Predicting Decline with Age or Total Minutes?

[tsherkin]

Some time ago, TrueLAFan made a post describing how total career minutes was a better predictor than age (age of entry, age in-season, etc) of when a player will begin to decline.

Does anyone else have some information on that? TLF, did you want to jump in and re-post?

[TrueLAfan]

The original post about this is, unfortunately, lost deep in the archive of RealGM. But it basically goes like this. Player age has little to do with decline. It's the wear and tear on the body that predicts player dropoff. Call it the Indiana Jones Rule—“It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage.”

For most players and (especially) smaller players, the line seems to be at about 36000 regular season minutes. Jordan retired for the second time after about 36000 regular season minutes. He was still great, but I think his physical skills and overall play had started to erode in his final season and would have continued to if he’d kept playing. Gary Payton started to drop off after about 35000 regular season minutes. Same with Jerry West.

Big men seem to have about one or maybe two extra seasons...enough to get to about 38000 to 40000. But a lot of big men decline around the 36000 minute mark as well. The bottom line is that 36000 minutes is a lot of basketball, and the human body doesn't keep regenerating all its parts.

All players start to lose physical skills, probably earlier than 36000 minutes, but the smarter players can compensate for it. For a while. Once you pass 41000 for a big man, or 7000 or so for a smaller guy, it’s really hard or impossible to keep the level of your play up that high. There are a couple of outliers--Karl Malone, for example. had his skills drop off after 2000, and he had played about 44000 regular season minutes and never had a major injury at that time. Kareem was still pretty great in 1985 and 1986, good enough to finish in the top 5 of MVP voting. He had played about 48000 regular season minutes. I don't even know how to judge Wilt...he was still a top 5 player when he retired, and he'd played almost 48000 minutes. But those are the only real outliers in the last 40 or 50 years.

[Silver Bullet]

Not to say that True LA Fan is wrong. I'd be interested to know how you came up with that number, or is it just an observation ?

Some exceptions to the rule:
Kobe Bryant 37000
Karl Malone 55000
John Stockton 48000
Reggie Miller 48000
Kevin Garnett - probably started declining after 40,000 though we don't know for sure if this season is an aberration or a trend.

I'm sure there are a lot more.

This kind of thing should be very easy to analyze if someone has the time to collect all the data. You'd basically just run a regression of minutes, age, minutes squared and age squared on pace adjusted PER for a large set of players.

[TrueLAfan]

In this case, we start with the basic knowledge that saying that players begin to regress after 36000 minutes (smaller players) to 40000 players (big men) gives us a pretty tiny population. There are a total of 22 players under 6'7" that have played over 36000 minutes, and 17 players 6'8" or over that played over 40000 minutes. Just getting to that number--never mind exceeding it--is rare. Physical breakdown obviously starts occurring well before those numbers in the majority of cases. Players like Mitch Richmond and Otis Thorpe and Horace Grant and George Gervin and Terry Porter and Walt Bellamy and Kevin Willis and Mo Cheeks who had successful and (it seemed to me, personally) really long careers don't meet that minimum standard. And in most cases, the slowdown resulting from the wear is obvious. Shaq seems like he's been playing for a million years; he was under 40000 minutes going into this season. Drexler retired at 37537--his game was still good, but had been going south for a little while. Same with Dominique and Rick Barry and Charles Oakley...they don't make it over that minutes threshold by much for their entire careers...and they had been dropping off for a while. So there, literally, can't be "a lot more."

And we really don't need to use any sort of regression analysis which would have problems anyway, because it would require using an accurate single seasons number for the fixed variable...and although PER is probably more useful for single players than player comparisons, it's such a lousy statistic that, frankly, I wouldn't use it in any serious discussion. (I will add that I'm about 100% sure that if you did use PER and introduced some factor for mpg, you'd see that players dropped off by at least 13.5% in either mpg, PER, or both.) but the numbers of players are so small, especially when the dropoff within the already small group is clear for many/most players, that we don't need to look at anything more than overall productivity.

