Are NBA players today better than ever? Yes and no

Role players are more skilled than ever, but I think the stars of previous generations were better or at least more versatile and had more nuanced processing skills than stars today.

Introduction

It’s often helpful to think of the NBA in terms of “eras.” In the 20th Century, the main eras people would delineate are the “dead-ball era,” headlined by an incredibly slow pace of play which lasted until maybe 2008 or so, and the “pace and space” era, which started in maybe 2014 and we are still in it today.¹ I guess the period from ~2008 to ~2014 would be a transition time between eras. This separation of eras serves its purpose, but can definitely be improved upon. In my first article, where I wrote about Steph Curry and his off-ball play, I talked about how playing lineups with Draymond Green and Kevon Looney, two non-spacers, may have worked in 2018, but doesn’t work in 2025. Spacing, particularly from the three-point line, is rapidly increasing in importance.

For a while, the “3 and D” player was the epitome of a role player. Instead of a guy like a Tony Allen (all defense) or a Mike Miller (all offense), teams decided that players like Shane Battier, Jae Crowder, Danny Green, and Trevor Ariza, who could not only space the floor but also defend at a high level, were paramount. There were many teams during the late 2010s who sought guys within the “3 and D” archetype. Some teams, like the Portland Trailblazers, found lots of regular-season success with guys like Al-Farouq Aminu and Moe Harkless. In the playoffs, however, these teams and these players often underachieved. The reason why is that many of the “3 and D” players actually weren’t that good on either side of the ball. Draymond Green, for example, realized that Aminu and Harkless didn’t actually need to be guarded from the three-point line and notoriously ignored them and left them open over the span of several playoff series. Supposed “shooters” turned into non-shooters pretty quickly. The second reason why these players underachieved is really the whole point of this article, which is that as the game evolved, one-dimensional players on either side of the ball bled value in the postseason, and especially post-2020, teams that have more decision-makers are usually better teams.

A few thoughts on the late 2010s Rockets

The epitome of a team surrounded with “3 and D” players is the late 2010s Houston Rockets. It’s just a laundry list of players within this archetype: Trevor Ariza, PJ Tucker, Robert Covington, Luc Mbah a Moute, etc. At first glance, the roster construction makes sense. With two All-NBA-level advantage creators in Chris Paul and James Harden, it’s logical to surround them with people who can capitalize on those advantages, either at the rim via a lob (Clint Capela) or from the three-point line (the “3 and D” crew). This strategy worked for the most part as those teams consistently competed for the championship, however, at the highest levels, these teams couldn’t get over the hump. The Rockets, in particular, didn’t win the championship for a myriad of reasons, but I believe one of the biggest (and under-discussed) reasons is that they didn’t have guys who make plays on the weakside in the secondary action.

Take the following clip, for example, from game 7 of the 2018 Western Conference Finals.

Ariza catches the ball with a Jordan Bell, a five-man not known for his foot speed, switched out onto him. In a one-on-one situation, he isn’t able to create anything and gets the ball plucked out of his hands.

On this play at the end of the game, Harden gets doubled, and Ariza has a pretty simple read to Capela for a dunk, but he turns the ball over.²

This PJ Tucker turnover is very similar to the first Ariza one. After a Harden pick and roll, Tucker finds himself matched up against Looney, a center. He isn’t able to take advantage of his matchup and turns the ball over.

These plays are a microcosm of a recurring theme: while 3 and D players have value on both sides of the ball, especially when complemented with heliocentric offensive superstars like Harden and CP3, on the margins, these players bleed value because they don’t have enough complementary skills. While it was once desirable to be a Mike Miller or Shane Battier and play off the advantages created by a great playmaker, offensive innovations challenged role players to be able to create or at least sustain advantages either via the dribble or the pass. Players like Tucker, Ariza, and Covington, once thought of as the gold standard of role players, became phased out for a new kind of player…

From Tucker and Ariza to Nesmith and Caruso, with someone in between

Before I talk about the two teams in the NBA finals and how their complementary players perfectly encapsulate this shift in player philosophy and the increased responsibility and skill level of today’s role players, I want to quickly acknowledge the player that I view to be the bridge between these two archetypes: Klay Thompson. To many, Klay is seen as sort of the perfect 3 and D player, given that he’s one of the great shooters in league history and was always a fringe all-defensive level guy. However, I think this undersells a lot of Klay’s advantage creation abilities and additional skillsets. In 2016, in lineups with Klay on the court and Steph off the court, the Warriors were still able to put up a 75th percentile offense. Even in lineups without Steph and Draymond, they still had a 56th percentile offense with Klay on the floor. Klay was highly underrated as an interior passer in particular, and also had a bit of pick and roll juice and the ability to post-up smaller guards.³

