In these past weeks, there have been live recordings of many live NBA games from the 90s that have been released. These games, as many have been saying, are incredibly disappointing considering the 90s era of NBA basketball, which is widely revered as the most competitive era of the game. People are becoming very upset with this, not because of the games, but because of the people who continuously try to defend this era and still try to convince people, even after seeing the film, that this was the best basketball that’s ever played. It is obvious to everyone watching that this era was not all it was hyped up to be.
It is mostly older audiences who grew up watching these games or have some sort of bias towards this era, but it is hard to believe that after seeing the film, they didn’t change their minds. There have been entire podcast episodes before now where people get into an intense argument over which period played better basketball. It is quite evident now that the current NBA competition is in a league of its own, and it has never been better, going off the released film. People are still trying to defend the 90s, but it is easy to imagine that it is much harder to do now than it ever was before. Before, defendants would make their claims based on their experience and what they saw, but now, with the opposing side also being able to view and form their own opinion, it is much easier to take a stance on the matter.
YouTube videos are being released, like “We Done With The 90s…” from YouTube creator Kenny For Real, a popular content creator in basketball, and “We OFFICIALLY DONE with the 90s!!” from a creator called Players Choice. These videos mainly consist of analyzing the gameplay from the 90s and essentially making fun of it. Both creators poke fun at the fact that some people believe there was more competition back then than there is now. It has also become a trend on TikTok, where basketball content creators will watch these games or clips just laughing and mocking them. This isn’t an invalid response to the film, considering that older audiences have been defending this era with their lives over the years. This is more of an exposing of what NBA games looked like back then.
As shown by the film, NBA games were much slower, with much less scoring. It is known that the scoring average for a game has risen exponentially since the 90s, but self-proclaimed analysts claimed that the reason for the low-scoring games was because of the elite and aggressive defense being played. When watching the film, you see none of this defense that has been previously mentioned for years and is what this era is supposed to be known for. Self-bias likely got in the way of people’s views on this topic, but now everyone can analyze this gameplay and see the truth that there is no level of basketball competition comparable to that of today’s NBA.
