Originally Posted by
POOLSIDE
I'm not an old guy, and I agree with Scottie here. Well, maybe not sweep. But those bulls would have had their way with this team.
I've been saying this for awhile now, the NBA is at an all time low. There are way less historically great players than any era since the 80's, and the quality of gameplay is horrendous. All these guys grow up driving and dunking and being the best guy they've ever played against and it shows. Then they do one bs year in college where they don't seem to learn anything and don't care because they know they're about to make millions. The end result is a very poor product on the court. Fewer midrange jump shooters, poorer defensive play, terrible on ball defenders, unforgivably bad mechanics, awful teamwork to the point where most possessions consist of a bunch of meaningless passing before some dude plays hero ball with eight seconds on the shot clock, lazy unmotivated all stars who regularly take plays off, and the huuuuge glaring issue... basically zero quality big men.
There's not a big guy in the league worth a shit historically outside of Cousins, and even he feels like more of a power forward. Wrap your head around that. No centers who are any good historically. Duncan and Pau would be the only ones, but they don't count as they're in the twilight of their careers.
Who in the league now is gonna have an answer for Shaq in his prime? For Ewing, Duncan, David Robinson, Hakeem? No one. Not a single player. And don't give me that bs about how "oh the game has changed, it's a jump shooting league now". Save it. If one of those guys walks through the door tomorrow, he'll be drafted number one overall every single time.
The Jordan Bulls would have decimated this Warriors squad. So would the early 2000's Lakers, and it wouldn't have been pretty.
It's almost like we haven't seen great fundamental basketball for so long that we've forgotten how important it is. Steph Curry would be miserable getting guarded by Scottie Pippen every minute of a seven game series. Fccking miserable. We're talking about arguably the best one on one defender in the history of the sport. That still leaves Michael to guard Klay or whoever, and in case you can't remember, Michael was no slouch on d. That leaves the Warriors beating the Bulls down low. They don't have the personel for this, period. Rodman, Grant, Kukoc, whoever. The Bulls were ready. Meanwhile, like every other team in the NBA, the Warriors defensively have no answer for Michael and company. We know this. No one did.
Same goes for the turn of the century Lakers. If you think a platoon of Andrew Bogut, Anderson Varejao, and Maurice Speights is gonna stop Shaquille O'Neal in his prime over the course of a seven game series, you're either still in high school or you're braindead. And don't get me started on young Kobe. Plus Derek Fisher in that era was an incredibly underrated defender. No one got around him and he played guys tight. Curry wouldn't be lighting those Lakers up. The only way to beat them was better team basketball.
This Warriors run is fun, but make no mistake about it. The only reason they're flirting with 73 wins is because of how bad the rest of the teams are right now.