The game of basketball is beautiful. That was the message LeBron James and Steve Nash wanted to deliver. However, it did not stop just there.
On the most recent episode of the Mind the Game podcast, the duo finished off by discussing the state of the NBA now and where everything has evolved. Two of the greatest basketball minds of all time delivered an important sentiment in there.
"I know a lot of players in my generation are critical of the game," Nash told James. "I watch these playoff games, man. I love the game. I love the NBA. ... It's in a beautiful place."
LeBron agreed and told the Hall of Fame point guard across the table that he loved the game growing up too. However, James took issue with one key thing.
"The older generation, they make you not want to love the game that I grew up watching," the four-time champion admitted. "The generation, they talk so much s*** about the game today, ... and it makes you not want to appreciate it no more like I did when I was a kid."
James says what fans have been feeling for years
Nostalgia goggles are one hell of a drug. For what it's worth, there is nothing wrong with making sure that the stars and legends of their generation get their due as well.
However, James is highlighting an important issue that too often that is being done at the expense of modern day hoops. That is where the problems come in.
'There are too many 3-pointers, 'defenses aren't what they used to be', and 'this player could not hang in this era' are some of the more popular ways past generations will demean the current product of the NBA in favor of upholding a false golden age narrative that happened to take place when they watched.
Now that is all fine and dandy until the current league starts to face the repercussions of it. How many new fans are really going to want to tune into the game when all they are hearing is an analyst put down the product?
Is it a 24/7 thing? No, but it does happen enough to be incredibly noticeable, and quite frankly, annoying. It also leads to the other extreme of current fans having the need to then bash legends who paved the way, because they are told the current generation does not measure up.
"Memories are fallible," Nash told James. "Memories are not perfect."
The famous expression that tells us 'comparison is the thief of joy' feels applicable here. Nothing good comes from these discussions.
One anonymous former NBA player once told me that Dominique Wilkins would average 50 in today's game. With all due respect to Wilkins, who was a phenomenal player in his era, that sounds unlikely and is a hyperbole that has no place in discourse around the game.
Loving the game of basketball is and should feel easy. It does not require some of the toxic conversations that currently exist around it.
