No the players are better. There is a difference. Same for baseball. But, the games have become too similar.
I deleted a paragraph that the game had a peak 83-87, but was terrible by 92 or so, then they banned the handcheck and the mid 90s were great. But, ironcially the NBA missed the point, that these were two great teams, Rambis, ML, Worthy, DJ was a much a part of what made it great and they simplified it to Magic and Bird. There is a solid argument they were the 2nd and 3rd best players especially in 85 and 87. The NBA was probably it's best during the Shaq/Kobe Lakers period, even though I didn't like them winning. Teams were scoring inside and making 3s. Shaq was just so good though, that they were unbeatable. Unwilling to wait for him to eat his way out of dominance the NBA ruined the game, made it much harder to post up, harder to guard the ball.
The quality of the game is cyclical. Since you making personal attacks, I bet as a younger person you think everything is a linear progression getting better. Every year is better than the year before right? Bullshit. Look at Boxing at one time we had Ali, Formean, Frazier, Norton, Holmes, Shavers, all near their peak at once. It was better than the time before, and the time after. There are some very good heavyweights right now who sadly don't get the attention.
The three point shot? All in all I don't like it. a 50% bonus is too much for being further away. Players get so good that the rules have to be changed. Goal tending was legal at the beginning, guys used to be allowed to bunt foul for ever. Baseball has the same problem in that every player can now hit the ball out. I coach and my highschool team was pretty dominant because we forced other teams to take midrange shots. We took less than 20 midrange shots in 30 games last year. My son is an athletic 6'6 kid playing ii fucking Saskatchewan and he took exactly half of his shots from 3 last year. So it's not like I don't understand how it works. But, at the NBA level the game has been ruined. A leauge where a guy like Blake Griffin who can bench over 400lb (and apparently outside of a Pistons uniform can still jump) spends two or three years never entering the key is bogus. Something is broken. The game was broken when Riley's Knicks got to the finals with game scores in the 80s. It was broken after Jordan when every team ran iso, iso,iso for some "next" guy. It was even more the same, and boring then. And it is broken now.
If Bird played today he would take 10 threes a game. Instead of Hawks falling off the bench when he scored 60 maybe he scored 75 and 54 of them are just the same jumper from varying distances. He would rarely make the pass through traffic to the cutting teammate since the teammate would be standing in the corner, all fucking game. Jason Tatum reminds me of Bird (not in mental toughness or passing) but in his ability to score on smaller guys and go by bigger guys, but the way the game is played and reffed, the most impressive things he does, toughest shots he makes, are usually bad for the team. Jalen Brown in an all star but when he drives if he can't get all the way to the hoop he is at a loss, he can't pump, pivot, find a way to use his superior athleticism to score from 5-7 feet away. The NBA needs to call fouls on the D and reward guys that get to the paint and actuall score not kick for a three. Maybe even a bonus like the extra fucking point for being further away. I want to see Lebron and Levine and Aaron Gordon try to dunk everything rather than get in the paint and kick to some nameless 3 and D guy.