Why do people say 'Watered down 90s' ?

All i hear is that the 90s were 'watered down' and todays game is better...but really, the 00s are far less competitive... case in point... A.I. is probably the best scorer since jordan, but before the year 2000, his highest ppg average was 28.4, but after the new millennium, he averaged 30+ in 5 different seasons...Meanwhile, Jordan, who had been retiree for some time, overweight, and pushing 40, feturned and playee for the wizards and was dropping 22.9 then 20 per during this so called more competitive era... the players tgen were also much better... the best centers now are yao and dwight howard... how would they fare against olajuwon and young shaq or pat ewing? the pf's now arent better, because theres only two good ones, duncan and kg, compared to malone, barkley, david robinson, derrick coleman and dennis rodman? the SF spot is even worse, with Lebron leading this era and no one else close..90s had scottie, grant hill, nique, with others not far behind...