<p>IMHO, you can’t compare eras - though the SABR people try to do it for baseball - using fitness and size and what you see now versus what you think you saw then. Are players really bigger and faster? At some positions, the average height seems to have gone up, notably at the 2 and perhaps the 3, but overall centers are not taller and 4’s are iffy. Are they quicker? I don’t know how one could measure quickness versus time in a sprint. If there is a quickness advantage today, then it would likely be due to drugs, so if you adjust the past to allow for drugs, I’d bet they’re darn near even. The issue with quickness can easily be summarized by looking at March Madness and how some teams and players seem quick in one game and then look slow versus the next opponent and then you find that only a handful are actually quick enough to play in the NBA. We judge on relative scales, not absolute and objective scales. </p>
<p>The game also changes. When Russell and Chamberlain played, the game was less defense, more fast break, more shots, more scoring, with games often ending in the 120’s. That’s 10-20 more made possessions than today, which reflects not only defense but the slower pace of the game. In other words, though the game may look faster now, it’s also slower and it’s very difficult to figure out which is perceptive bias. </p>
<p>I barely remember Chamberlain, don’t remember Russell, remember all of Jordan, Magic, Larry, part of Dr. J, all of Kareem. None of the current players makes my top 5, with Shaq and Kobe close but not there. (My top 5, btw, is Russ, Chamberlain, Jordan, Magic and Kareem, with Oscar, Larry and Hakeem banging on the door.) </p>
<p>If you think about the difference in eras, take Kareem. He would still dominate with the hook - perhaps the greatest offensive weapon of an individual player ever - but he’d be doubled more when he put the ball down. But Kareem was also a terrific passer in high or low post, so with any ball movement and decent 3 point shooting, he’d kill you in more ways than he did when he was actually playing. (And Kareem had quicker feet and better footwork than any of the big men today, excluding guys like Garnett who are more 4’s than 5’s - and who are also HOF.) </p>
<p>Remember that Michael played when isolation was allowed. Every era has its quirks. While Larry played in the 3 pt era, the shot wasn’t part of the regular offense and was mostly taken at the end of quarters. In his biggest 3 shooting season, he took 237. By contrast, Turkoglu, a guy in the series now, took 415 and 376 the last two years. Things change.</p>
<p>I’m not that impressed with the teams playing in this final but that’s the game.</p>