Stan Van Gundy stirred up a debate this week when he said on The Zach Lowe Show that the greatest players in NBA history mostly come from the last 20 years. He didn’t hesitate or try to soften the blow. He argued that while older players should be respected for dominating their eras, many of the names of the NBA 75 Team wouldn’t even make the cut for the league.
Van Gundy wasn’t looking for shock value. In his mind, this is just the natural arc of athletic evolution.
“My son says this all the time. About every sport. He’s more of a baseball guy, right? He goes, I understand the thought that you compare players to how well they did in the era they played in. But the evolution of athletes is, we can probably say that the best 20 basketball players in history have probably played in the last 20 years.”
“Those other guys are great, but if you took them for what they were in their time and dropped them in today’s game, a lot of those guys couldn’t even get in the league. And I’m talking about some guys who are in the top 75 all the time. And I don’t say that to disparage people.”
“We evolve over time. Athletes are getting better. How can you look at a sport like track and field or swimming and see that the times keep improving and think in our sport, players don’t continue to get better and better.”
His reasoning comes from a familiar place. Athletes get better. Training gets smarter. Skill work becomes more advanced. Nutrition, sleep science, analytics, and a global talent pool have pushed the game into a different universe. Van Gundy compared basketball to track and swimming, sports where records get broken every decade because the ceiling keeps rising. And when he looks at today’s stars, he sees players who move, shoot, and process the game at speeds that didn’t exist in earlier eras.
There is truth in that. Today’s NBA is absurdly deep. Almost every rotation player can dribble, pass, and shoot.
Bigs like Nikola Jokic run offenses.
Guards like Stephen Curry and Luka Doncic bend defense in ways no one could have imagined 30 years ago.
Wings like LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Giannis Antetokounmpo blend strength, versatility, and pace in a way that feels closer to evolution than progression.
The floor spacing is wider. The skill levels are higher. The game demands more.
The problem with Van Gundy’s take isn’t about the part about evolution. It’s the jump that he made afterward, saying that legends wouldn’t even get in the league today. That takes away everything that defines greatness. Great players aren’t traffic cones stuck in one era.
They grow. They adapt to the tools around them.
Give Bill Russell modern strength training, and he becomes an even scarier rim protector. Put Jerry West in an era built around spacing and three-point shooting, and you probably get a top-five scorer. Give Oscar Robertson access to today’s ball-handling work, and he becomes Luka with a mean streak. Put Larry Bird in 2025’s shooting programs, and he might genuinely break basketball. Magic Johnson would be the same six-nine point guard unicorn the league still hasn’t replicated. And Michael Jordan, with modern spacing and scientific conditioning, probably averages 40 points a night.
The NBA 75 list exists for a reason. Greatness translates across eras because the best players would elevate with whatever tools their generation provides. They dominated their time not just through talent, but through intelligence, adaptability, and competitive drive. Those traits don’t disappear just because the game changes.
Yes, today’s league is deeper. Yes, the top tier of talent might be more physically overwhelming. But greatness is not a generation-by-generation contest. It’s measured by how completely a player mastered the game in his time and how well his skill set scales when adjusted for context.
When Van Gundy says earlier legends wouldn’t ‘even get in the league,’ he oversimplifies the evolution of the sport and dismisses the players who built the foundation the modern stars stand on. The game may keep advancing, but greatness survives every era.
