Recently, I went through and did a small project to show just how much talent was floating arounf the NBA when it was a much smaller league - 8 teams to be exact.

To decide who made the league, I took the top 96 W/S leaders for a decade (for the 2010's for example, the 96 leaders in win shares from 2009-10 through to the end of 2018-19).

From there, a serpintine position draft decided who made what team. I drafter in order of the floor; point guards, shooting guards, small forwards, power forwards, and centres. the 6-9 spot saw teams draft two bigs and two wings, with 10-12 a simple draft who was next.

This idea is to demonstrate just how stacked previous era's were. How each team contained no less than 2 all star players, and why some players didn't get the minutes or stats they would have gotten if the league had been expanded to 30 teams.

Keep in mind, there are likely players that have to ride the bench in these 8-team leagues that would be certain starters and have reasonable stats if they played in an expanded era.

Take a look at what an 8-team league in the 2010's may have looked like. Plenty of starters that make the starting 5 of each team as you'd expect, but plenty that see reserve minutes and some who ride the vry end of the bench!

Same again with the 2000's. Look at all the talent that fills each team and just how deep each squad suddenly becomes. While the sample is for a whole decade, you begin to get a picture of what the league would have been like.

Let's now take a look at what the 90's would have looked like as an 8-team league. Again, plenty of talent in each team and plenty of stars in their own right that are relegated well down the pecking order.

The 80's in their own right may just be the second most stacked era in history and arguably the peak of the game when it comes to a balance of individual talents and talented teams. Now check it out if it had just been 8 teams.

Finally, let's check out the closest period of time to the 60's in what was a dark period for the league and pro basketball in generall. Some of the talent here is ridiculous , however being the 1970's a lot of it is mostly forgotten.

Hopefully some people can understand through this little exercise the depth that was presented to the league in the early years. Sure, you may look at some players and say they had X, Y, Z as a teammate or they had A, B, C advantage...

But the fact is some guys were left with no choice but to play the role they were given in order to get a game. Some of those guys would have been statistical stars to casual fans today in an expanded league.