When did basketball stop becoming a contact sport?

[steve B]

A few random thoughts.

I watched a video of a guy getting autographs of the greatest for each main sport on an album page that had originally just had Babe Ruth. My wife wondered why that was a thing, and that it seemed odd.

The autos?
Ruth
Brady
Gretzky
Lionel Messi ?

I said basketball would be tough as the greatest all time were mostly dead.
Wilt, Bill Russell, and maybe Mikan, leaving Jordan in 4th but first living.

To me basketball started it's long decline in the mid 90s.
The first dream team was amazing and showed what basketball could be.
By 96, it was still sort of amazing if you didn't look too closely. I was at US/China at those Olympics, and one player was set up for an easy dunk.... and missed it three straight possessions. They still massively outscored China, but didn't look good doing it.
It had become theater, a bunch of set pieces for the star of that drive to show off.
Seeing a few NBA games on tv after that has not changed that opinion.