Think about the best trash talkers currently in the NBA and you get an older generation of guys: Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce, Kendrick Perkins. It’s not so much the up-and-coming generation of guys.
Why is that?
Washington Wizards forward Paul Pierce has an idea, via Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News.
Pierce's reason why next generation of players don't trash talk like he and Kobe: "Computers. They play NBA2K instead of going to the park"
— Mark Medina (@MarkG_Medina) January 27, 2015
I don’t know, my gaming experience suggests you talk a lot of trash to the guy next to you on the couch when you beat him at NBA 2K or anything else. Well, so long as you’re playing with friends.
Or, maybe the decline is because we live in a social media age, and with more media following the sport, so the things said on the court often aren’t as private as they might have been a decade ago or more. So rather than get in trouble guys learned to rein it in.
But Pierce’s theory is as plausible as anything else, if you think there is a shortage of trash talk.