Let’s consider the archetypes of the complementary players around the Haliburton-led Pacers and the Gilgeous-Alexander-led Thunder. Think about players like Andrew Nembhard, Aaron Nesmith, Alex Caruso, Cason Wallace, Obi Toppin, or Aaron Wiggins.⁴ None of these players would be classified as a classic 3 and D player and players of this archetype didn’t really exist 10 years ago. All of these players can shoot the three at a high level, but they can also attack closeouts, make extra passes, and move off the ball. All of them (with the exception of Obi Toppin) are also really good defensively. It’s truly incredible. The role players of today are better than ever before. The role players of 1980 couldn’t make jump shots outside of 14 feet and the role players of 2010 couldn’t take two dribbles without you being scared of their decision making, but the role players of 2025 can look like stars on any given moment and make complex, advanced reads night in and night out. That’s why a guy like Aaron Wiggins can have 40 in a game this year and a guy like Aaron Nesmith can go on ridiculous heat-checks and look like Steph Curry at times; they simply have highly expanded skillsets.

Let’s look at some plays from Game 6 of the 2025 Finals.

When Nesmith catches, he has so many tools and weapons at his disposal. Do I swing this to Turner? Skip it to Sikam? One more it to Nembhard? Attack of the bounce? What is impressive is 1) the fact that he (and other role players of his time) have the skillset to legitimately exploit all of these reads, and 2) the fact that he is playing so-called “.5” basketball, where he makes an excellent decision in a fraction of a second. His one dribble to the middle of the floor confuses Caruso and JDub (two all-league defenders), and he makes a great jump pass to Nembhard, leading to a bad closeout and an open three.

This play may be even more impressive. Hali’s no-look to Nesmith in the corner is insane in its own right, but maybe more impressive is Nesmith immediately knowing he can touch pass this to Hali for a layup. Role players of decades past just didn’t make these quick extra passes with the same frequency. It’s not enough to just catch and shoot anymore; the ancillary guys have to be complete basketball players.

How about this play? Wiggins catches it in the corner and could shoot it, but instead beats his man off the dribble, isn’t faced by the help from McConnel, but more impressively, recognizes that Toppin is closing out to Cason Wallace (the easier pass and first read), so instead he passes to Kenrich Williams at the top of the key. Toppin’s moment of indecision and need to slightly change direction is enough to give Williams a great look. When you’re watching the game, plays like this seem really simple and routine, but when you watch it back, there’s really a lot going on.

To me, this is the true evolution of basketball. Yes, it’s great to see Joel Embiid shoot hesi pull up jumpers like he’s a shooting guard, it’s great to watch LaMelo Ball shoot one-legged three pointers, and of course, more than anything else, it is an honor, a joy, and a privilege to watch Stephen Curry audaciously push the limits of shot selection/ However, maybe it’s the basketball nerd inside of me, but I find lots of joy in watching complimentary players take two dribbles to the middle of the court and make a no look pass which turns into a secondary assist. These are the subtle, more nuanced ways that basketball evolves over time. There is no doubt in my mind that the role players of today are far better than even the ones 10 years ago, let alone 40 years ago. Nostalgia is perfectly fine, and don’t get me wrong there were complimentary players from the 1980s and 1990s that had a lot of these skills, but the evolution from the Ariza/Tucker archetype to the Nesmith/Nembhard archetype has been one of the biggest drivers in the increased skill and ability of NBA players in 2025.⁵

What about the stars?

Most things in life are give and take, and the skillsets of NBA superstars are no different: as the superstars of today have gained incredible skills like volume pull-up three-point shooting, they have also lost other skills like interior passing. In addition to the three-point shot, the pick-and-roll has become a fixture of most NBA offenses. Spread pick and roll has in many ways simplified the reads players have to make compared to older generations because there’s more space on the floor and more time to diagnose situations and make decisions. Of course, this stems from the fact that people can shoot the ball at really high levels. It’s a lot different to come off a screen and have nothing but open space ahead of you where you really key in on one weakside defender who’s forced to play two ane make the pass from there, versus coming of a screen into a crowded paint with two lumbering non-shooting bigs and having to make decisions with less space and in shorter time frames.

