I like seeing two teams acting like actual competitors.
I hate the now-routine hugfest among opponents after NBA games these days.
I remember Larry Bird commenting on his disdain for this practice as well in an interview a few years back.
I hear you Tenn..the players are definitely friendlier with each other these days than in the past. I think the problem is they just know each other too well now...they've grown up playing each other in AAU, they share the same agent, they text each other through the season. Back in those days, no social media, no cellphones, nobody really interacted with anyone outside their own team, and maybe not even then. Now they hang out in the summer, they play those pickup games in LA, plus there's so much more player movement between teams these days compared to back then, so someone who is on a team you're supposed to hate might have been your teammate a couple years ago (e.g. Josh Richardson in Miami, GWill and Cryrie in Dallas, Smartacus in Miami, Timelord in Portland, etc). The NBA has turned into such a trade-heavy league that most players probably know people on other teams.
I don't think it's just an NBA thing, it's just how it's become with most professional sports these days. Even in international sports, like soccer and rugby, where players play for national teams, there's much more cordiality post-game than before, even with teams that should legit hate each other like Brazil and Argentina or England and Germany because their players all play with each other in the professional leagues and they all text each other. Far cry from when
El Salvador went to war against Honduras after losing a soccer match in 1969...this would never happen today.
Personally I'm ok with them being friendly after the game as long as they act as competitors during the game...like Tatum did here with GWill in our game against Denver recently:
https://youtu.be/AXgAyrq0fp0?si=EzI5VGhXU_21beKXLove the spray he gave him at the end