Do NBA Players peak at 24 ?

[TheTruthFot18]

Maybe athletically. More like probably.

It's not the worst argument. KG and Lebron at 24 were destroying people but those teams never won it all. This seems to happen more once they get closer to later 20's and early 30's. We see them win it all at these later ages and the idea of "peaking" shifts in our mind since they are winning now despite being slightly (or largely) less productive.

[LarBrd33]

Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Lilliard.
Players peak around age 27-28 and usually maintain that career level for 2 to 3 years.
Everyone is different though.
Eg for Hield: he has shown a proven work ethic to work on his game. With that same work ethic, we really dont know what his ceiling is and 3 to 4 years from now when he hits his peak, how good could he be?

There's exceptions to every rule and those are some good points. 

In the case of Steph, I always thought he had this in him.  He's been shooting 44-45% from three since he was a 21 year old rookie.  Back in 2012, I wanted us to trade then-allstar Rajon Rondo for him.  One big thing that's changed this year is his role... he averaged 4 more shot attempts per game.  Previously, we saw him make the mini leap from player who averaged 14-17 points to player who averaged 23 points, 7 assists, 1.6 steals... he did that at the age of 24.... which would kind of back up the idea that players make their most significant progress before the age of 24.  WIth his shooting percentages remaining stagnant, one could question whether Steph could have averaged 30+ with 20 shot attempts per night had he not spent his early years sharing the court with ball dominators like Monta Ellis.   He's improved in some ways.  His confidence is much higher.  He's added the long long-range shots.  But as a player, is he a significantly better shooter than he was at age 24?

Klay Thompson is roughly the same player he was last season as a 24 year old.  He made a big leap between age 21 and 23 and has seemingly evened out.   He seems to back up the idea that players make their most significant improvements by 24.   

Lillard is another weak example.  He's roughly the same player he was when he entered the league as a 22 year old averaging 19 points, 6.5 assists, 3.1 rebounds and 1 steal.   His shooting percentages have remained roughly the same. He saw a slight jump in scoring this season from 21 to 25 points that has more to do with his role than anything (Aldridge left requiring him to take more shots).  He's more or less the same player he was.  He saw his main progress in College before the age of 23. 

Find me someone who was a weak player at age 24 or 25 and saw his game jump considerably.  It doesn't seem to happen normally.  The greatest development seems to happen before 24.  Yeah, a guy might take more shots and get a few extra points, but if a guy is going to be a 40% three point shooter or be a guy who is capable of getting 20+ per night, you're usually going to know about it before he's 24 years old.  If we don't see a major leap out of Marcus Smart in the next year or two, we probably will not see it ever.  And folks waiting for Kelly Olynyk (now 25 years old) to make a leap into stardom will likely be disappointed.  I actually like Oly a lot and think his FG% reflects a player who could have a bigger impact on the right team.  Oly might get 17 points per night with enough minutes and shot attempts, but that's something that would be reflective of a role change - not a dramatic increase in skill.   

I think the point those studies/articles are making is that the greatest skill development a player has will be before the age of 24.   You more or less know what the player is capable of by that age.

I know you've mentioned this many times, but was that before the 11-12 season, or after it?  Either way, that would have been a horrible fit on both ends of the floor, but particularly on defense.  I realize and acknowledge that Curry has quick hands, but Ray Allen was 36 and was no Klay Thompson, defensively, and Pierce was 34.  We would have been eaten alive, and Ray would have been complaining that he wasn't getting enough shots, not to mention the fact that Rondo got all of them much better shots because of his incredible vision, which helped the Big 3, especially KG, remain very effective in their later years.  Curry for Rondo is a nice video game trade, but the real life version would have been far different, and not for the better, imo.

In the midst of 2011-12 when Curry was averaging 14.7 points and Rondo was peaking.  I could see Curry opening things up for us.  The backlash was that Curry wasn't a true point guard.  My point was that if you added Curry next to Ray, it didn't matter who the point guard was, because they'd open things up for everyone else.  CLearly Curry, despite his down year, was a dangerous shooter.  I believed that with more shot opportunities, he'd be huge.   

People here thought we needed Rondo setting up everyone, but Rondo was a liability on offense, because he NEEDED the ball to be successful.   We had seen the team succeed with the ball flowing through Pierce.  I figured they could just share the ball.  I thought that if they replaced our worst shooter with a great shooter, it would completely transform our offense for the better.  No, we wouldn't play the same style, but I thought had a chance to be greatly improved.   There had also been rumors that Ainge tried acquiring Curry for Rondo, but Golden State turned them down.   Clearly a good move for Golden State, because Curry averaged 23 points and 7 assists the next season and proved himself to be an elite level player.  Point is, Curry made that leap before he turned 24.

[Celtics18]

Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Lilliard.
Players peak around age 27-28 and usually maintain that career level for 2 to 3 years.
Everyone is different though.
Eg for Hield: he has shown a proven work ethic to work on his game. With that same work ethic, we really dont know what his ceiling is and 3 to 4 years from now when he hits his peak, how good could he be?

There's exceptions to every rule and those are some good points. 

