The NBA Was Not Better in the ‘80s

Nostalgia has a way of warping our memory

We as humans often romanticize the past, remembering only the good parts while conveniently ignoring the bad ones, and we especially do that with our childhoods. There was a crack epidemic, the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, and the looming threat of a nuclear winter, but when my friends and I reminisce, we only talk about Fraggle Rock and blowing into our Nintendo game cartridges to make them work.

It’s the same way in sports.

When someone tells me why they don’t like the NBA (which happens often), they invariably say something along the lines of, “It was just better when I was growing up in the ‘80’s.” When pressed, the person usually says one of two things: either (a) “the league was much more competitive back then, now there are only a few good teams”; or (b) “the players are…I don’t know…they’re just punks.”

Are those two statements true? I decided to investigate.

Let’s tackle the second statement first.

A major reason for David Stern’s implementation of a player dress code in 2005 was to try to avoid his league looking like they were filming a Hype Williams video. The majority of fans that go to NBA games are white, while most of the players are black. This causes a disconnect…