KG took it to the other extreme:
?If I?m being honest, bro, I don?t think anybody in this generation could have played like 20 years ago. If I?m being 100, and this is to Ant, this is to everybody in our league?Tatum, all y?all?let me tell y?all something, bro. Twenty years ago, bro, you couldn?t get to a triple step back. You hear what I?m saying to you? You couldn?t get to a triple step back. And then if you shot that [expletive], it had to go in. You know why? Because we had efficiency, back in the day, my dude, and it was so [expletive] hard. It was too physical, and guess what? The league had to come off of it for the flow of movement to be able to have scoring go up, which is why we like to sit here and watch kind of the rat race of the high-paced game right now.?
Man, the levels in which you had to be not only strong enough but skilled enough to get by this [expletive] in front of you, you understand? They ain?t never seen a 6?7? Rodman guard you. Bro, I see you, and you know you in the scout report. We know you go left; we know you can finish right, but you go left to pull up. Bro, everybody knows. Watching the games back then?Isaiah Thomas and then the Dumars?Dumars shut Jordan down, bro. They were coming to the lane, bro. You might get your nose broke trying to dunk. You understand? Dwyane Wade broke Kobe?s nose in the All-Star game, man. Bro, it was just different. It was very different back then.
He isn't necessarily wrong, but it also isn't quite that simple. I think Tatum and Brown for example would be fine playing in earlier eras. Porzinigs maybe not so much. Holiday and White? They would be fine. Heck, Horford did play 20 years ago (well, almost). It just varies. I think his point is (or should have been) that there are certain finesse players that are successful today that would not have been as successful in the past eras. It is hyperbolic to say that nobody in this generation could have played 20 years ago.
Yep. I think every generation probably overvalues their era a bit, but Ant (nobody but MJ) and KG (nobody at all) are taking it to an extreme level.
I think most older players could transition easier to the modern era. Just need to let them watch a few games to see what the rules allow now. However big men having to defend in space would be an issue. Today's players would need to get used to the physicality and hand checking allowed and not getting soft foul calls. They'd have to figure out how to dribble without palming and traveling.
You've hit on a big wrinkle, I suspect; it would probably be more difficult for bigs to go from past to present, and more difficult for guards to go from present to past. Call it the Al Jefferson phenomenon.
And not all eras are the same within 'the past', but in general I think the biggest hurdle is that in the modern game guys who can't shoot from range don't play, and many older players really couldn't shoot - especially bigs.
