NBA has 75 years of fascinating history
Stop judging and start marvelling at the mystical appeal, Jerry Brewer writes
The NBA is officially old — 75 now, still a spry and maturing league but one with a history deep enough that you can't see down to the bottom with ease any more.
It is vast — not baseball vast, but full of eras and dramatic changes. This arena requires navigation.
Longevity should alter the discourse. It hasn't, however, not when it involves the fundamental manner in which the all-time great players, teams and influencers of the sport are debated.
There remains a tendency to go too broadly too quickly.
When the NBA was still relatively young, almost all of the memorable players were still alive, and fans of every generation had a greater connection to the legends' tales — or at least a profound sense of their impact.
Time erases such intimacy. The challenge is to adjust. Otherwise, what happens is the kind of tiring generational disrespect, ambivalence and jockeying we are currently experiencing.
In its 75th season, the NBA has grown to a point that the mythical Greatest of All Time title shouldn't hold so much power and every all-time ranking shouldn't inspire the rage of a trolling Twitter bot.
But it becomes a contentious thing when Julius Erving, 71, accentuates his long memory in making a top-10 list that was taken as an inexcusable Lebron James snub rather than a celebration of some extraordinary past players whose careers Dr. J wishes to preserve.
And it's assumed that Gary Payton is back to his trashtalking ways when he says of the incandescent Stephen Curry — a guard who plays with the utmost freedom and transcends positional norms — “To me, he's not a point guard.”
And Washington Wizards coach Scott Brooks, who is always highly supportive of his stars, sets the whole argumentative basketball world on fire with his declaration that Russell Westbrook is “going to go down as probably the second-best” point guard in history, behind only Magic Johnson.
His motivation wasn't to throw flames. Brooks just wanted to say something to pierce through the noisy, years-old criticism of Westbrook, whose all-out style is atypical — and legendary.
It's time to recognize Westbrook, who just tied Oscar Robertson's career triple-double record, in the way that history will. He's an original. He's not perfect, but he's a star with accomplishments that will age well and has an undervalued influence on the position that will enhance his legend.
Of course, we're always going to argue about sports. However, to stop shouting at brick walls, it must be acknowledged the league's aging and evolution make the degree of difficulty higher for the most popular basketball debates.
I remember the unveiling of the NBA'S 50 greatest players during its 50th-anniversary season in 1996. Forty-nine of those players were still alive; Pete Maravich, who died in 1988 at 40, was the only one the sport had lost.
Forty-seven of those players were introduced during the 1997 All-star Game; Jerry West and Shaquille O'neal couldn't make it because of medical issues.
It was a fascinating celebration, noticing how moved they were to be in one another's presence.
If you added 25 players to represent the past quarter-century and did a 75 greatest ceremony now, another dozen of those 50 greatest would be posthumous honorees, and Kobe Bryant would be absent from the new additions. Bill Russell is 87. Robertson is 82. Larry Bird and Johnson are in their early 60s, and Michael Jordan is two years from joining them.
The game's memory is too long for so many lives now.
Many of the folks who hated
Dr. J's list haven't seen old videos of him playing, let alone the older ballers who mesmerized him.
The legends are ancient to them, but that doesn't automatically make them haters.
The NBA has had many phases of life. It's better to give each phase the space to breathe on its own, to appreciate the massive library of styles, to resist condensing an impressive body of work to centre Russell, Kareem Abdul-jabbar, Jordan, James or whomever as the prevailing standard for NBA stardom.
As with Major League Baseball, which is twice as old, generations can live within themselves, and that allows an opportunity to marvel. Excessive comparison hinders it. It also works against the sport when people go too far in assigning superiority to particular periods. Let them all be different but attached. The game is better for all of the contributions, even the rocky moments.
There is potential for the NBA to acquire more of a mystical appeal if greats are allowed to exist within their time.
Baseball's GOAT debates are way more layered because they have to be thanks to its more than 150-year history. And as much of a purist game as it is, few people are looking at Mike Trout or Fernando Tatis Jr. and immediately deciphering their worth in the context of Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron and Willie Mays. The volume is too great. Comparison is more selective and, in general, more reasonable.
As an arduous 75th NBA season trudges toward the playoffs, recognize the entire journey.
Because of the coronavirus and cramming two seasons back-toback, this regular season hasn't been all that uplifting.
In a season still lacking a signature, emotional moment, history is the main event. The present needs it badly. For a change, that's a healthy partnership.