Former Blazers All-Star Calls Out Modern NBA Players

A star from Portland's best post-Drexler run speaks out.

Jan 17, 2023; Denver, Colorado, USA; Detailed view of a Portland Trail Blazers logo warmup jersey before the game against the Denver Nuggets at Ball Arena. Mandatory Credit: Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images / Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images

Is the NBA too lackluster on defense and too show on offense?

To hear one ex-Portland Trail Blazers superstar tell it, yes indeed.

Former four-time All-Star power forward Rasheed Wallace, the best player from the most successful Trail Blazers season since the Clyde Drexler era (1999-2000, when the 59-23 team pushed the eventual champion Los Angeles Lakers to a seven-game Western Conference Finals series), and his former Portland small forward teammate Bonzi Wells, recently weighed in on the state of the modern NBA during the latest episode of the latter's Underdog Fantasy podcast "Sheed & Tyler."

Both Wells and Wallace concurred that today's players are not nearly as physical as they were during their era.

"I think these kids, they do a great job of hiding themselves on the defensive end, but when we played we [weren't] letting you hide," Wells said.

"Their defense is, if you just missed a shot and we get the rebound, 'Oh we played good D.' I just missed a f---ing shot!" Wallace contended.

"But also, we're not shooting threes to let them off the hook like that," Wells added. "We're getting quality shots inside the basket. We're trying to get fouls on you man. We don't want you to play 40 minutes tonight. We need you to play 28. Because you got two, three fouls early, you had to sit the rest of the half, now you come in, now you're playing gingerly in the third quarter... That's our mindset."

When it comes to offense, Wallace argued that players are too showy and bog down scoring with superlative dribbling and highlight-reel-courting finesse.

"Steve Nash is the first one to start the for-real for-real unnecessary multiple dribbling s---. But he can get away with it because he was effective," Wallace notes of the Hall of Fame point guard, who in his prime won consecutive MVPs — but no titles — with the pace-and-space Phoenix Suns. "But now, that's what everybody [thinks] they can do: 'I can dribble 15 times to pass it.' What the f--- are you doing? What is that? ...You could've passed that [after] two dribbles... With me, I ain't going for it, you're gonna get hurt... I'm gonna give you that hard-ass foul."

Wallace, a stretch four before the position was popularized, played from 1995-2010 with the then-Washington Bullets (who drafted him with the No. 4 overall pick out of North Carolina), Blazers, Atlanta Hawks, Detroit Pistons, and Boston Celtics. He then un-retired for the New York Knicks' 2012-13 run to the second round of the Eastern Conference playoffs.

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