NBA Dynasty Bonanza!

In a money spending stupor, I picked up a bunch of NBA DVDs over the holidays on amazon.com. The DVDs in question are the Bulls, Celtics and Lakers Dynasty DVDs which contain amongst other things, hours and hours of highlight shows recounting the glory yeares of each of these franchises. More to the basketball aficionado's liking, however, is that the DVDs are also packed with complete game footage of many of the biggest games of the last two decades. As such, in the next few months, as I slowly make my way through these games, I'll keep you posted on what gems of knowledge I've gleaned.

In the meantime... here are two random thoughts I've picked up so far.

1. The Lost Generation
If you watch any of the clips from the 80s, it becomes readily apparent that the players of that generation were far inferior to today's players in terms of physique. With the advent of regimented weight training, the players today seem much larger and stronger. As such, there's a tendency to imagine that today's teams would decimate their predecessors if they ever met on the court. However, if you use your imagination for a moment and pretend that Magic and Karreem and Kurt Rambis pounded the weight room the same way Kobe does, there still remains a glaring difference between those vintage teams of yesteryear and the teams of today. Experience.

A quick glance at the old tapes reveals this that many of the formidable matchups of yesteryear, ie. the Bulls vs. Jazz in 97-98, the Lakers vs. Celtics in 87... contained a plethora of certain hall of famers in those series. By the time of the 98 Finals, Jordan, Pippen, Malone and Stockton were already SURE FIRE hall of famers (not to mention that Rodman probably should be in the hall now, and that Jerry Sloan and Phil Jackson probably belong as coaches also). Now take a look at the 2 best teams in the NBA at present, last year's finalists, the Pistons and the Spurs. Between these two outstanding teams, there is exactly one sure fire future hall of famer in the mix...Duncan. After that, there are a lot of very good players, but nobody that is as yet, at that level. This may be the difference between the NBA now and what it was then. The NBA now has very good teams, but in those days, there were GREAT teams. The difference is largely one of experience. By the time the Bulls and the Jazz met in those last few finals, Malone and Stockton had already been passing the ball back and forth nearly a decade and a half. Jordan and Pippen had hoisted multiple NBA championship banners. This is the difference between the NBA of now, and the NBA of 10 years ago. Then, there was an entire generation of hall of famers who came into their prime at roughly the same time and from the mid 80s to the mid 90s, they lit up the NBA marquee with the likes of which have not been seen since. The NBA today is younger, flashier, but lacking in that hall of fame calibre star quality. If you look back to the early 90s, when the players who should be filling that bill now were coming up, the Chris Webbers, the Anfernee Hardaways and the Grant Hills, there exists almost an entire generation of talent that failed to reach its potential, for whatever the reason. Fortunately though, the current crop of talent, in a few years, should be able to overcome this, and perhaps 5 years from now, we'll be talking about Kobe Bryant and Lebron James with the same reverence currently reserved for Jordan and Magic.

2. Larry Legend
I threw in a DVD of one of Bird's final shining moments, from the 1992 season, when he led the Celtics to a remarkable regular season victory over Portland at the Garden. It's a game I remember watching in the seventh grade. He scored about 50 points that game but looking back on it now, I'm struck not by how impressive this was, but how impressive it was given that he almost NO physical attributes left at this point in his career. If you watch the footage, Bird can barely run at 1/2 speed. It looks like he has such limited flexibility in his back that it's a wonder he can snag boards and of course, his jumping ability, never formidable, now leaves him firmly stapled to the floor. And yet, there he is, backing a man in and then launching a fadeaway from over his head and draining it. And yet, there he is, exorting his teammates to victory by snatching another rebound from a crowd of larger, more imposing players. I've never seen a player with such an obvious, glaring, hunger for competition and winning. It's as if you can see him forcing his team to win as you watch the game. The only other player that I've ever seen exude this ability is Jordan, but he did it beneath an exterior of silky smooth moves and tremendous physical attributes that if you didn't look closely, you might almost miss his competitive fire. With Bird at this point in his career, there is no way you can miss it. The man is pure competition!