YouTube Gold: The 1980’s NBA Is Still Amazing To Watch

The NBA started in the late 1940’s, so if you take the league’s official starting point as 1946, with the BAA which merged with the NBL to make the NBA, it is 79 now and will hit 80 later in the year, presumably at the start of next season.

That’s a long time and incorporates many eras. the Mikan/Lakers era of dominance was first, then the Boston Celtics took control in the late 1950’s to 1969. The era of Bill Russell vs. Wilt Chamberlain, along with Jerry West and Oscar Robertson among others was great. The 1970’s saw cocaine damage the league’s product and reputation, but the 1980’s saw an impressive resurgence. Players like Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan dominated the era, but you also had Clyde Drexler, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, Patrick Ewing, Muggsy Bogues, Charles Barkley and of course Dr. J, among many others.

This video shows some of the great plays of that era and really, where would you even begin? There are so many.

This was the era that brought the NBA back from the brink and some of it still sends chills down the spine.