2023-08-10 12:05:00
The month of August, often a little hollow from the point of view of NBA news, is the opportunity to start endless debates on various and varied subjects. Rick Barry just threw one saying he would have been stronger if he had played in today’s NBA.
Member of the 75 greatest players in history, Hall of Famer, NBA champion, Finals MVP… Rick Barry is a living NBA legend. But the former Warriors winger thinks he would have been even better if he had played in the current NBA. This is what he recently said at the microphone of the media Big 3.
“We had nothing to help us. I didn’t have an agility coach, I didn’t have a dietitian, I didn’t fly a private jet. We didn’t have saunas, jacuzzis and masseuses. If I played today, I would be faster, stronger, more enduring, I would jump higher… I would be a better basketball player. »
The devices now available to NBA players have nothing to do with those of the 1960s-70s, we can’t contradict Rick on that. The tactical tools (videos, statistics), infrastructure (gyms, equipment) and means of transport – the players took commercial flights – were of lower quality, and there are several reasons for this. First, the technical means were not as developed as they are today. But mostly, the NBA wasn’t generating that much money.
The American league has indeed become a real business that employs thousands of people in order to put players in better conditions., which was not the case 50 years ago. Rick Barry would have liked to have jacuzzis, personal trainers and private jets… but he would have had a hard time financing them.
Rick Barry goes on EPIC RANT about his era vs. today’s era. ???????? pic.twitter.com/dSpGzUJ1N9
— Joy De’Angela (@joydeangela) August 9, 2023
In view of all this, it is difficult to prove the former Warriors player wrong when he says that the players of his time would have a much better level in the current NBA. The guy was a freak as he scooped his free throws (yes yes), so we have no trouble imagining that it would have been stronger with the periphery enjoyed by players of our time. But this debate falls into the category of unclassifiable, since we will not go back in time, we will not change the past and we will not confront Bill Russell and Joel Embiid.
This statement by Rick Barry is above all a means of showing that all eras are different and it is difficult to compare them. No, Wilt Chamberlain was not playing against plumbers, but against men who simply did not have the same means as current players. Would they have reached the same level? Nothing says it, but we can give the benefit of the doubt to the elders.
Source : Big 3
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