Iman Shumpert, a 10-year NBA veteran, brought up an interesting topic on “All In” where he was accompanied by the two Memphis Grizzlies legends in Zach Randolph and Tony Allen.
Randolph and Allen were cornerstones of a 2010s Grizzlies team that resembled a tough ’90s style brand of basketball, focused on half-court sets and playing inside-out.
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Lack of chess moves
So, they discussed how that team would fare in today’s era, where everything revolves around fast pace and jacking up as many three pointers as possible.
All of them agreed that those Grizzlies could compete today and Shumpert brought out an interesting reason why.
He feels that teams like the Grizzlies made more adjustments than today’s teams and that’s how they exploited their weaknesses.
“Y’all would be able to compete because you always had to make an adjustment to basketball. I feel old basketball had better chess moves [than today’s era]. I feel like there is zero chess moves and zero adjustments that get made. I’d be watching a game and be like, ‘Did the coach holla at you at halftime? Y’all ain’t going to do nothing different?’ Don’t get me wrong, I get living and dying with who you are,” Shump said before going into more detail:
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“If I keep running something and I can’t get what I want because I see they are doing this [defensively], it’s nothing to make an adjustment. If I’m trying to run a post-up and they’re clogging it up, I’m going to put a shooter in that strong-side corner… What y’all going to do then? You’re going to catch three over three over three over there,” he explained.
The game has been simplified
There is no doubt that the NBA basketball has been simplified heavily in today’s era. Most teams live and die by their fast pace and three-point shooting and even if they get caught in a half-court set, everything revolves around the pick and roll at the top of the key.
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The analytics played a part in that, too, basically saying that it doesn’t make sense to take midrange shots because that’s statistically the worst shot to take. That’s why many of the players fail to take an open long two-point shot when the defender goes under the screen, because the instruction from the coaches is to either take the three, or go to the hole.
“That sag action, to me, that was a lazy way of playing defense. For me, a guy that’s fighting over a screen, to not have somebody to show for a little second as I’m fighting through, I think that would’ve hurt me,” Allen commented on how he would fare in today’s pick-and-roll defense.
Sadly, the NBA is a business and rules have allowed that style of play to put the points up in the way we’ve never seen in NBA history.
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It’s fast, exciting and highlight worthy.
Casual fans have gravitated towards that and TV networks don’t have anything against it either, as evident from the latest TV deal that will bring $76 billion over an 11-year span, which is an annual increase in value of 165 percent.
So, while every basketball-head that follows the game for more than a decade can definitely see how tactically the NBA has gotten worse in terms of quality, the league doesn’t care because the current product delivers massive results financially.
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This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Sep 23, 2025, where it first appeared in the Latest News section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.