I was twelve years old when I watched the first ever NBA action of my life. It was the All-Star Weekend in 1997 held at Gund Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. That day, my alarm had gone off at 3 am German time, and I snuck out of bed and tiptoed down the stairs to my dad’s office. There, I hoped, I'd have a better shot at evading my Mom's keen ears. With the volume turned to barely audible, the dopest Hip Hop beat playing in the arena, I watched an eighteen year old rookie win the Slam Dunk contest with a right-handed east-bay dunk jumping off one leg; sick! His name? Kobe Bryant.
A handful years of English classes and the emergence of Youtube later, I finally managed to track down that song from the '97 All-Star game. Momma said knock you out by LL Cool J; what a tune still! Who won the three point contest, you ask? I don’t remember. Heck, who cared about the Three Point Contest back then?
Later that year, I watched the Chicago Bulls, lead by 33-year old Michael Jordan, defeat the Stockton-Malone Utah Jazz in the NBA Finals, earning Jordan his 5th title. Ahhh yes, the NBA in the 1990s, a good time to become a fan of NBA basketball!
As I am writing this 25 years later in February 2022, the All-Star Game - again held in Cleveland - fast approaching, I wonder what has changed in NBA basketball since that 1996-97 season that marked the beginning of my journey as an NBA fan?
Sure, the names on the backs of the jerseys have changed, as have those of some of the arenas. Gund Arena, for example, is now the RocketMortgage Fieldhouse, and Staples Center, home of the Los Angeles Lakers and Clippers, is now the Crypto.com Arena. Ugh... These days, social media dominates the league’s and players’ public images, and the NBA as an entertainment product has become more global than ever.
Yet perhaps the most noticeable difference between the NBA of the '90s and the NBA of today lies in the very way basketball today is played. In fact, style of play has changed so much that as consequence of this the types of players getting drafted in the first place have changed, too. For instance, not since its earliest days in the 1940s has the NBA been as guard-dominated as it is today. Largely gone seem the times when paint-based behemoths like Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, or Shaq, who struggled to shoot from anywhere outside the paint, dominated the league. Instead, highly skilled, agile, perimeter-oriented players who can dribble, pass and, probably most notable, shoot the lights out of the basketball, reign supreme.
They say Stephen Curry - at 193 cm short for a professional basketball player - brought on the Three Point Revolution with his virtually unprecedented ability to shoot efficiently from seemingly anywhere on the court. Sure enough, only a handful of years after his breakout season (which did lead to immense team success) everyone is shooting threes at a rate never seen before. And if you can't hit a three, then you better be a franchise-altering defender or Magic-esque passer, or teams are unlikely to find any use for you at all, especially if you are big. But even then it may still get tricky if you are lacking the necessary lateral quickness to guard smaller opposing lineups - just ask Rudy Gobert. However, big men who can shoot and are agile and athletic enough to remain defensive assets despite their sheer size are so highly regarded that they are referred to as Unicorns - reflecting the rare but seemingly magical blend of skill, athleticism and size destined to bring glory to any franchise.
But how unique are such shifts in league wide play style? Prior to the Three Point Revolution, has Basketball always been paint-focused? Was Michael Jordan the first high-flying, dunking swingman the league had ever seen?
Spoiler alert - he wasn't! In fact, style of play in the NBA has undergone several revolutions, some associated with rule changes, many brought on by transformationally talented players who, much like Stephen Curry and the three point revolution, were able to exploit certain aspects of the game in ways that would have seemed unimaginable until it happened.
Who were these players, and how did they impact the game of basketball throughout the history of the league?
Let me take you on a journey through the history of NBA basketball in this multi-part series; from the beginnings in the 1940s, to the social media era of the 2020s. Get to know the Greats of times past, and how their abilities and play lastingly influenced how Basketball is played today.
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