[UltimateCard]

IMHO the NBA hasn't played basketball for some time. The game they play allows so much contact that eventually things like this injury become inevitable. Yes, this was beyond the norm, but the norm keeps moving towards more and more contact. Undercutting opponents, either on purpose or accidentally, happens often. Just as in football, when the players get bigger, stronger, and faster, more injuries will happen. I realize that they are never going back to playing basketball, but I just hope the women's game doesn't follow the same trajectory.

No where near as physical as it was with the Pistons. Or even the Celtics-Lakers. Just ask Kurt Rambis and Kevin McHale.

You are of course correct that the game under the boards when the "big men" ruled the game and lived in the paint was extremely physical. If you went in there, it was going to be tough. The 3 point shot and zone defenses brought that physical game to the entire court, not just under the basket. All the players are bigger. Guards are now as big as power forwards used to be. They are at least as quick as ever. That has upped the ante on collisions and hard fouls IMHO. Not that I much liked the Pistons thuggery back in the day, but at least it was regarded as the exception.

I don't think the Pistons were the exception. Pat Riley -era Knicks played very ugly basketball, for example. Much more dirty play, cheap shots and many more on-court fights as recently as twenty years ago. The trajectory of the game (with a much less cluttered lane) has been going in a positive direction for the last twenty years or so. Power forwards and centers these days need to be mobile and versatile, there are few big man intimidators now whereas every team used to have an Oakley type.

Well documented in “Blood in the Garden: The Flagrant History of the 1990s New York Knicks”
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/5...the-garden

[UltimateCard]

IMHO the NBA hasn't played basketball for some time. The game they play allows so much contact that eventually things like this injury become inevitable. Yes, this was beyond the norm, but the norm keeps moving towards more and more contact. Undercutting opponents, either on purpose or accidentally, happens often. Just as in football, when the players get bigger, stronger, and faster, more injuries will happen. I realize that they are never going back to playing basketball, but I just hope the women's game doesn't follow the same trajectory.

No where near as physical as it was with the Pistons. Or even the Celtics-Lakers. Just ask Kurt Rambis and Kevin McHale.

You are of course correct that the game under the boards when the "big men" ruled the game and lived in the paint was extremely physical. If you went in there, it was going to be tough. The 3 point shot and zone defenses brought that physical game to the entire court, not just under the basket. All the players are bigger. Guards are now as big as power forwards used to be. They are at least as quick as ever. That has upped the ante on collisions and hard fouls IMHO. Not that I much liked the Pistons thuggery back in the day, but at least it was regarded as the exception.

I don't think the Pistons were the exception. Pat Riley -era Knicks played very ugly basketball, for example. Much more dirty play, cheap shots and many more on-court fights as recently as twenty years ago. The trajectory of the game (with a much less cluttered lane) has been going in a positive direction for the last twenty years or so. Power forwards and centers these days need to be mobile and versatile, there are few big man intimidators now whereas every team used to have an Oakley type.

Well documented in “Blood in the Garden: The Flagrant History of the 1990s New York Knicks”
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/5...the-garden