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Comment by janvdberg | Hacker News Reader

"It’s as if I won a billion dollars in a lottery and 39 years later someone won two billion dollars. How would I feel? Grateful that I won and happy that the next person also won. His winning in no way affects my winning."

What a great quote and general outlook on life.

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Cap is special, always has been, just seems like a real, true, gem of a person.

I grew watching the Showtime Lakers. I remember when he got the record and then I remember the farewell tour when he said he was going to retire. The game is so incredibly different now. I think you first have to recognize that Kareem was "The Guy," teams were built around him and then I'm sure there were bumps and stuff but he was pretty gracious when Magic came in and clearly became the super star. In that first championship Magic won, Cap sat out with an injury and Magic, the greatest playmaker of all time, shifted over and played center and played like Kareem; albeit with a "baby" skyhook... That's hard for a lot of guys to be gracious when a "young buck" starts coming up. That's another thing, the dude was synonymous with a particular shot, you think "sky hook," you think Kareem. There are a few guys, Reggie Mullen in 3point land, maybe. Steph Curry from way out, Jordan in the lane, if they get the ball, there is a feeling that it's predestined and they will score points. Kareem would get the ball out on the baseline, slowly back in and he had an undefendable shot in the sky hook and when it was on he could do that over and over and over and his team would win.

As a short white dude watching it all, I can remember a few times in the early to mid-1980s when the local sports reporter on TV referred to "brother ball" being played. There were definitely racial aspects to the Lakers vs the Celtics. I remember some people in the media kind of down playing it, "he's just a big guy with one move... he can't shoot like Bird can." And to see that record last as long as it has, it's amazing.

I think he's saying that he still holds the record if we adjust for inflation

Not sure how deep you intended this joke to go, but the NBA had 23 franchises in 1980 [0] that scored 108 points per game[1].

Now there are 30 franchises scoring 114 points per game.

If you look at the points per game stats, scoring dipped as the number of teams expanded, but rule changes, officiating changes and increases in talent over time led to more points being scored.

So a 1980 point was almost certainly worth more than a 2022 point.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980%E2%80%9381_NBA_season

[1]https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_stats_per_g...

edits: typos

I think most people accept that sports change over time and it's difficult to compare historical players with current ones.

Ignoring rule changes, there's the fact that athletes can collect so much data about their performance and use that information to improve in ways that just weren't available 30-50 years ago. Not to mention all of the scientific breakthroughs society has achieved in our understanding of the human body, nutrition, pharmacology, etc. An athlete born in 2020 has a huge advantage over one born in 1920.

> An athlete born in 2020 has a huge advantage over one born in 1920.

A big disadvantage, though, too: he has to play against players with the same advantages.

So true!

Look at clips of Wayne Gretzky from the 1980's, which is also when he set all-time records that have not yet been surpassed (and people still believe never will, though Ovechkin has a chance at the goals record)

What's incredible isn't what he's doing, it's what everyone else around him is NOT doing.

* He's skating fast but not that fast (compared to modern skaters)

* His shot is accurate but he's not a sniper. Many shots never leave the ice

* But the defenders have absolutely no checking ability

* And the goalies are upright! The butterfly style hasn't been popularized yet! They're just awkard sieve slowly shuffling around in net.

In the 20 seasons Lebron has been in the NBA the average points scored by a team per game has been 103, while in KAJ's first 20 seasons the average was 109. The early 2000's were incredibly slow compared to the 70's and 80's[0].

https://e7n9s5t9.stackpathcdn.com/articles/wp-content/upload...

Yes, absolutely correct. I'd say the Showtime Lakers are the poster child for fast pace in the 80s.

This is why I included the number of teams. PPG has fluctuated across eras, but total points has gone up over time.[0]

Talent dilution in the expansion from 23 to 30 teams undoubtedly had an effect on pace in the late 90s/2000s.

There's probably a good formula for determining the value of a point across eras, but I'm not going to waste too many brain cells on it.

[0]https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_stats_total...

I love you HN. Never change.

Stuff like the hand checking rule and better floor spacing as a result of the rise in prominence of the 3 point shot come to mind

Nevermind that the 3pointer was introduced 10 years after Kareem's rookie season. He has a single 3 pointer made in his career

pretty crazy when you compare it to many similar sized players who have come after him, making a living beyond the three point line!

Well the NBA didn't create the 3 point line until 1979 which was basically half way into Abdul-Jabbar's career - so it kind of accurate to say "point inflation" in a sense

Edit: statbook link https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/a/abdulka01.htm...

This stuff is really hard to gauge. On one hand the NBA officiating rules have changed to where "defense" like what was seen in 70's through early 2000's is not happening in this league. Like it or not the league has switched from a hard nose interior game(see lots of dunking and post moves) to one that is played from distance ala 3 pointers (thanks mid-2010's Warriors!).