When former generations criticize the NBA today, I mostly roll my eyes at claims like “no one plays defense,” “they shoot too many threes,” or “players today couldn’t survive in my era;” however, one claim that I do agree with is that their is less creativity in the game today than in eras past. I mention interior passing as one way to clearly see the declining skillset of current players relative to generations past, because this just isn’t a skill required of high-level offensive players anymore.⁶ Due to the unbelievable spacing on the floor, ball-handlers no longer have to make passes in tight windows to the same extent that greats from the past did. I encourage all of you to just go watch any Magic Johnson game you can find and look at how many balls he throws with incredible velocity through tight windows for layup opportunities. Guys today just don’t have this ability.

Not to single Cade out, but he’s an example of a very good passer that I think could be a lot better in this area. Here are a few plays where his lack of interior passing skills takes away layups from his teammates, and these are plays I think the great guards of eras pass make with a lot more consistency.

This first one, he should probably just explode past KAT with his left hand and try to lay the ball up, but burst and acceleration are not his strong suits as of now.

This time he probably has to take another dribble before firing.

This one has no touch and is fired like a rocket for no reason.

This pass just isn’t there and he should have hit THJ on the wing. He’s trying to no-look Brunson into committing to Hardaway when Brunson is literally already in a full front on Duren. This sort of play only works when the defender is splitting the difference.

Ultimately, it doesn’t *really* matter, as offenses today are more efficient than ever, but there are some plays you see playmakers today miss (usually interior passes for layups), and I think to myself that players of the prior generations just simply make that pass more often. To add some numbers, there have been 14 seasons since 2000 where a player has averaged 5.5 rim assists per 75 possessions.⁷ Only two of them have happened post-2020.⁸

Conclusion

While I have focused this discussion on rim attempts and interior passing, there are other aspects of the game you could point to that this generation of players does not do well as generations past, be it post-footwork or mid-range shot creation. It’s okay that players don't have certain skills because basketball is more efficient and effective than ever before, but I always get wary when people say players, especially the superstars, are “better” today than generations past. They are better in some ways and worse in other ways. What’s most interesting is that the reason why superstars are worse at things like interior passing is precisely because they are so good at something like pull up three point shooting and so the style of the game dominated by spread pick and roll means interior passing just isn’t a skill that’s as necessary as it was 20 or 30 years ago. The average NBA role player today is, without a doubt, more skilled than the average NBA role player from 20 years ago. The average superstar probably is as well, but I think the skill gap is smaller and is honestly just different: different eras require different skills to be successful. I am a huge proponent of ranking relative to era to assess one’s true impact, but I think it’s fun to consider cross-generational discussions like this one. Basketball is better than ever today, but if you’re a real fan of the game, I encourage you to throw on a mid-2000s Spurs versus Kings game. Look at the passes thrown by Manu Ginobili at the guard spot and Vlade Divac at the center spot, and ask yourself how many players in the league today can throw those same passes with consistency. I think the answer is less than you think.

A little bit about me

My name is Spencer Tyson, I’m from Maryland, and I like writing about the NBA. I just graduated from Harvard, where I studied applied mathematics. This is my seventh article, and I’ve been writing about lots of different topics. I’ve posted on Twitter/X for a while (@SpencerTyson8) and thought this would be a fun senior spring/summer activity. Leave a comment if there are any interesting topics you would like to see. The discourse on people comparing the talent of eras past and present often annoys me, so I wanted to almost play devil’s advocate and make sure the older generations are getting their flowers while also recognizing the amazing growth basketball is taking today. I have no idea where this blog will go, but I’m just doing it for myself and my own entertainment. Subscribe below!

1. The exact years are not important.

2. Maybe I’m being too harsh because the game was already over at this point.

3. More on interior passing later. This is a really big point.

4. Notice how I intentionally left out Lu Dort. His inability to fit into this archetype is (perhaps) why, in the playoffs, the Thunder are more than 3 points better on offense when he isn’t in the game.

5. Toni Kukoc immediately comes to mind.

6. Special shoutout to Darius Garland, who is probably the best interior passing guard/wing in my eye test. Not sure what the statistics say.

7. This stat was from 2 years ago, so there may have been an additional season or two.

8. Steve Nash has 6 of the 14 seasons, by the way.