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Does the NBA have a problem?

str8line

str8line

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“Cause they making too much money now” - Shaquille O’Neal on why modern-day stars...​


"The reason why I showed the guys before me respect is because the way they played, the reason why I’m making so much money. I always wanted to play hard, always wanted to represent the game the way they did. I wanted them to be proud of me," Shaq added. "These youngsters don’t do that."
 
Some might call this sour grapes by Shaq, but I think he has a point. I was thinking yesterday about Indiana dropping over 150 points. It seems like a lot of teams have been putting up All-Star game like numbers. Then I saw this article about Shaq and it hit home. Do modern NBA players leave it all on the floor like the players of the past or are they too fat and happy?
 
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str8line said:
Some might call this sour grapes by Shaq, but I think he has a point. I was thinking yesterday about Indiana dropping over 150 points. It seems like a lot of teams have been putting up All-Star game like numbers. Then I saw this article about Shaq and it hit home. Do modern NBA players leave it all on the floor like the players of the past or are they too fat and happy?
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This is just some back in my day BS. Shaq was lucky he didn't play in the internet era as he'd get roasted for playing his way into shape and getting surgery after the offseason because "he got hurt on company time so he will get surgery on company time".
 
I don't understand why people keep insisting that NBA teams and players treat every regular season game like it's a playoff game 7. There's no incentive and no benefit and most importantly, no logic to it. It's the nature of the beast.

There are 1,230 games in the NBA regular season, and right now, their sole purpose is to eliminate 10 out of 30 teams. Ten out of thirty! And you have to factor in that in any given year, at least half of those ten teams have purposely eliminated themselves by New Year's. Their season goal is to get as good a draft pick as possible.

It's not the players' fault the NBA sets up its season in such a way that 7 months are largely meaningless and then one month counts for everything.
 
"The qualities that propelled him to greatness", why have today's players not reached out for that keen advice? I think it in this case it has more to do with the fact that those qualities have everything to do with being a 7'1" 325 pound behemoth that could tear down backboards like they were nothing. Not a lot of players fitting that description nowadays and those that may be might be a little intimidated. And free throw shooting? Never mind.

Another thing is that the game has changed so much. Pretty sure that Shaq would get a lot more charging violations in today's game, so I'm not quite sure how his game might translate.

Nobody makes much more than Giannis, Steph and Lebron and those guys manage to stay hungry and motivated every single year. A bigger issue is that Superstars have gotten bigger than their organizations and have forced trades, load management and other concessions. I feel pretty confident that Adam Silver is taking steps to curb player abuses though.
 
JimLes said:
I don't understand why people keep insisting that NBA teams and players treat every regular season game like it's a playoff game 7. There's no incentive and no benefit and most importantly, no logic to it. It's the nature of the beast.

There are 1,230 games in the NBA regular season, and right now, their sole purpose is to eliminate 10 out of 30 teams. Ten out of thirty! And you have to factor in that in any given year, at least half of those ten teams have purposely eliminated themselves by New Year's. Their season goal is to get as good a draft pick as possible.

It's not the players' fault the NBA sets up its season in such a way that 7 months are largely meaningless and then one month counts for everything.
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Isn't playoff seeding an incentive? Pride? Habits?
 
Some recent scores:

155-104
141-139
152-111
143-120
138-133
133-124
134-116
 
Handlogten's Heros said:
This is just some back in my day BS. Shaq was lucky he didn't play in the internet era as he'd get roasted for playing his way into shape and getting surgery after the offseason because "he got hurt on company time so he will get surgery on company time".
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Yeah, Shaq is probably one of the worst people to call out players. What if Michael Jordan said the same thing? How would Kobe feel about today's NBA?
 
Shaq is like if there was a Chess world champion out there who had a special ability where he could play with three Queens whereas everybody else only had one.

Like, still very impressive what he was able to do, but it's hard to listen to him try to criticize players when he very clearly does not understand what it's like playing basketball without the ridiculous physical advantages he had.
 
JimLes said:
I don't understand why people keep insisting that NBA teams and players treat every regular season game like it's a playoff game 7. There's no incentive and no benefit and most importantly, no logic to it. It's the nature of the beast.

There are 1,230 games in the NBA regular season, and right now, their sole purpose is to eliminate 10 out of 30 teams. Ten out of thirty! And you have to factor in that in any given year, at least half of those ten teams have purposely eliminated themselves by New Year's. Their season goal is to get as good a draft pick as possible.

It's not the players' fault the NBA sets up its season in such a way that 7 months are largely meaningless and then one month counts for everything.
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Sure, but 40 years ago 943 games were played which the sole purpose was to eliminate just SEVEN teams out of 23, so I don't think that works as an argument comparatively.
 
Darkwing Duck said:
Sure, but 40 years ago 943 games were played which the sole purpose was to eliminate just SEVEN teams out of 23, so I don't think that works as an argument comparatively.
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It's like how cartoon characters can walk on air until they becomes aware of it. At some point(I would argue hard for Feb 27 2016 being a watershed date), NBA players and coaches realized that they don't hand out trophies for having the most regular season wins. It's been that way all along, but you have to realize it before you can no longer walk on air. Same thing with the 3-point line. It's existed for 45 years and 3 points has always been worth more than 2 points, but it took decades for someone to actually acknowledge that.
 
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