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Soundwave said:
Nuvendil said:

Your second line reveals you don't have a clue what you are talking about.  The Celtics, Lakers, 76ers, the players back then where athletic as hell.  You had to be, the league was punishing and fast paced.  If you weren't athletic, you were fairly useless for anything but a bench warmer. 

And no, that's not "just how it goes."  Many analysts will agree with me that most of the stars of today don't stack up to the biggest stars of past decades, the 60s included. 

And your third paragraph exposes your ignorance and lack of respect.  Wilt Chamberlain is easily top 5 all time.  I would take him over Shaq.  I'd take him over anyone other than Jordan and Kareem.  And even then it would be a tough call.  And the talent pool was smaller but it was also very dense.  The 60s had fewer teams and therefore more talent per team.  There were very few teams that existed only to be stepped on.  There were numerous great players back then, you just don't see them because you are stuck in your ways and refuse to respect history.  Do you're research. 

And your comment on shooting percentages also showcases more lack of knowledge.  The game was played at an absurd tempo back then, resulting in far, far more posessions but therefore also far fewer clean looks.  Teams regularly took over 100 shots in a game.  Today's style of play drives up the shooting percentage.  And a lot of that can be credited to the 3 point line's impact on the floor and how the game had to be played. 

Wilt is basically a 90s player ... in the 60s. That's why he was abe to put up ridiculous numbers. But he is basically the exception. 

Taking a 100 shots a game indicates a ridiculous style of play, playing in the modern era would be a rude awakening for these guys. 

The 60s was not great basketball, I'm sorry if you think so, but come on. Things improve, and get better, sports in general have improved massively over the last 30 years due to things like TV (yes, being able to watch/study/break down game tape of every other athlete over and over again is a huge, and that footage being shown to millions of poeple worldwide encourages millions more to try and play the sport), training in the weight room, not to mention huge financial incentive (become a multi-millionaire, etc.), wildly more advanced coaching techniques, far superior development of players from a young age, etc. etc. etc. 

Most athletes from the 60s would get their ass handed to them today against modern athletes and basketball is probably more extreme not less because it's by its nature a sport more dependant on athletcism and size.  

You take the best tennis player from the 60s and put the against Nadal or Federer in their peak and they'd get wrecked. You take the best hockey team from the 60s and they would lose 10-1 to the Pittsburgh Penguins of today, I mean shit in the 60s/70s players in hockey would go have a cigarette in between periods, lol. 

Definitely agree with your post.
Modern athletes are better than past ones and that's basically a fact. Just look at all the world records in athletics, swimming etc. and tell me how many of them still haven't been beaten since the 60s.
Same can be said for team sports. In football (you know which one), it's very obvious as the game has become so much faster that even teams from the early 90s wouldn't stand 60 minutes on the pitch if they tried to keep up with modern teams.

And that's just the athelicism aspect. As you mentioned there have been many improvements in studying past games, more tactics, new rules, which alone could totally invalidate tactics that used to be advantageous and so on.

Now if these old athletes were born much later and thus still active today, I bet they could still be the best of their (new) era, but defintiely vastly superior to their past alter egos.