You really think the benches are that strong? I don't.
Well, my point wasn't exactly that, but yeah, historically speaking, I do think they are. I just feel like there are too many young guys that don't get enough reps. Nuggets fired their coach and GM because they couldn't resolve the conflict over playing the young guys to develop for the future, and this stuff is happening all over the league.
Back to your question, if you look at how much expansion we had between the 80s and 90s...just doing the math on the huge international talent pool vs. the fact that we've only added 2? teams in 30 years, you would expect the league to be especially deep, and I think that bears out.
For example, these were the top bench players on finals losers in the 90's:
28 YO Brian Shaw (7, 7, and 3)
28 YO Donald Royal (2, 1, and 0.5)
34 YO Sam Perkins (12, 4, and 2 in the playoffs)
31 YO Nate McMillan (4, 4, and 3)
29 YO Vince Askew (4, 2, and 1)
23 YO Shandon Anderson (5, 3, and 1)
28 YO Greg Foster (4, 3, and 1)
35 YO Antoine Carr (5, 2, and 1)
24 YO Howard Eisley (6, 1, and 2)
I feel like we could probably name 20 benches today that are better than those benches.