In the case of Steph, I always thought he had this in him.  He's been shooting 44-45% from three since he was a 21 year old rookie.  Back in 2012, I wanted us to trade then-allstar Rajon Rondo for him.  One big thing that's changed this year is his role... he averaged 4 more shot attempts per game.  Previously, we saw him make the mini leap from player who averaged 14-17 points to player who averaged 23 points, 7 assists, 1.6 steals... he did that at the age of 24.... which would kind of back up the idea that players make their most significant progress before the age of 24.  WIth his shooting percentages remaining stagnant, one could question whether Steph could have averaged 30+ with 20 shot attempts per night had he not spent his early years sharing the court with ball dominators like Monta Ellis.   He's improved in some ways.  His confidence is much higher.  He's added the long long-range shots.  But as a player, is he a significantly better shooter than he was at age 24?

Klay Thompson is roughly the same player he was last season as a 24 year old.  He made a big leap between age 21 and 23 and has seemingly evened out.   He seems to back up the idea that players make their most significant improvements by 24.   

Lillard is another weak example.  He's roughly the same player he was when he entered the league as a 22 year old averaging 19 points, 6.5 assists, 3.1 rebounds and 1 steal.   His shooting percentages have remained roughly the same. He saw a slight jump in scoring this season from 21 to 25 points that has more to do with his role than anything (Aldridge left requiring him to take more shots).  He's more or less the same player he was.  He saw his main progress in College before the age of 23. 

Find me someone who was a weak player at age 24 or 25 and saw his game jump considerably.  It doesn't seem to happen normally.  The greatest development seems to happen before 24.  Yeah, a guy might take more shots and get a few extra points, but if a guy is going to be a 40% three point shooter or be a guy who is capable of getting 20+ per night, you're usually going to know about it before he's 24 years old.  If we don't see a major leap out of Marcus Smart in the next year or two, we probably will not see it ever.  And folks waiting for Kelly Olynyk (now 25 years old) to make a leap into stardom will likely be disappointed.  I actually like Oly a lot and think his FG% reflects a player who could have a bigger impact on the right team.  Oly might get 17 points per night with enough minutes and shot attempts, but that's something that would be reflective of a role change - not a dramatic increase in skill.   

I think the point those studies/articles are making is that the greatest skill development a player has will be before the age of 24.   You more or less know what the player is capable of by that age.

I know you've mentioned this many times, but was that before the 11-12 season, or after it?  Either way, that would have been a horrible fit on both ends of the floor, but particularly on defense.  I realize and acknowledge that Curry has quick hands, but Ray Allen was 36 and was no Klay Thompson, defensively, and Pierce was 34.  We would have been eaten alive, and Ray would have been complaining that he wasn't getting enough shots, not to mention the fact that Rondo got all of them much better shots because of his incredible vision, which helped the Big 3, especially KG, remain very effective in their later years.  Curry for Rondo is a nice video game trade, but the real life version would have been far different, and not for the better, imo.

In the midst of 2011-12 when Curry was averaging 14.7 points and Rondo was peaking.  I could see Curry opening things up for us.  The backlash was that Curry wasn't a true point guard.  My point was that if you added Curry next to Ray, it didn't matter who the point guard was, because they'd open things up for everyone else.  CLearly Curry, despite his down year, was a dangerous shooter.  I believed that with more shot opportunities, he'd be huge.   

People here thought we needed Rondo setting up everyone, but Rondo was a liability on offense, because he NEEDED the ball to be successful.   We had seen the team succeed with the ball flowing through Pierce.  I figured they could just share the ball.  I thought that if they replaced our worst shooter with a great shooter, it would completely transform our offense for the better.  No, we wouldn't play the same style, but I thought had a chance to be greatly improved.   There had also been rumors that Ainge tried acquiring Curry for Rondo, but Golden State turned them down.   Clearly a good move for Golden State, because Curry averaged 23 points and 7 assists the next season and proved himself to be an elite level player.  Point is, Curry made that leap before he turned 24.

Curry doesn't really do much to support your argument that players peak at twenty-four.

In virtually every advanced statistical category, Curry has improved each year he has been in the league with this season--in which he was/is 27/28--being his best.

[loco_91]

I agree that NBA players peak earlier than people would assume. I think the stats are very convincing. However, the fall-off isn't very dramatic. Some players will get injuries and experience a sharp fall-off (like Rondo did). Most players will stay about the same from age 24 to age 28, and their numbers might go up or down depending on their team or depending on luck. Some players, like Lebron or KG etc, are so so so good at their peak that they can decline a bit but still be superstars. However, if you are drafting a 23 year old, you better be prepared for the fact that what you see is what you get.

[mmmmm]

I'll piggyback on what greece666 is saying.

If we're sampling all NBA players then we're sampling a huge number of guys who are out of the league by the time they're 28 years old. We don't realize how many of them there are because we're not spending as much time thinking about the guys on the end of the bench in Milwaukee as we are the guys making the all star team. But they're there and they would skew these results much younger.

That doesn't mean those result less accurate but it makes it less applcable to what we talk about when evalutating stars or even regular starters in the NBA.

But I don't know what the sampling is like.

I concur with this.

You have to separate players who are 'in the NBA' because they got drafted and have a rookie contract from the real 'NBA players' who not only will get a second contract, but will get rotation minutes with that contract.

I expect that if one redoes the studies with those things in mind, that the 'peak' will be found to be significantly later than 24 years old.

I also expect that when talking about picks in the lottery, that they probably have a higher percentage chance of getting a second contract and rotation minutes than players taken later in the draft.