NBA Thread

[benji]

While it is true that the rules have been loosened, the simple fact is a lot of modern players can cover far more ground with moves that would have been allowed in the past too. Look at old footage of Connie Hawkins, he was one of the few bigs even capable of handling the ball and he was 6-8, 225 or so. (George McGinnis's last year in the ABA looks a lot like Giannis and the Pacers used him similarly, he too was only 6-8.) Watch young Kareem too, if he had been allowed to handle the ball instead of spending all his high school days and four years of college never touching the ball until he was in the post, he would have obliterated people like Giannis too. Even with that being the case he had many years of around 5 assists per game. Hakeem and the Admiral were incredible and some of the best passing bigs of their era, but watch them try to do fast breaks with the ball and you'll see they weren't even as skilled as Shaq in that regard. (The Admiral is the funniest because he often dribbled with a stiff straight back, turns into Patrick Ewing when he tries to dribble too far.)

The real violators these days are the guards, and they have to give guys like Giannis and Jokic the same leeway they do the guards. The problem is they handle it as well as most guards. There's few rules you could issue that would stop Giannis from being able to one dribble and step to the rim from the three point line, it's the perimeter guys who are abusing the extra steps per gather most often. From probably every single game you can clip one of them getting two and a half steps on a gather.