The Jordan Monopoly

A recent post on Free Darko made use of the term "post post-Jordan." I thought about that for a while, and I think it's a very useful insight into the current state of the NBA.

That Michael Jordan changed the nature of the beast is undeniable. That his legacy has been beneficial to the league is questionable. In the wake of Jordan, every team naturally wanted to find a doppelganger for him: a viciously competitive, relentlessly clutch, athletically dominant perimeter player with will and skill enough to force his way to victory. We have seen a number of these kind of experiments, from McGrady, to Carter, to Bryant. Their success has been, como se dice, "up and down." True, Bryant has almost a fistful of rings, but he never did it in quite the same manner as Jordan- Jordan had a Pippen, not a Shaq or Pau (I'm not trying to suggest that Gasol is better than Pippen, just to highlight the lack of a dominant post presence in the Jordan-era Bulls). Even someone like KG is a product of the search for the neo-Jordan: he is a ferocious defender, used to be incredibly athletic, has great mental toughness and will, and... has an offensive game that probably took away from his maximum utility. Honestly, the man is very nearly seven feet tall and his primary move is a turnaround jumper. His post moves are almost non-existent. You can't tell me that this has nothing to do with the idealization of guard play during Garnett's formative years.

Meanwhile, the latest batch of exciting players have been far different- Rajon Rondo, whose jump shot could be kindly described as "lacking," Dwight Howard, who is dramatically incomplete as a player, but interesting nonetheless, Chris Paul, an agile, electric combination of the pure passing point guard and the AI type, and, yes, LeBron, whose skills are good but overshadowed by his simply psychotic athleticism. These are the post-post-Jordan players, and they are far more intriguing than their immediate predecessors.

The post-Jordan types were simply an attempt to recreate the one player proven to be most effective in the league's history, a freakish amalgam of skills, character traits, and innate gifts that will, in all likelihood, not be resurfacing any time soon. The new guys are quite different: they represent a new mindset for many teams, who are willing to pursue what actually appears, instead of attempting to manufacture what has disappeared. If the post-Jordan players were (to varying degrees) failed attempts to find one man capable of dominating all facets of the game, the post-post-Jordan crew consists of players willing to embrace their highly specific talents in creative and effective ways. The last generation of stars represents homogenization, the new, diversification of talent.