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I'll agree that the overall skill-level of NBA players is way down from what it used to be. Most games are boring and terrible to watch. Part of it is that a lot of NBA players don't know the basics of dribbling, passing, and shooting, but part of it is also that team defense has been taken to an entirely new level. Coaches like Mike Fratello and Larry Brown and Rick Carlisle have devised defensive schemes worthy of the NFL, and the legalization of the zone made it possible to completely take away dribble penetration or even double the opponent's best player without the ball and keep him from ever touching it. You can't compare era's. Even if the general skill level seems to be down, we have no idea what Bird and Magic would have accomplished against the new schemes and with the new rules. The sh*tty teams might be almost unwatchable at times, and eastern conference basketball is tough to stomach, but there are still games and series well worth watching that are as good or better than anything brought to us in the past. Kings/Lakers, Kings/Mavs, Mavs/Spurs, Kings/T-Wolves, Lakers/Blazers have all had great games and series full of good team play and highly skilled basketball over the past five years.
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