'80's/'90's Defense

[Nitro]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adusCcba89o

 

Joe Johnson from the Atlanta Hawks was asked about the handchecking rule during the summer of 2010: "It benefits me," said Joe Johnson, one of three players (Mike Bibby and Jamal Crawford are the others) on the Hawks' roster who have averaged 20 or more points in a season. "It definitely changes the game because it gives every guy that extra step. "If we could hand check now, the game would be totally different," Johnson said. "If they couldn't hand check back in the day, there are some guys that would have been even better than they were. It would have been nuts for some of the big-time scorers and perimeter players from the 1980s and 1990s. Can you imagine what [Michael] Jordan would have done in a league where you couldn't hand check."

 

During a 2007 L.A. Lakers pre-season broadcast, Phil Jackson was asked how he thought Michael Jordan would perform today, Phil said: "Michael would average 45 with these rules."

 

"You can't even touch a guy now," says Charlotte coach Larry Brown, who also coached the 2004 Pistons defense... "The college game is much more physical than our game. I always tease Michael [Jordan], if he played today, he'd average 50."

 

Question for Clyde Drexler:

In the current league where there is no hand checking and no ruff play how much better would your numbers be?

 

Clyde Drexler: Oh, tremendously better, from shooting percentage to points per game everything would be up, and our old teams would score a lot more points, and that is saying something because we could score a lot back then. I do think there should be an asterisk next to some of these scoring leaders, because it is much different trying to score with a forearm in your face. It is harder to score with that resistance. You had to turn your back on guys defending you back in the day with all the hand checking that was going on. For guys who penetrate these days, it's hunting season. Yes, now you can play (floating)zone(legally), but teams rarely do.

 

"The defensive rules, the hand checking, the ability to make contact on a guy in certain areas .... [have] all been taken away from the game. If Kobe could get 81, I think Michael could get 100 in today's game." - Scottie Pippen January 2006

 

Craig Hodges is the Lakers shooting coach, get a look at what he said:

Q: If you could take one player in their prime, would you take Michael Jordan or Kobe?

 

A: M.J., all day. There's no comparison. M.J. could score 100 points in this era. You can't hand-check now. Imagine that trying to guard M.J. It would be crazy.

 

Hall of Famer Rick Barry, a keen observer of the game, said he would love to see players of the past getting to attack the basket under the new officiating. "They'd score a lot more," he said.

 

Tex Winter said: "Players today can get to the basket individually much easier."

 

Asked if he could defend Jordan under today's interpretation of the rules, Joe Dumars first laughed, "It would have been virtually impossible to defend Michael Jordan based on the way the game's being called right now."

 

Question for Dominique Wilkins: Seeing that you played in one of the greatest eras in NBA history, what has changed the most in the NBA since your days as a player?

 

Dominique Wilkins: "The power forward position had the license to kick your butt and the game was very physical. I think the physical aspect of the game, some of it has been taken away with the rule changes."

 

Do you think you could take them?

 

Dominique Wilkins: "I don't believe in comparisons, but I look at the era I played in. Like I said, when you have to play against a great player every night, that defines who you are if you can compete on that same level night in and night out. That tells you where your place is in the whole, I would say, history of the game. You put yourself in a very high spot."

 

Dominique Wilkins: "When you can compete on that level against the greatest players every single night, and when you can play just as good or better, that really defines who you are as a player. So if you're asking me what would I have done [today], well, put it this way, if you couldn't touch me [because of the rule changes], instead of averaging 25 or 30 [points], I'd probably average 40."

 

Tim Grover, who has trained Kobe, Lebron, and Jordan, was asked who would win a 1-on-1 battle of Jordan vs. either of the other two:

Tim Grover: "Oh, Michael. No question. From a physical and mental standpoint, he's the best I've ever seen. If he were playing now, with the way the refs call everything, and with all the padding these guys wear, he'd average 40 or 50 a night if he wanted."

 

 

 

My annual post showing people how tough defense was back then, and how different it is from now. I found the video pretty fascinating, and it shows those players not only handchecking, but also blatantly playing zone when it was considered illegal. Take what you want from this video...whether it be to influence MJ vs. Kobe debates, to show how much the game has evolved, to determine if the new rule changes have helped or hurt the quality of the league's product, etc... Nontheless, I thought some of you may find it interesting.

