There's a code of honor in sports, Guerin believed. You do not deliberately embarrass your opponent or set records outside the normal flow of the game. The Warriors were breaking a code.

[The game of basketball] impressed me as a glut of scoring, with few patterns of attack, and almost no defense anymore. The players, in a sense, had gotten better than the game, and the game became uninteresting. Moreover, it attracted exhibitionists who seemed more intent on amazing a crowd with aimless prestidigitation than with advancing their team by giving a sound performance. A quote from John McPhee from _A Sense of Where You Are_

Since Mikan, and before, basketball big men had been called pituitary freaks or glandular goons, but in some of the new criticism there was racial coding, as well. There were suggestions that the new NBA stars didn't appreciate or understand the game, its patterns, and its pure intangible qualities. The new stars were showboats, stars only because of physical advantages, which were unearned and unfair. ,,, The Dipper and others were changing the speed and geometry of the game.