[Syd Thrift]

There are plenty of unselfish players in the modern game; in fact, I’d say there’s far less iso ball than there was 20 years ago. Even when guys do clear out one side of the court and isolate on a player, it’s for specific possessions late in the game or in small spurts. Way more than that, what I see a lot of are pick and roll and pick and pop plays. Also, of course, there’s a ton more open court play, and practically no big stiff maneuvers - even true centers nowadays have to shoot 3s every now and then.

In fact, I feel like the biggest gripes people who actually watch the modern game - these are not gripes I agree with, necessarily, but they exist - is that the game’s gotten too soft and there’s no defense and they liked positional ball and that’s no longer around. I will say that until the NBA cracked down on flopping this year, word was that the Euro leagues featured tougher defense, which is a little insane. The “iso ball” and “too many thugs” things are, frankly, 2001 era gripes.

Also, as a fan of a guy who modeled his game after Kobe’s, basically nobody plays like that anymore. Kobe’s entire game, which I admit was annoying as hell when you were a fan of the other team, was to iso on you and, if/when he couldn’t break you down (he never did have the first step of a Michael Jordan or for that matter AI), he’d figure out how to take a step back midrange jumper on you - statistically speaking, the least efficient shot in basketball - and still somehow drain it. DeMar DeRozan (the guy who is I think is closest to Kobe right now) can hit midrange shots all day, Zach LaVine seems to have learned that trick from him this year, Kevin Durant can hit midrange jumpers, Nikola Jokic is good at them for a big man… and that’s basically everybody who can sort of play like Kobe. Everyone else either shoots 3s or they shoot from within 10 feet of the basket, with very, very few exceptions. The death of the midrange shot actually is another thing purists gripe about.