[Real Deal]

As stated before, teams were allowed to play zone as long as they were committed to the double. It's one of the biggest reasons why Jordan averaged those eight assists one season.

 

Hand-checking was tough to play against, but by statistics, the greatest NBA defenses were after the hand-checking rule was tossed (well, basically the last decade of basketball, plus another year or two), and it's because of the zone defense. No way around it.

 

Been around the block with this over and over again, though, so I'll let everyone else discuss it.

[Nitro]

Hand-checking was tough to play against, but by statistics, the greatest NBA defenses were after the hand-checking rule was tossed (well, basically the last decade of basketball, plus another year or two), and it's because of the zone defense. No way around it.

 

Hand-checking wasn't really enforced until 04-05, after 03-04 saw probably the worst offensive/best defensive output in NBA history because of hand-checking + zone defense. Zone defense was initially legalized because A) It was rarely enforced to begin with, and B) It was meant to speed the game back up. Here's an excerpt from an article in the Houston Chronicle showing how the rule changes came about and how it effected the game initially...

 

So fast, so quick, so close, so incredibly entertaining. All of which the NBA has

systematically worked to get back to the past five years with rule changes that were intended to free a beautiful, improvisational, flowing sport from the stifling defenses and rigid structure that had been imparted on it by control-freak head coaches.

 

Scores were regularly in the 80s, even 70s for an entire game. Isolation plays — with one player holding the ball and his four teammates standing off in corners — were the norm. The shot clock was run down, and the number of possessions each game were decreased.

 

"I was in New York and I told (NBA commissioner) David Stern, 'when I get turned off and I'm a lifer, that's a real problem,' " said Phoenix Suns president Jerry Colangelo. "He said, 'Go ahead, appoint yourself a committee.' And we just went ahead and did it."

 

So in the spring of 2001, Colangelo gathered a committee of former coaches and players. Among them were Jack Ramsay, Jerry West, Dick Motta and Rod Thorn. And they knew immediately the mandate was to quicken the game.

 

 

"The first thing I did when we met was to show everybody a videotape I'd had made of the different eras of the league — the '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s and where we'd come," Colangelo said. "It was pretty revealing stuff. It was evident that in the '60s and '70s, guys were free to go pretty much anywhere on the court. And 20 or 30 years ago, there was no half-court offense. It just wasn't how our game was played.

 

"By having it all on one video, you could see our game evolving — or de-evolving, to be more accurate — it was obvious that we had to make some changes right away."

 

The committee eliminated the illegal defense rules, virtually allowing zones, and shortened the time to get the ball over the midcourt line from 10 to 8 seconds. It considered going to the trapezoid-shaped lane and allowing a ball on the rim to be live, just like in the international game.

 

"But we didn't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater," Colangelo said. "We wanted to keep our identity."

 

Two years later, the committee took the next step and began outlawing all hand-checking on the perimeter, getting the league back closer to its roots.

 

Now fans can again see the full talents of Wade and Kobe Bryant or Gilbert Arenas and James, and cities where the game was dormant for so long began to experience a rebirth.

 

"It's such fun for me again to watch the NBA," said Hall of Famer Magic Johnson, who was the conductor of the Showtime Lakers that won five titles in the 1980s. "I'm so happy to see teams like Phoenix running, to see them running in Chicago and New Jersey. San Antonio can run. Even my old coach, Pat Riley, has them running in Miami.

 

Doug Collins shook his head.

 

"Without those rule changes, I'm sure we're not at this point," said the former player and coach-turned broadcaster. "Just the no hand-checking rule alone brought so much speed and penetration and cutting back into the game. Before, if a guy tried to go through the lane, it was — bam! — you stop him.

 

"This is the game that I played during my career in Philadelphia, running and cutting and finding the open man. Hey, look at those Lakers-Celtics Finals in the '80s. They'd score in the 120s sometimes."

 

Also, something I always forget to mention in these debates is the new defensive 3 second rule, which is enforced a lot more than the old zone defense rules, and has really opened up the lane for many of these stars today.