The Old Like the old and the young like the young
- Thread starter Johnnyt
- Start date
Larry would never be in a position to guard Kobe, different positions. To run with that argument, there is no way Kobe could stop Larry posting him up, or defend his 3-point shot.
As for Magic, he would have done fine against Kobe. He was a decent defender, especially as he got older. And again, he would have posted up Kobe all night.
Kobe is an amazing player. But Larry and Magic were on a different planet. They did EVERYTHING better, and made everyone they played with better. That is something you can't say about Kobe.
Ah yes, those crappy small & slow "1980's players" like Dr J, Moses Malone, Isiah, Ralph Sampson, Barkley, Jordan (back when he really had hops), Olajuwon, Chocolate Thunder, Bernard King, Tom Chambers, Sikma, Iceman Gervins, Dominique, Clyde The Glide Drexler, Ewing, X-Man McDaniel, Marques Johnson...hell there's probably another dozen or two guys I'm forgetting. All slouches and hacks. I mean we all know Magic would have had serious trouble comparing to today's legendary point guards like Tony Parker, Russell Westbrook, Steve Nash, and Chris Paul. Yep, all those unstoppable modern point guards.
Let's pretend that the NBA has not had its talent greatly diluted due to expansion, and that the NBA has not been in decline and has not had its talent drawn from a smaller and smaller pool every year..but yeah, all those 1980's guys were terrible. And Magic and Bird never had to face one-trick-pony one dimensional scorers like Kobe before. Nope, they certainly didn't face (and beat) guys like that before. No way.
They said the exact same thing about Dominique back in the 80's.
You may be overlooking the principal reason why pool has evolved: the body of knowledge about the game has deepened and expanded. People have LEARNED more about the game collectively. People can watch pro players online, share info on sites like AZ, publish tons of books, etc. The information about the game is far more widely available. Also, the information had submitted to the scrutiny of science, and some myths have been debunked. Look at some examples of what *knowledge* has lead to in terms of improvement:
--the break is no longer about "hit is as hard as you can with control". Now people recognize that there is far more to it than that. People have learned to understand the rack, exploit spaces, break with the BEST speed rather than the fastest, learned to cut break, play position on particular balls in the rack, etc.
--the safety game has evolved considerably, thanks in part to a certain magician. Shots that in the past were "works of art" have now become routine and standard safeties.
--position routes in rotation games like 9 and 10 ball have evolved to the point of being routine and standard. Again, people can so easily see pros run out so often through various media, that what used to be considered "creative" position shots have become the norm.
--equipment has evolved as well. New tips, LD shafts, evolution in cuemaking...sure this isn't night and day stuff, but it adds to the difference, the cumulative progress that the state of the art has achieved.
I have not been able to watch too many matches from the 70's era, and pretty much none from before that. However, the games I see prior to 1990 appear to be at a level far below what I witness today. What view of humanity must one have to deny the tendency toward *progress*? I believe it is nostalgia that fuels most of the views that some past legend was better than the best of today.
KMRUNOUT
One thing people forget about the new vs old debate is the old players were battle tested and practiced competed way more. A great example is when the IPT became relevent it was a running joke among the top players like Johnny,Rodney, Earl etc that now they would have to actually practice and get back in stroke. Anyone that thinks Earl,Jose, Efren, Lil Nicky, Allen Hopkins circa 1985 couldnt compete with todays players is delusional. In your above list I personally was on the road with 5 of them and they are great players and very taleneted but guys like Alex and Corey and Johnny just don't put in the time like they did when they were teenagers and early 20s. The big reason they don't is there is no money in pool. Talent transends time.
That's assuming that the old time player is "stuck in a bubble" and has no ability to quickly observe and learn. In other words, while the modern player has the advantage of the knowledge gained in the intervening years, you're assuming the old time player would be unable or incapable of learning this same knowledge base. I just don't see that as being the case.
Nostalgia gets balanced by another fact of human nature: the tendency to think ourselves automatically better than what came before.
500 years ago science and mathematics were relatively primitive compared to today. Does that mean that true genius-level polymaths like Copernicus or da Vinci are "dumber" than a college math or physics professor of today?
I would say no. In fact, it can be argued that they were indeed smarter than almost anyone alive today, as they had "worse equipment and knowledge base" to work with and had to work and invent and discover almost out of whole cloth. And don't forget those two (and guys like Galileo, Aristotle, Bacon, and even going back to Archimedes) were true polymaths: they had genius in more than one area, not a narrowly focused area of expertise as is common today.
Just something to think about.
Edit: again, interesting thread idea, different than the usual "so and so would/would not beat so and so" threads.
Last edited:
TheThaiger
Banned
That's assuming that the old time player is "stuck in a bubble" and has no ability to quickly observe and learn. In other words, while the modern player has the advantage of the knowledge gained in the intervening years, you're assuming the old time player would be unable or incapable of learning this same knowledge base. I just don't see that as being the case.
Nostalgia gets balanced by another fact of human nature: the tendency to think ourselves automatically better than what came before.
500 years ago science and mathematics were relatively primitive compared to today. Does that mean that true genius-level polymaths like Copernicus or da Vinci are "dumber" than a college math or physics professor of today?
I would say no. In fact, it can be argued that they were indeed smarter than almost anyone alive today, as they had "worse equipment and knowledge base" to work with and had to work and invent and discover almost out of whole cloth. And don't forget those two (and guys like Galileo, Aristotle, Bacon, and even going back to Archimedes) were true polymaths: they had genius in more than one area, not a narrowly focused area of expertise as is common today.
Just something to think about.
