Professional sports are growing internationally-there are amazing athletes all over the world, and scouts are finding them and bringing them to American Professional Leagues. This results is increased population of athletes. Especially among poor and developing nations whereby sports are used as a means to escape poverty and political oppression.

I assume you mean American professional sports, because professional sports like tennis, rugby, and especially soccer have been ridiculously popular worldwide for a very long time.

Also regarding the post: I think you need to ask a second question which is whether being a better athlete makes them better basketball players.

It really was a different game back then. This is one of the things that gets overlooked in the whole REDICULOUS Kobe vs. Jordan debate. Jordan did it in an era where the Pistons came up with the Jordan rules…basically, knock him on his ass every time he gets near you or the basket. In today’s game the hits he was taking on every possession would result in fines, flagrants and suspensions but back then it was routine. So are you playing with todays rules that allow Steve Nash to get hand checking calls or old school rules where hand checking didn’t really exist. Are you playing where people are afraid to get too physical with Amare going up for a dunk or where Barkley would let you know not to come into the lane with a WWF (yes that’s what it was called back then) body slam. Obviously these athletes are good enough to adapt to either style but if you were to take the old school guys and just throw them into a game with new school rules it would’ve been quite the adjustment and probably would result in players fouling out rather quickly. Same goes for new school guys going back to the old game – would they be tough enough to handle it.

Man, Will! You got my brain working way too hard on a Monday afternoon right at 5!

i think it would be devastating to to find out Lebron, Amare, Dwight Howard, or and of these guys were using. But it’s been a fear of mine, specifically because of what you mentioned, their physique.

May I just make a point about Amare Stoudemire vs. Charles Barkley, and Stoudemire’s defense? Of course Stoudemire would posterize Barkley! In Barkley’s first Suns season, Tom Gugliotta (then a rookie, I believe) lit Barkley up. (I don’t know if he dunked on Barkley, but according to the book Phoenix Suns: Rising to the Top With the Team of Oddities, someone on the Suns—I think Coach Westphal—claimed that Barkley made Gugliotta look like Larry Bird in that game.)
The thing is, Barkley would posterize Stoudemire just as often, because Stoudemire wouldn’t necessarily guard him aggressively.

There’s a basic fallacy to all of this reasoning, which is that certain players did play under the conditions we’re discussing. Robert Parish played from 1976 to 1997. He got old, sure, but the basic skills he had enabled him to score and rebound right to the end, in increasingly smaller intervals. I think there is a much better argument that waterbug guards like Michael Adams would be bigger stars now due to the lack of defense, rather than the other way around.

And comparing the Spurs to the Bad Boys teams…bonkers. Go back and watch the Detroit teams. It’s crazy to think that basketball in the last 10 years has been anywhere near as physical as it was then. Or if you want to see Derek Harper deliver a beatdown on Kenny Smith for 7 games, check out the Knicks-Rockets finals in ’94.

I did not answer the poll, because I believe Amare would posterize Charles, and KJ would dunk over Amare. A better question would be how Jordan in his prime would do against Kobe. I would pay to watch that matchup. Or how about Olajuwon against Garnett?

I don’t necessarily go with the conventional wisdom, which says Bird would have trouble now, or that small rugged players like Oscar Robertson or Elgin Baylor would pale against taller foes. Nor do I believe that Havlicek would have trouble keeping up with a Vince Carter or LeBron James. Some of you young guys might think I am nuts. I saw Hondo play.

Slowpoke has a great point on the physical nature of the game back then. The refs are destroying the game with the way they call things, and the rulesmakers can’t quit meddling. The players now are whiners and floppers. Do you really think LeBron or Kobe would be venturing into the lane if Nate Thurmond or Wilt were waiting for them? I don’t think so. The toughest interior defender in today’s game is Howard, and he pales to the giants of the past.