So you have that data point, the other one to focus on is health, given the stuff above - players careers, or good players will see a longer career due to less wear on their bodies from tough physical defense they face. They also have really good medical care and recovery systems, I bet KAJ wish he had hyperbaric chambers to help him recover! But.. every other player also has these tools so its a wash.

I think the big game changer is the defense rules change, and then to a lessor factor couple that with players having better access to health and recovery systems I definitely see a future player breaking Lebron's scoring record.

The defensive changes are a bit over-stated in my opinion. Sure there is no hand checking, arm barring or really hard fouls (that are not flagrant) but there is zone defense. So when you get by your defender, there can easily be 2-3 guys already waiting for you. Whereas before, there were 2-3 guys rotating over to try to meet you at the rim. Schematically it seems that scoring is as easy/hard as it ever was even if the tactics have evolved.

It's always hard to do a side-by-side comparison between two athletes that did not play during the same era. Rules change, competition is different, and playing conditions can also be different.

In golf, today's players have much different equipment than in earlier times but the lengths of courses has increased. In baseball, pitching is not the same. Just like with Wilt Chamberlain's 100 point game; who knows if any of the current superstars could match it if the conditions for that game could be duplicated somehow.

Any discussion of GOAT will bring a lot of disagreement because none of the sports are static.

Kareem understands that life is a collaborative game, not a zero-sum game. This is extra special coming from an athlete whose career was in excelling in a zero-sum game.

To be fair, it’s much easier to have a collaborative view on life once you’re financially independent or have exceeded your goals.

The unpaid college star that couldn’t make the NBA and is now struggling to make ends meet might not see life as a collaborative game.

Nah I think you have it backwards. The ones who make it have that mindset throughout.

I don’t think your theory explains angry rich people or cutthroat billionaires or self-indulgent winners or any successful person who’s ever evolved from being mean to being nice.

We’re celebrating Kareem for how unique he is in his outlook because it’s so rare.

> > We’re celebrating Kareem for how unique he is in his outlook because it’s so rare.

How is he unique? No human could possibly still milking an achievement 35 years into past.

Financially maybe, but brain juice wise not so much.

Led Zeppelin hate to play Stairway to Heaven and Eagles have come to hate Hotel California and Tom Brady is for sure tired to explain for the 1000th time the game winning drive against the St.Louis Rams in SuperBowl 2001.

There is a reason why all the people above ask to get paid a whole lot in order to once again 'perform the classics'. The exception is the other way around.

> There is a reason why all the people above ask to get paid a whole lot in order to once again 'perform the classics'. The exception is the other way around.

Didn't know about that, but it explains a certain dynamic I've been wondering about. You go to a concert of a group that's been around for some years, maybe decades. You come there for the classics - the songs you've heard many years ago and grew to appreciate, the texts that you found some meaning in at some point in life. But the band plays new pieces, one after other, all inferior, all being not the thing you came for. You look around, you notice the facial expressions and body language of others in the audience. You know they came in for the classics too. The performers surely know that too. Yet they keep playing the new stuff, throwing in an older piece every now and then, seemingly oblivious to the meaning of applause and standing ovation they get each time.

I've assumed it's mostly that the group really wants to try new things. But it may just be that they're tired playing the old ones. Still, it's a conflict of expectation, and why I personally don't go to concerts much.

Clutch went through something somewhat similar, according to an interview with I think Neil Fallon. They burned out for awhile on playing "Electric Worry", but were convinced that it was worth playing because it was the ace up their sleeve- so long as they included it in a set, fans would be happy and overlook any experimental new stuff that didn't work out as well.

Of course, they also have a reputation for crossing into nearly every subgenre of rock, so their hard core fans are perhaps a bit more tolerant than other bands when they branch out. Even so, having watched a number of their concerts online (never had the opportunity to see a show live, sadly) they do seem to have a healthy blend of old and new in each set, and the atmosphere is always electric.

That's because say Page, Plant and John Paul Jones were there when they wrote and recorded 'Stairway to Heaven'. It's not like they felt something uniquely great about that piece of music, more likely they felt exactly the same as they did after writing and recording the other 300+ songs they recorded in their life.

They probably think we are idiots for elevating it so much, and demand a premium to play it for the 3000th time, and also demand a premium for talking about and put up the act of having to sell to people the illusion that they also thought that something metaphysical was happening in the studio.

Kids think 'doing it for the content' is something new, while it has always been around. People have 'done stuff for the content' for ages in order to buy nice cars, real estate, planes etc.

I'm almost sure that what we feel when we hear 'Stairway to Heaven' is approximately the same enthusiasm they feel when they dump 20M on a private island in the Bahamas or access some new designer drug that is only availible for the wealthy.

You can only unlock that type of enthusiasm if you are not involved in the creation and the promotion of the the thing being commercialised.

100 % agree on this. Rich people are nicer because they don't need much from the other party.

To be clear, what I really think is you need to be a little cynical in life to "make" it.

Or have wealthy parents (or grandparents, etc.).

