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The NBA has changed a lot over the past few decades, and not for the better in the eyes of some former players.

Hall of Famer Gary Payton has dared to make an ultra-cash prediction for the future of the league… and the odds are high that he’s right.

Like the GOAT debate, this is a discussion that will never have a satisfactory conclusion for either side.

Is today’s NBA better than the one in the late 20th century?

Many active players argue that the talent pool is much deeper than it was in the ’90s.

Of course, such a speech does not please those who played at that time.

For them, the problem with the league today is that physical contact has almost completely disappeared, with referees giving pride of place to the attackers.

A legendary defender known for his very physical game, Gary Payton also made a brutal and indisputable clarification to Joy De’Angela’s microphone.

Gary Payton Unfiltered on 2020s Basketball

The NBA today is soft. These kids are from a different generation.

When we played back then, it was inside-out. You get the ball inside, you get the ball out, and if you have a great player, he can create anything he wants.

Today, their weapon is the three-point shot. They run to the ball and then it’s a mess, you have to go look at a screen to see if you got hit in the head or not.

Back in the day, if you went to the basket to score, they wouldn’t let anybody dunk and they’d send you to third.

And then you’d come back in the game. Nowadays, you get hit and you get excited.

They’re like, ‘Wait, wait, wait. Let’s see what happens. Let’s see what happens.’

After that, you put an ice pack on your head and stuff and you look crazy like you got shot or something.

Then they get the ball back and they make fun of you because they cheated on you, you know what I mean?

It’s crazy. We’ll never see physical basketball again. It’s over. I think it’s the result of a changing era in the league.

The league wants more spectacle. And then you look at these kids, these kids are going into arenas and I think the NBA is more about, you know, the social aspect around it.

They don’t want kids to think that they can go on the basketball court and do the same thing that their hero does in the NBA.

So that’s why they’re eliminating that opportunity.

Gary Payton is old school, but it is certain that the physical basketball that could be seen in the 90s in particular has now completely disappeared from the NBA landscape. The fault lies in a change of mentality within the big league.