That may well be the case, but I didn't read all 900 posts, I just read a bunch on the last page that said "all the sprinting etc. records have been set in the last five years ergo people are much more athletic now ergo 2012 is better," and the only thing I was trying to point out is that it's undeniably true that many while pure athletic records have been set in the last five years, and Olympic athletes now are definitely superior to those 20 years ago, small 2-3% advances in track/swim/weightlifting/jumping/whatever times are HUGE in those sports, but 2-3% advances in athleticism in basketball can easily be overshadowed by skill or teamwork or other things like that.

While I suspect that the '92 team may have edges in those areas, I don't know enough to say with any degree of certainty whatsoever.

I find it hard to believe that a single strategic advantage makes the 12ers a clear favorite, especially given the DTers tactical advantages at the 4/5.

But why, exactly, would you think the '92 team has advantages in those areas? Athleticism isnt the only thing that has gradually improved in the last 20 years, its just the easiest to see increasing, in the form of world record evolution. But skills and tactics and strategies are improving all the time too. "They had such good fundamentals back in the day" is sort of like "Yeah women arent as athletic but they have such good fundamentals." Its something nice to say that no one challenges you on, because we gotta let them have something, but there is no reason for it to be true.

My initial reaction was that 92' would be at about the same level but that was before I watched footage. It is just not even close. Go and actually watch footage of the 92' team and you will see right away how different the fundamentals and defense and pace are compared to now.

There's no tactical advantage for Dream Team at the 4 BTW. Durant/Love >> Malone/Barkley with the short 3-point line.

barkley's ts was 61%, malone's was 60% in 91-92

love posted 57% last year, durant was at 61%

I didn't talk about it, but the "inside game vs outside game" we both seem to be envisioning includes (in my mind, lol) the DT shooting lots of FTs and the 12ers' bigs getting into foul trouble.


how tight are fiba games called? and how tight are they on traveling?

+1. Everyone talking about the domination the DT would have at the 4 on offense seems to forget they have to guard Durant or somebody else on the perimeter on Defense.

I think we got away from that discussion, both teams have significant matchup issues depending which end of the court you're talking about

also 92s bigs would be excellent help defenders while the guards d'ed up on the 3point shot. Ironically I feel if the line was a standard nba 3 point line it would help the 12 team more than the shorter one as it would spread the defense out and help their smaller lineup. Not to mention they are more used to shooting from that distance where the 92 team had some good midrange players who would be more likely to be able to hit the international 3.

What an embarrassing post.

http://predictionmachine.com/Dream-T...vs-Kobe-Bryant

cliffs: 2008>92>2012

obv troll is obv

fiba ref allows more contact in the paint without calling shooting fouls, if the offensive player causes the contact, they generally don't call the foul
the defender is allowed to make more contact using his body, but players who reach and/or use their hands on offensive players get whistled more often
once a shot goes up, prison rules go into effect regarding rebounding
so it is a lot more physical than current nba games, except for team usa bigs playing post defense

and they are much more strict about calling traveling and palming violations.

well if that were true 92 wins in a beatdown

The story that wont go away

Most knowledgeable poster? Says who? you?

Does Iggy make a LIVING sports handicapping?

Talking about the corner 3, the evolution of players, and the change of rules, is all just a smoke screen, to cover the obvious.
Which is......... the Dream team is better at every single position, other than Lebron. And Iggy the SE legend really can't refute it.

Even though this is all 100% TRUE, non of it applies to the arguements of the 12 team being better. So it will probably just be dismissed.

Sure he can. It's very reasonable to argue Durant is better than any SF on the dream team, and that Chris Paul is the best PG on either team.

fyp

That was cool, thanks.

Interesting they have 08/92 as 51/49 and 92/12 as 60/40. Also how 2016 could actually be the best team of all time.

This is misleading because there's a huge difference between "plateaued" and "downward trajectory". Jordan "plateaued" in 87-88, but continued producing at a great rate for the next 10 years. In fact, looking at the PER, the only players on their "downward trajectory" were Bird and Johnson, and arguably Mullin. The rest of the players, even if they had their peak PER season before 92, still produced at a prodigious rate until well after the Olympics.

They also used current PERs for players also on the 2008 team. Not sure which direction correcting for that would pull the 2008 team. Probably makes them a little worse.

Also, PER is set up to give the average player 15.00. If the average player is better than 20 years ago, then a higher PER nowadays should be given more weight. The 60/40 divide for 1992 vs. 2012 would be smaller if adjusted for that.

I just really don't see how anyone can watch a guy like kevin love play defense and not immediately think, "ok yeah karl malone would rape him like a 14 year old chick and produce a prospective nfl talent before the game is over".

i'm pretty sure everyone agrees on this

Gottleib just made the bigger, strong, faster, evolved argument on ESPN radio.... you can tune in and get a replay of it - go back to 6:05 eastern time