Old timers dribbled lower

Look at video footage of basketball players of years past and one thing you may notice is that they tended to dribble much closer to the ground than players do now. Sort of in a crouch. One obvious disadvantage is that the crouch inhibited the flashy moves we see so much today. However, I would venture to guess that it also cut down on the number of steals made against them. Maybe they swapped flash for fundamentals?