Good Ole Days

[twolf]

I miss the past NBA eras. The era imparticular for me is from the mid-\'70s to mid-\'90s. In that 20 yr. time span you had some of the best all-time players, best all-time teams, and best rivalries.

In this time the Eastern Conference was the dominate conference. It was Philly in the late \'70s, Boston throughout the \'70s and \'80s, Pistons in the late \'80s, and Chicago in the \'90s. Also you can\'t forget about NY and LA (the only non-East team).

Now to the players. In the \'70s Dr. J was the origanal \"Skywalker\". He was the true prequel to Jordan. In the \'80s it was the heated Magic v. Bird rivalry. Even though Jordan was great in the mid to late \'80s he didn\'t become the greatest until the \'90s. The players that were probably the most overlooked b/c of Erving, Magic, Bird, and MJ were Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olijawan, Mark Price, Dominique Wilkens,Isiah Thomas, and David Robinson. This is not all the greats, but you get the idea.

The rivalries were just as hard core. The biggest rivalry going into the \'90s was the Pistons v. MJ and the Knicks v. the Bulls. Even though I hated the Pistons back then, I cannot deny how great they were. The best rivalry, though, was Boston v. LA Lakers. Those games were great to watch when Magic and Bird played.

College basketball was also great at this time. Through the \'80s and \'90s, look at the plaers that were in college. Duke had Johnny Dawkins, Tommy Amaker, Danny Ferry, Bobby Hurley, Steve Wojehowski, Christian Laettner, Shane Battier, and Grant Hill (among others). Then you turn to other teams and you saw Vince Carter, Jerry Stackhouse, Patrick Ewing, Akeem Olijawan, Rip Hamilton, Mateen Cleeves, Mike Price, Gary Payton, and many others.

Not mentioned in this post is all the great coaches. And the fact that David Stern (the best commissioner in sports) was hired in 1984.

Don\'t get me wrong. I love the NBA! I still love it as much as I did when I was 6. My fav. team won the championship last yr. and KG and Vince Carter are my fav. players. But the rivalries aren\'t as good and no player today can showup most of the players I named earlier. You hear that media, stop trying to make someone the next Jordan, Magic or Bird! Leave the past in the past!

All this made me wonder what others thought. What team was your fav. in the 20 year span from 1975 to 1995?

I am split between the Celtics and the Bulls. I am being a little biased, though, because I didn\'t like the Lakers or Pistons and my fav. all-time team is the Bulls. Also my fav. player growing up was Scottie Pippen.

[ziggy]

Great post that brought back lots of memories. I think the golden age of the NBA was 85 to 90. Some of those Pistons / Celtics series and Pistons / Lakers series were legendary. I remember Isiah hobbling around on crutches before gametime, but still gutting it out for 24 points in the fourth quarter of a conference final game.

The golden age of the college game for me was 83 - 93, Watching John Thompson\'s Georgetown teams wreak havoc across the Big East conference was fun. Watching the Larry Johnson / Stacy Augmon UNLV teams was also lots of fun. It still baffles me to this day how Duke managed to beat them in the NCAA championship game.

[buckethead]

From 1975 to 1995 my favorite team at the college level was the University of Houston and Clyde \"The Glide\" Drexler. Do you remember that outrageous squad that they had with Hakeem, Clyde Drexler, Benny Anders and a bunch of other big time athletes. The game that they had against Louisville in the final four back in the early 80s is arguable one of the best games of all time.
At the NBA level my favorite team was the Houston Rockets, I loved watching Hakeem\'s footwork, he had the best footwork in the NBA. The year that David Robinson won league MVP, Hakeem abused him so thoroughly during the series that I thought Robinson just might hand the trophy over to Hakeem right there on the spot.

[ashy_larry]

You know the bulls era wasn\'t that long ago, I don\'t know if that would be the goold ole days. Think about it, that was 10-14 years ago. Back when Wilt rocked the court with his amazing dunks, those were the good old days. If Scottie Pippin is your favorite player, how come not the man that made him? MJ? After Jordon left and pip went to the trailblazers it was all down hill.

[heelfan]

A lot of people forget how unstoppable some of those 1980s era player were, You could take guys like Dominique Wilkins or Adrian Dantley (remember him, a 6\'6\" low post scorer that day in and day out made 6\'10\" guys look like complete fools) and if they were in the NBA today, they\'d easily score 35 points a game.

[twolf]

Well Clark056, of course MJ was hands down the best athlete and arguably made Pippen into what he became. But MJ was one of those amazing players that was everyones favorite. I\'m not someone that likes the limelight, so I really admire those guys that can stay in the shadow of someone else even though they know they could be the best on most all other teams. In the typical sense, I don\'t really have a fav. b/c I like so many, but there are just certain players a fan gets drawn to. MJ will always be #1, but I was always drawn to Pippen.

[ashy_larry]

I think you have a point twolf, you got to love the under dog, the person that doesn\'t bask in the limelight. This in fact is why I can\'t stand kobe. But pippin really never proved himself outside of the bulls legacy, look at portland it\'s almost as lame as Clyde\'s final years. Either way it just doesn\'t seem he ever came out on his own.