It's hilarious. If anything, the NBA was far worse in the 70s. Sure, some of these guys are thugs, but a lot of them are more harmless posers. But in the 70s cocaine and violence and criminality were part and parcel of what the NBA offered.
And even back in teh 20s you read how many administrators and others condemned football or other sports.
There was no "romantic past." You think none of these racist fantasies would exist after Ty Cobb, Mickey Mantle or Paul Hornung came and went.
Yeah, Old fogey nostalgia really runs rampant in sports; and a lot of the comments about sports on threads, talk radio, just seem to be the same old cliches about everything going to hell in a handbasket.
NBA teams in the 70s had a guy on the roster just to fight, like hockey enforcers.
Actually, there haven't been many brawls in the NBA for a long, long time.
My personal favorite was when Sedale Threatt of the Sixers knocked Danny Ainge silly in the 1980s..I think Dr. J won that game with a three.