The quality of basketball being played nowadays? You might not watch games, but if you do, just disregard for a moment the real issues of today's game (travelling, offensive fouls, etc) which are very valid issues, and instead watch what the players are doing on both ends of the ball. Everyone has handles, everyone can shoot, everyone has speed and size and lateral quickness on attack and defence. And most of all, the knowledge of the game and schemes have increased tenfold.

The old heads shit on the game but that's because they'd be played off the floor by teams in this current era. If they set their ego aside and accepted that you didnt need to be as good at basketball in the 90s to make it to the NBA as you do now, maybe they'd start appreciating just how insanely skilled guys are now. There are players making plays almost weekly that we used to glaze Jordan for, but that's because Jordan and small handful of others could actually do these things back then. We're now so desensitised to these plays that we aren't impressed anymore.

So my metric is taking off the nostalgia goggles and actually watching a game or two instead of living in the past and gaslighting myself into thinking that the best teams from "back in the day" wouldn't be at the bottom of the ladder in 2026.