Edit: again, interesting thread idea, different than the usual "so and so would/would not beat so and so" threads.
Good post from KM and good response here.
Personally, I think this site overdoes the nostalgia angle, almost to the point of self pity. Although I find many of the stories fascinating, I think talking about new heroes is more helpful to the game than constantly referencing previous glories.
In terms of science versus art, all new fields will be opened up by initial individual brilliance, but the 'whole' will be improved incrementally, by degree, by the masses. Sheer repetition drives up standards.
Here the thing take away all the ld shafts and newer tips and chalk and everything that was not around back then and lets see what happens.
Or give the same thing to the players back then. It's pretty much a different game from then to now
What if he was playing Earl when he ran 11 racks in a row? It wouldn't have mattered if Earl was playing God himself! I think for me it comes down to this, each generation has their strong points. Neither is the winner hands down. To assume newer players are better in every aspect of the game as some have been saying is naive. It just to hard to compare, too many variables.
Imagine what the future holds. It will be interesting to see what the next crop of players will achieve and how the game will be changed to fit them, er TV!
1) sorry in advance for taking this thread off topic
2) dont get me wrong, I LOVE those guys from the 80's!
3) Westbrook and Chris Paul would blow by Magic.
4) Again, if not for the time clock, many would be saying Mark Spitz was the best ever, and that Phelps could not carry his speedos. Our "memory" would tell us that, because Spitz dominated the field, yet the clock tells us that Mark Spitz, with the times he was posting in those days, those same times would not even make the olympic team today.
1) nah who cares about thread derails, its a fun thread all around
2) every single one of those guys would still be an all star today.
3) The difference in speed isn't as great as you'd think. Magic wasn't a noted defender for his day, but he was pretty quick for his size. And going the other way those guys would be in deep trouble. How would they possibly defend him? Magic was huge for his position, 6-9 and 250lbs...how would 6-3 190# Westbrook or 6-0 175# CP3 even slow him down? Magic faced guys like Isiah & Kevin Johnson (almost exactly same size as CP3) and guys like Terry Porter (about the same size as Westbrook) and did more than fine against them. Wasn't even close, really. The stats are pretty telling in comparison also. A weak diluted league with offense-orientated rules and lack of defense and they still have worse stats in every category. I should note here that I'm no Lakers fan, in fact that's the team I always hated the most, but you can't dismiss Magic as someone who was only good because he "faced 80's players".
4) swimming is a purely physical sport. There is little to no eye hand coordination, quick thinking and decision making involved. So no surprise swimmers, or weightlifters, or runners, or long jumpers, etc all do better today than then. Again, training methods and conditioning have improved, but has eye-hand coordination? Decision making under pressure? etc?
I'll throw something else out there too: exceptional phenoms, whether physical or mental, pop up now and then, and are often exceptional to the point of minimizing time or equipment differences. The modern era has no monopoly on producing freaks of nature.
Last edited:
If you had Larry and magic coming of age in this time period, they would still be just as awesome. Their physical skills would only be better, re strength and speed, with the advances in training. Still, you could time warp the 80's versions into todays game, and they would still be head and shoulders above everyone. They had better basketball minds than everyone else, in addition to phenomenal skills.
Todays players dont have that, for the most part. Kobe is close. kidd is that type of player. Duncan. Pierce has grown into it, slightly, tho he didn't have it till the new big three was formed. (Then he grew up.)
There are some amazing physical talents in todays game, but the court is still only 100 feet long. Hell, they even play zone now!
Todays players dont have that, for the most part. Kobe is close. kidd is that type of player. Duncan. Pierce has grown into it, slightly, tho he didn't have it till the new big three was formed. (Then he grew up.)
There are some amazing physical talents in todays game, but the court is still only 100 feet long. Hell, they even play zone now!
Good points being made here, and I think we all agree the superstars of their time (Magic, Mosconi, etc) would still be great today, probably even better, due to better training, more info being available, and arguably facing better competition.
Something else I heard once that makes sense. When comparing today's players to past players, we tend to grab ALL past players from the last 100 or so years and lump them into one super-team to compare against today's players. Thats not fair, because all the greats didnt play at the same time. Fair would be to compare today (2012), with 2002, then against 1992, then 1982, etc. Not fair that today's players have to be better then the entire "hall of fame", to be considered better.
Just a thought
Something else I heard once that makes sense. When comparing today's players to past players, we tend to grab ALL past players from the last 100 or so years and lump them into one super-team to compare against today's players. Thats not fair, because all the greats didnt play at the same time. Fair would be to compare today (2012), with 2002, then against 1992, then 1982, etc. Not fair that today's players have to be better then the entire "hall of fame", to be considered better.
Just a thought
The game is very different now as far as rules also. They saw what the home run race did for baseball back in the late 90's and every rule change since then has been to increase scoring and hamper defense. Even in the "all star game-like" environment of today's NBA I'm not impressed by a lot of what's out there. There are some great exceptions (I think Durant is amazing so far, for example), but the NBA's decline as a relevant sport, and the decline in youth participation has really hurt the talent pool. Sound familiar to another sport? :grin:
I'll stir the pot one further: Wilt was, without a doubt, the single greatest basketball player of all time. An absolute freak of nature, and we'll not see his equal or better for a long time. Like I said earlier though, freaks of nature come around now and then, so eventually there should be someone.
Edit:
That's a very good point.
I'll stir the pot one further: Wilt was, without a doubt, the single greatest basketball player of all time. An absolute freak of nature, and we'll not see his equal or better for a long time. Like I said earlier though, freaks of nature come around now and then, so eventually there should be someone.
Edit:
That's a very good point.
Last edited:
