Early 2000's

[Moses Shuttlesworth]

Man I just saw this thread on realgm and felt I had to post it here. I know you guys miss the days of tmac, kobe, kg, shaq vince etc etc in their primes...the talent was unreal.

Post your favorite moments

[Altimus]

Re: Early 2000's

Damn straight. I have the 25 Years of Championship collection which goes to 2004. Plus a bunch of stuff through 2000. They need to come out with a 2000-2010 collection.

And how are you going to put AI in the etc list man!

One of my favorites was Philly's run to the Finals.

[TUSS11]

Re: Early 2000's

Seeing AI play courtside in 2001. Unreal speed.

[st0rmb11]

Re: Early 2000's

I think you could make a "Best of Early 2000s" team that could rival any other 5 year era (sans the mid 60s, mid 80s, & early 90s)

C - Shaq/Ben Wallace
PF - Garnett/Duncan/Nowitzki/C-Webb
SF - McGrady/Pierce/Peja
SG - Kobe/Allen/Iverson/Vince
PG - Kidd/Nash/Billups/Marbury

and I'm sure I'm leaving out several others

[OSUFan_88]

Re: Early 2000's

The early 2000's were okay. Perhaps it's because it was preceded by very early 2000's and late 90's w/o Jordan, but I've always thought of that as pretty boring basketball.

[st0rmb11]

Re: Early 2000's

The early 2000's were okay. Perhaps it's because it was preceded by very early 2000's and late 90's w/o Jordan, but I've always thought of that as pretty boring basketball.

I'll put it this way: 2000-2004. Good basketball? eh... Exciting, highlight reel type basketball? yes

[Moses Shuttlesworth]

Re: Early 2000's

I miss seeing vintage Pierce in the playoffs

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/M546oa0NGys" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Mute the music and play your own.

[Dice]

Re: Early 2000's

Early 2000’s was ok. I wouldn’t say I missed it all that much but it had its place and time. We did get a chance to see a legendary team in the Lakers basically dominate the league during that stretch. We got to actually see the formation of the first ‘Super Team’ in the 2004 Lakers when Karl Malone and Gary Payton signed as free agents to team up with Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal. That same year, we saw of the biggest upsets in Finals history with the underdog Pistons being a Kobe Bryant shot away from sweeping the ‘Super Team’ Lakers by beating them 4-1. We also got a chance to see probably the last exciting Dunk Contest in 2000 where Vince Carter probably put on the best Dunk Contest show since Jordan and Dominique in 1988.

Now for some of the bad. With the influx of high school players during that time, the 2000-2002 drafts were probably the worst in NBA history. Out of all those guys, Pau Gasol is the only POSSIBLE HOF player in the group. If you want to REALLY stretch it, then add in Tony Parker and Amare Stoudimire. Fortunately, the 2003 draft saved the NBA with some potential HOF locks and a few POSSIBLES. If the 2003 draft didn’t produce those players, the second half of the decade would have been miserable. The early 2000’s was also marred by the Tim Donaghy scandal. BUT we have to wonder if he’s been doing this since he started back in the early 90’s? He was caught during this time BUT how much outrage would this had been if his prints was over the 90’s AKA The Jordan Era? And as a Bulls fan, I can’t say I missed the era of some of the great Bulls legends in Marcus Frizer, Eddie Curry, ‘wet-behind-the-ears’-Tyson Chandler, ‘I wanna form the black version of the Hells Angels so I’ll ride my motor cycle recklessly and end my career’-Jason Williams and ‘I need a discount at Best Buy so I’m gonna take a part time job there even though I’m an NBA player’-Ron Artest AKA Metta World Cheap…I mean Peace.

[dramachild11]

Re: Early 2000's

lol say that to ron ron's face an ill give u an all expense paid trip to the queensbridge projects.. but anyway dice your analysis was dead-on, there was 5 year period where the quality of the league diminished (sometimes i think it was just al of us going through jordan withdrawal)

[ehh]

Re: Early 2000's

A disaster of a stretch for the NBA. The league was the worst I'd ever seen it. Talent was watered down, very few good teams (LAL, Sac, San Antonio), the entire Eastern Conference was a joke, centers died off, lazy HSers were everywhere, one-dimensional/selfish players seemed to be at an all-time high and the reffing became more fit for the WNBA.

When T-Mac and AI are two of the strongest players of an era you know it was a crappy time for the league. Really the only good thing that came from that era was the 2003 Draft Class. The Laker dynasty didn't even impress me that much since the rest of the league was so weak. And by far the best player of that era, Tim Duncan, became one of the most underrated/overlooked stars in the game's history. A perfect touch given so many fans were obsessed with T-Mac, AI, Vince, etc.

[Moses Shuttlesworth]

Re: Early 2000's

My man, it was fun to watch from a neutral perspective; simple as that. I can understand your concern coming from the perspective of someone who was a fan of a respective team, but the talent was ridiculous and the nightly highlights were immensely entertaining.

I'm from Boston and the Celtics were trash, but I loved watching young Pierce emerge into a superstar and take over the former Antoine Walker's team.

Watching Vince fly through the air was literally miraculous...stuff like that.

[ehh]

Re: Early 2000's

You can't argue that the individual highlights were amazing and we had some world-class scorers. But the quality of the game itself was blah IMO. Personally I don't think the talent that ridiculous, certainly not as strong as the generation that preceded it.

[Dice]

Re: Early 2000's

Talent was watered down, very few good teams (LAL, Sac, San Antonio), the entire Eastern Conference was a joke, centers died off, lazy HSers were everywhere, one-dimensional/selfish players seemed to be at an all-time high and the reffing became more fit for the WNBA.
.

This is something else I forgot to touch on what was bad about the early 2000's. The NBA Finals was basically the Western Conference Finals. OR whoever beat the Lakers in the playoffs. Which was basically the case between 2000-2004.

[ProfessaPackMan]

Re: Early 2000's

I enjoyed it.

[23]

Re: Early 2000's

You can't argue that the individual highlights were amazing and we had some world-class scorers. But the quality of the game itself was blah IMO. Personally I don't think the talent that ridiculous, certainly not as strong as the generation that preceded it.

Definitely

Decline of the C position which has basically been Eurofied

Worst competition in the east post jordan era

Dudes started wearing corn rows and tats like some new emo fad

and IMO the maturity in the league began to drop like bricks