding one clip of a foul doesn’t really prove anything if in the same clip you can see some very exhausting post up work being done.
Sure it’s not as low effort at what Parish and Kareem are doing but it’s nowhere near as hard on the body as fighting over screens and getting crossed up constantly.
You’re conflating low effort with low stress on the body. They’re 2 different things.
Yes it is. It is much slower activity. You literally can’t move your pivot foot. Compare that to sprinting to get wide open shot or taking your defender full speed on to try to get past him.
I don’t think you’ve ever posted up against someone in your life, is what I think.
It’s a different type of physical, more soft tissue physical
yaaaa my guy speaking facts
This makes me wonder if going back to the 90s rules where zone defense was illegal would lower the amount of injuries and wear and tear. If modern help defense and having to close out to three point shooters is part of the problem, it seems like it would be less so if defenders are forced somehow to stay closer to shooters.
There would have to be some additional nerf to offense as well (say, enforcing stricter dribbling rules etc) but to me it’s at least an idea that doesn’t rely on shortening the season, which seems to be a non starter practically. It would be a more conservative change in some ways because these were already the rules once and a lot of people are still nostalgic for the game when it was played that way.
One thing I sort of miss is players who are good at passing but not good at scoring. That archetype is mostly dead in the modern game where defenses can completely ignore bad offensive players. But that could be more viable again if the rules reverted back.
And than there some geniuses out there saying they’re doing this so they can play gta6….
U shittin on Steve Adams 😂
Nope, there’s a difference between calling in sick and having season ending injuries
Nov 19 will be the most called out sick day in human history
It’s kind of ironic the very thing that’s lengthening the careers well beyond the normal (some guys being effective at 35+) is also the same reason guys are blowing out their bodies earlier. Maximizing their explosive and fast twitch muscles in training, while also load managing and not practicing at 100%, so when they actually do go at game speed they’re blowing their Achilles, knees and ham strings out. There’s no long term ramp up anymore, guys are coasting in the regular season “wait for the playoffs” or they come into the season and go 100% for the first time and it’s too much
Where as previous generation went 100% way more often so they’d have these stretches of dominance in their career often followed by a full collapse in their early 30’s when the blow back of playing that hard for that long destroyed their bodie
Was it already reported that Ant was getting microfracture surgery or did Bosh just break some news?
Came out yesterday he was getting surgery and out roughly 2 months.
Is micro fracture surgery the same as arthroscopic surgery?
He misspoke, players don’t even get microfracture surgeries anymore.
Thank god
Bring back hand-checking and it’ll fix a lot of problems.
The pace is harder on the ankles and feet, but the shooting is easier on the knees, also less physicality if you’re jump shooting rather than playing closer to the paint, so less wear and tear in that regard
The real problem is the developmental programs these athletes go through as kids. By the time they make the league their bodies already have too much mileage
There has to be diminishing returns to playing so many games at youth level. How many games until the improvement per extra game in your footwork, shooting splits, handles etc becomes negligible? They are forced to train hard and not smart, and now they break down faster than they used to
Physicality is so overrated when it comes to player injuries. There is a big difference between being sore from being banged around and having the wear on your muscles and joints from all the extra running and jumping.
The defender still has to chase the shooter. So there is not really a break for the defender’s ankles and feet.
Also, without calling travel, the shooter has 3-4 steps to attack. Decades ago, the defender would trap the shooter when they planted the wrong foot for pivot. It was one way to defend and to force a turnover (via traveling call). Now, the shooter can the catch the ball and run like a running back.
Ok to an extent what you said is true, but I still think these injuries are primarily mileage injuries
Players get run down in youth development, get to the league and are forced to play 65+ games, if they want individual recognition for awards.
The leeway attackers get, affects everyone because you still have to play defense, fair point there
Shooting definitely plays a core role here. Shooting itself is ok, the real issue is defending shooting. It used to be that most players operate within the arc and run simpler plays, so there were a lot of standing still. Now it’s rotate, switch, close-out, all the way beyond the 3 point line. That increase of coverage area and movement frenquency is extremely unfriendly to knees and joints.
“Less physicality” doesn’t matter. It’s harder on the body to run and jump and cut than it is to bang bodies in the post. It’s a matter of physics and tension. Speaking about injuries.
Lebron who from your era still playing no injury xd
We should run the old guys off. No reason why we need to watch the same guys for 20+ years.
There are about 30 players age 32 or older in current rotations. The average age in the NBA has also largely been trending down for the last 25-30 years.