What if ’90s players played in a modern NBA game?

this is much better basketball to watch.
and it's more satisfying to beat a team playing this way.

The 96 Bulls would be a 40 win team and miss the playoffs today.

Duren is like a Kevin Willis or Dale Davis

This was the most fun game of the playoffs,

I need these two teams to match up in every playoffs from now on.

8:26 "orlando surprised the magic" lol

can you please say either of paolo banchero’s names right?

pah (like the “o” in “rock”) low

not pow (like kung pao chicken) low

ban (like ran) care oh

not BON care oh

90s players would shoot much better than this series' players, first of all. This is, at best, a very subpar projection from someone who academically studies these things. You critically fail at several key points: these players are terrible at shooting because the league rewards pace and physicality, even if you cannot shoot. Although the general athleticism may be the best of all nba history, the ball handling, pace control, and moving the ball with a brain are actually not at all increased on average in today's league in comparison to the past. There is absolutely no sıgnıfıcant signal, other than bulk numbers being pumped up due to the pace. Normalize that to the pace you'll see other than core physical abilities, there is no clear distinction in many skill types. This is the first mistake you oversaw.

Second mistake, which today's populist analysts constantly ignore (and I am pretty sure this is an intentional, almost political choice to look away when the analysis comes to it); the effect of officiating. Just the sheer number of small edits and tweaks here and there since decades is enough to consider officiating and its influence as a whole separate category when it comes to understanding today's game. You obviously do not touch this subject simultaneously with others, only maybe as a 'yeah, there is this thing too, but let's look at numbers, hyped up trends don't they look shiny!?'. And this serious mistake (I am intentionally not going into too much details, I am sure you are smart enough to know you NEED to avoid talking deeper into the effects of officiating changes over the years, because, you know, not doing so would be shitting where you eat;)), together with the first one, creates your final, maybe the biggest mistake:

Today's game, other than being constantly biased in one direction of the flow of the game, has inevitably a lot more volatility to itself. Several interesting metrics show this already: no team repeating championships, injuries deciding literally the fate of almost any plan any organization any invesment etc, and also the existence of huge gaps between the so called 'best teams of this era' vs these kinds of not much playing with pace, not really ball handling teams. Kinda opposite of what is being hyped, mostly identified by their lack of offense and typically associated with a lack of creating good shooting in that. This is possible since creating good shots is not the most important variable in this game, as these pseudo-intellectual analysts claim; it is to be able to catch up with the pace, or lower if you can. No team can think about creating shots solely, without thinking of how to deal with the pace of that game with that opponent first. Indiana last year purely got rewarded by today's nonsensical dynamics because they put the pace to ridiculous levels. Now every team wants that like flies on shit. And teams that didn't do anything regarding the question of pace look extremely bad. These teams do not fail because they play like 90s, it is because they are punished by this ridiculous officiating, which constantly limits physicality and toxically allows offenses to get away with literal travels, violations of offense rules, literally jumping on the defender etc. etc. which all ends up in the increase of pace for the team that seeks it. This play style is pushed by officiating that clearly wants teams to attack more and more and more like bro if you can do a little something with the ball don't worry, we will bring you to line or allow possessions to live on etc. When you combine that with teams not wanting to just build on pace (not because they choose to, mostly because they rarely get shots at adjusting their roster to today's game, it is really an unforgiving league officiating now if you do not have players who exploit this officiating to ridiculous limits… just look at what a team like portland in west can do…) you get these never seen before dips in the game too. Yet another untalked, ugly reality about today's so pretentiously hyped game.

What if you dropped the Rudy Gobert masterclass on Nikola Jokic instead?

“Another great pass and another great look and oh the pistons missed again”

Fantastic video! This 90' players on today's game take seems very plausible. Great job!

IDK how Detroit got the one seed at all. They have a terrible offense

the 90s was ass

Interesting that this is a take on what 90s basketball in the modern era would look like. Most people I spoke with felt that this game was some of the worse on court play they’ve seen in recent recovery from playoff teams.