Absolutely. Use all the advantages you have in life.

Kareem literally says this in his post:

> I don’t blame him for thinking that I might be bothered because he knows how competitive I used to be.

Michael Jordan definitely didn't have this mindset, and he was the greatest of all time. He was the epitome of cut throat.

The 90’s were a funny time, history was over so we declared the best sports players at the time to be the “greatest ever.”

The only sports that have seen their best players already are Baseball and Cycling, because they’ve gotten good at catching steroid users.

The greatest of all time is always understood to mean the greatest of all time so far. Nobody is pretending this is predictive of the future. There might be a 9 year old out there right now that is going to grow up and destroy Jordan's legacy. But as of now, no other player to play the game has surpassed him.

Honestly, I'm a bit bummed that the 'greatest of all time' era was when this stupid 'illegal defense' rule, which is probably the stupidest rule ever in basketball, was deciding games.

Basketball isn't really a 5 on 5 sport with this rule. It's a 2 on 2 or a 3 on 3.

I remember in 2004, my brother's coach gave him a VHS collection of 60s and 70s NBA games because "that's when the US played team basketball, that's how I want you to play". I think he also gave him the spurs games of that year and a couple of eurobasket DVDs.

Yes and people try to put Lebron side by side with Jordan but he's not even the best Laker in my opinion. I'd pick 3 Lakers ahead of him if I was doing an all-time draft.

You forget javelin throwing, because the javelins were redesigned to keep them from possibly going into the stands

What? No. Bill Russell was the greatest. MJ is just the greatest that most people have seen (except that LeBron is making a better and better case...)

This has some truth to it, but it’s also a cynical middle-brow dismissal.

Plenty of rich are ultra competitive and plenty of poor people are collaborative. Also, older are generally a bit mellower and reflective, but even teenagers can demonstrate good team work and community thinking.

A viewpoint like Kareem’s should be celebrated, not doused with cynicism.

He's a Muslim, and Islam gives you that collaborative and content outlook.

I also like this one: "If I had a choice of having my scoring record remain intact for another hundred years or spend one afternoon with my grandchildren, I’d be on the floor in seconds stacking Legos and eating Uncrustables."

Man says something so people will like him when he doesn't have the option to actually make that decision.

I bet he would skip the 3 hours to remain #1.

If it was Jordan, that would be true. With Kareem, I'm not so sure that's the case - "But that ain't me today. I'm 75. The only time I ever think of the record is when someone brings it up."

He's an amazing writer.

I really liked his article on his friend, Bruce Lee.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/kareem-abdul-ja...

I think he's the greatest, but my dad says he doesn't work hard enough on defense. And he says that lots of times he doesn't even run down court. And that he doesn't really try except during the playoffs.

The hell he doesn’t! LISTEN, KID! We've been hearing that crap ever since he was at UCLA. He’s out there busting my buns every night! Tell your old man to drag Walton and Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes!

Have you ever seen a grown man naked?

> What a great quote and general outlook on life.

I kind of almost don't believe it/it's too good to be true.

You don't think any part of him is sour? He put a 20 year career in the league, was #1, and now he got passed and will forever be at least #2.

I feel like if I was in a similar situation (I'll never know what it's like whatsoever to be all time NBA leading anything), I'd want to come off as happy for the next guy but in reality, if it's a prestigious title I held for years and it finally got stolen from me... I don't know how internally happy I'd be.

He says he is not. He said he might have been in the past, but today there is no sourness.

And we have to believe him. He is the ultimate authority on what he feels. He also has the unique perspective of being in the position of someone who has had the record of all-time leading scorer in the NBA taken from him. You do not. I do not. We do not even possess any records to be taken.

So no, we don't know how we'd feel in that situation. It's purely hypothetical on our end. We have to trust his words.

Not to mention, neither of us are Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. And I don't mean that neither of us are legendary NBA players. I mean neither of us are that man. We have not lived his life. We have not experienced his struggles, achievements, highs, lows, etc. We do not have his parents, etc. So even if you or I would feel like something was stolen from us that still doesn't tell us that he would feel the same.

I think when you're 25 it's good to have the competitive fire and not want your record to be broken, when you're 75 it's good to have a little more equanimity.

> You don't think any part of him is sour?

Did you not read the article? I wouldn't be sour about it either, if I were 75. Someone was bound to surpass you; that is life.

He was also 3 for 3 at the college national championship level; Lebron can't take that from him.

I get the message he's trying to convey, but I think it's just a bad analogy. Reaching the NBA scoring record would presumably require lots of discipline, good habits, hours of hard effort, practice, etc....winning the lottery seems like mostly luck to me. I get it that you need luck in order to be able to produce that effort, but I don't really see how those two events can be equivalent at all.

Being 7 foot whatever can't hurt either. That's gotta be a little bit like winning the basketball genetic lottery.

Sadly, I suspect most actual billionaires don’t share this outlook.

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