<p>Dwight Howard looks out of proportion. His shoulders and torso are so broad, his biceps are huge, his head seems too small, like a headhunter shrunk it, a la Beetlejuice. I’d like to see photos from his high school yearbook to see if that is just the way he is put together.</p>
<p>Shoulders, shoulders and more shoulders. These guys are way more buffed than than the 80’s, 90’s teams. I still chuckle over Micahel Jordan’s stick legs!!</p>
<p>Was there anyone comparable to Carmelo Anthony back then?</p>
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<p>I can’t stand the uniforms pro and college basketball players wear today. The pants looks like skirts swaying in the wind. When their bodies are moving, the uniforms make their bodies look weird when viewed from a TV while the camera is a reasonable distance away from the players.</p>
<p>Could you imagine Dwight Howard in those teeny tiny shorts from the 80s?
BTW, when I see Dwight, I think of the MIB scene where they talk about the planets athletes are from. HUGE shoulders and arm muscles and his waist reminds me of a Barbie doll! How does one do that? He doesn’t look real…
Anyway, hope the Magic can claw their way back…can’t stand Kobe.</p>
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<p>Blame Michael Jordan. He started the current trend to baggy uniforms.</p>
<p>In any sport, not just basketball, comparison of athletes across eras is very difficult. The most you can say is that certain athletes were great in their own time. The current Kobe era is looking like it’s going to be great. The Kobe/Shaq era was great. The Magic/Kareem era was great. The West/Baylor/Wilt era was great. The Mikan era was great.</p>
<p>MJ was the best to ever play in the NBA IMHO. Kobe aspires to be like Mike.</p>
<p>Duncan has crazy good skills for a big but just doesn’t get the ink because he’s a bit quiet.</p>
<p>Lakers seem to want it a bit more than Magic, but would of liked a reprise of healthy Celtics/Lakers like last year…</p>
<p>Son of Opie- What do you mean? Steroids will help strength which is useful for rebounding and such. In addition they can help a player recover quickly. However, steroids will not increase foot speed or hand eye coordination needed.</p>
<p>“Dwight Howard looks out of proportion. His shoulders and torso are so broad, his biceps are huge, his head seems too small, like a headhunter shrunk it, a la Beetlejuice. I’d like to see photos from his high school yearbook to see if that is just the way he is put together.”</p>
<p>Dwight Howard looks out of proportion? What? He looks like a pretty ideal 7 foot body to me.</p>
<p>And, you can look at his 7th grade pics. He’s always looked like that.</p>
<p>In addition, I’d like to say uniforms from the 80’s were terrible. Seeing a guy’s upper thigh is not ideal.</p>
<p>Yes, different eras have different attributes. Some players would have been great in any era; Dolph Schayes, Russell, Bob Petitt, Wilt, West, Oscar Robertson, Alcindor, Moses Malone, Maravich, Dave Cowens, Havlicek, Bird, Johnson and of course, Jordan.</p>
<p>But IMO many of the players of the last 15-10 years are much overrated. How does Patrick Ewing make the 50th Anniversary All-Time Team and Nate Thurmond not? The elephant in the NBA room is the youth and inexperience of most of the players today. They’ve gone from inadequate or just so-so training in college to no college (or ‘one and done’) at all. Only a few really talented freshmen make a success of their early years in the NBA. The best thing about the NBA is the fact that, unlike the NFL, long-time veterans are appreciated and rewarded with decent salaries. That’s how champions are built today; with one or two solid veterans to complete the team. See Ray Allen, Brent Barry, Dennis Rodman, Derek Fisher etc. O.K., so that didn’t work with Jason Kidd or Shaq last year.</p>
<p>I never said steroids increased foot speed or coordination- you said they decreased them. Steroids are just a giant dose of what your body produces naturally- you still have to train. With steroids, you can work out harder and more often because you recover faster- increased muscle synthesis and decreased breakdown. </p>
<p>However, I really doubt there are many guys, if any in the NBA on steroids.</p>
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<p>But they fit so well around the…harrumph…rump.</p>
<p>If the players weren’t payed so much, I believe a lot of them would perform at a higher level.</p>
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<p>Dream on. Baseball, football, bicycle racing, swimming, tennis, track and field (a sport based on running, jumping, and throwing), and many other sports have all had steroid scandals. What makes you think NBA players are so pure? Aren’t the millions that NBA players earn sufficient to make many players seek a backdoor edge over the others?</p>
<p>Steroids would decrease foot speed and quickness due to the fact that it is putting on mass. This extra weight DOES slow you down.</p>
<p>Different drug testing program, for one…And pure brute strength is not as big a benefit in the NBA, just like steroids didn’t help Barry Bonds be able to recognize the pitch leaving the pitcher’s hand better.</p>
<p>Weiters… if it slowed you down, there wouldn’t be sprinters using the stuff. Mass can slow you down, but only if you’ve trained solely for size. Fast twitch responds to testosterone as much as slow twitch.</p>
<p>How about beta blockers? Lowers heartbeat rates. Beneficial to athletes?</p>
<p>^Opposite. If you can’t increase your heart rate and contractility, you can’t increase your cardiac output, and you’ll get faint when you try to exercise.</p>
<p>Are you sure? You an still get your heartbeat up to 130 or a little higher.</p>
<p>Yes. Very much so.</p>