All I’m saying is don’t assume the heroes of the current game are transcendant. The greats in just about all eras would be great in any era. My pet peeve is those idiots who dismiss Wilt’s accomplishmentsnby saying he was a man among boys, and had no competition. Let me just say this. Did Jabbar, Olajuwon, Ewing, or Robinson ever have to play 12 games a year against a guy who averaged 16 points and 22 rebounds and probably 6-8 blocked shots, who would have been a 10-time DPOY (Russell)? I didn’t think so.

He’d be absolutely unstoppable with today’s hand-checking rules, and there’s nobody on our squad that can guard Barkley either.

It really only helps at the highest levels. Kids should play all sports, and they should play at the top level that challenges them. Many great pros were multi-sport guys in HS. Very few pros have stories like Tiger Woods or Peyton Manning.

At the younger level, specialized training tends to over-stress growing bodies at their weak points due to over-exertion.

Single-sport emphasis at an early age can also be responsible for the lack of fundamentals development. Touch and feel for the ball (in whatever sport you’re playing) is often best developed after practice hours (think, Chitwood taking his ball to class or Brazilians juggling soccer balls on the beach). Also, over-competitive juices can often lead to the best player spending too much time on the court/field, at the expense of not only other players’ development but his own (think, Amare Stoudemire in HS).

At the younger levels, the key is better coaching but less of it.

At the pro levels, the specialized training is paramount — for many of the reasons in the post.

A good example, in my mind, is Steve Nash. He played quite a few sports at quite a high level. At some point in time, he was eating and sleeping basketball and playing at a competitive level. In the pros, he undergoes specialized training in order to play well and to stay in the game. Olajuwon played soccer … What did TD do in the Virgin Islands? … Howie Long didn’t play football until 10th grade … I should get back to work, but there are probably dozens (or hundreds) of examples.

Last point: Throughout the majority of the 19th Century (probably until about the 70s or 80s) determination and “killer instinct” and all that stuff could carry an athlete. Especially when guys worked other jobs in the off-season to be able to play. Mental toughness and killer instincts are what separate the elite players in any sport from the really good athletes. However, for the remaining 80% of any league, specialized training is required just to get some playing time against the other “scrubs” who are doing it, too.

the reason, they played more defense then 2004-05 team. they also could turn it on at will vs the 1994-5 team. if KJ could contain stockton, tim hardaway, etc. i believe he could have contained nash. on charles vs amare i believe it would have been close but charles would have gotten under amares skin and put him into early foul trouble he would have to leave the game. majerle vs raja, probably a wash. marion vs AC green would go to marion because of speed and agility. center a wash………… 1994-5 win by 2 points then the next night the 2004-5 win by 3 points…………….. 7 game series i go for 1994-5 team. if you had pick the Suns team that J Johnson on it i would pick that team in 7 games………..

As Dejuan Blair demonstrated against Hasheem Thabeet last year…

Got me thinking a lot. I don’t know much about KJ’s team because I was rooting for the Bulls back then (2004 Bandwagon fan) but I can tell you this: 2006-07 Suns were just awesome. It was so much fun to watch that team play. I remember having trouble sleeping after games because I just wanted to play pick up basketball at 2:00am and just dunk on someone!

In reference to athletes going through advanced trainings and if it makes a difference, the answer is yes. I learned to play basketball in Chicago and I was able to polish my skills in different training camps with coaches who knew what they were doing. My high school coach corrected many flaws on my game and I went to the gym 4 times a week. Now compare that type of training vs a kid that has the talent, works his ass off on the playground but has nobody to tell him what he’s doing wrong. Who’s gonna be on the starting line up of the team? Technique matters, nowadays raw talent is not enough.

Also, it’s not easy to become a pro if you’re living in a third world country. There are no sports’ schollarships here so if you decide to give it a shot at becoming a pro you are putting your future in jeopardy because you won’t have time to go to college. For every Mariano Rivera there are 2,000 kids who never make it. That’s a risk I was not willing to take so I decided to go to law school instead…and there’s not one day that passes by without thinking: what If? =(