That's because they are probably using the same animations from those games. I don't think they went in and redid everything.
I'm sure those games were used as a base for Live 14. The new things I could see were jumpshots and dribble moves those looked like they were rebuilt for this gen.
Everything else was probably ripped from previous lives and maybe reworked a bit. EA has got a LOT to redo over the coming years.
I mean look at 2K they have been steadily building there animation library from 2K6 to now so its no wonder it looks so great.
These guys are rewriting mistakes from the past 4 years so all the stiffness doesn't even shock me. I think we gonna be seeing some of that for a bit. All we can hope is that for next coming years is that they continue to build on Live 14 and not scrap again....