The breakdown is clearer with smaller players--John Stockton is a good example. Stockton had a 10 year peak where he averaged 15.6/3.9/12.8, shooting .524/.392, and playing 36.2 minutes a game. He virtually mimicked those numbers in the final year of that run--1997--where he averaged 14.4/2.8/10.5 and shot .548/.422. He never played more than 31.3 minutes a game after that, only playing over 30 minutes a game once. His shooting percentages dropped. I have had people say, "Well, PER36...!" or "His PER didn't drop!" Except that PEr doesn't account for minutes per game, and John Stockton wasn't physically able to play 36 minutes a game anymore...he only played 36 minutes in 36 out of 442 games from 1998 to 2003...less than 10% of the time. There's an argument that he was "saving himself for the playoffs"...except Stockton only averaged 32 minutes a game in the playoffs in those final years (vs. 39 a game in the previous ten). I think it's a pretty inescapable conclusion that he was physically unable to play more minutes than he did at the high level he was accustomed to playing at. That's a result of physical wear and tear. At the end of the 1997 season, John Stockton had played 34987 regular season minutes.

With Kobe...well, I'm sure Laker fans will give me some grief for this, but I see signs that his game has dropped slightly. Part of that is due to the nagging injuries he's had all year...but nagging injuries are part of the physical breakdown process. He scores less. He doesn't rebound as well. Kobe is still a great, great player, and he's starting from a very high point. it's a bit like Kareem (see below). But I also think that, ten years from now, we'll look at 2009 (or, maybe 2008 or 2010) and say, "This is when he started to drop off." Kobe Bryant, as of today, has played a bit over 37000 minutes.

As for KG--I think you have to blind to think that he's anything close to the player he was in the mid-90s. I think you have to be crazy to think the dropoff didn't start (at the latest) in 2009; I thought he'd lost at least a half-step by 2008, and he's lost more since then. Garnett's numbers have dropped across the board in the last few years. In the 2009, he missed 25 games. This season, he's missed 11 games. He had missed 25 games in his career up to 2008, and never more than 6 in a season. His minutes per game have dropped precipitously. He had played 37863 minutes going into the 2009 season.

I agree about Karl Malone and Kareem as outliers...to an extent. Malone's dropoff began, IMO, in 2000, It was the last year had a good Reb %, the last year his eFG% was over .500, the last year he averaged 25 points a game. His play was good, but lesser in the next few years. He was at about 44000 minutes after the 2000 season...a bit ahead of the 40000 line. But he and Kareem were freaks.

Still, it's hard to say. Kareem's substantial dropoff happened in 1987 and after. But there's some evidence that he was declining before that--after 1981 or 1982. Like Stockton (for instance), his MPG dropped. His rebounding dropped (though Magic was responsible for a lot of that). Don't get me wrong--Kareem was still a great player, an elite player. I think it shows how great he was that we can say in a "lesser" period from 1983 to 1986, he still could make All-NBA first teams and finish in the top 5 of MVP voting. I personally don't think Kareem could have played at the level and pace he played at in his first 12 seasons--he had played 38000 minutes at 40 mpg after 1981. After 1986, he had played a whopping 50000 minutes. But he was also in his fourth consecutive year of playing less than 33.4 minutes per game after averaging over 40 in his first 12 years. Somewhere in that span--between 38000 and 50000, you probably want to say that Kareem's play wasn't what it had been.

[sp6r=underrated]

This came up in the MVP thread a while ago. I was able to find a discussion of that thread from 2007 on another website were they had excerpts of the OP. I'm not sure if its in order so understand that its a bit jumbled.

Yes, I looked at this about six months ago. There seems to be a much bigger correlation between minutes played and player dropoff than age and player dropoff. The max range seem to be around 36,000-40,000 combined regular season and playoff minutes. Big men tend to be on the higher end of the spectrum. Age doesn't seem to be as big of a factor. Because people enter the pros within about a 2/3 year period, most great players hit that wall at around the same age (34 or so), but there are exceptions. Moses Malone entered pro ball out of high school; his last great year came at 32 in 1987-88 (about 39,500 minutes played after that season). The players that enter the league and play major minutes before 20 seem to hit the wall a year or so earlier. Players that enter the league at 22 or so seem to maintain their peak level into their mid-30s.

Keep in mind that making it to, say, 38,000 regular season and playoff minutes is an accomplishment in itself. That's 12 years as a full time starter with very few injuries and a lot of playoff time. I personally think that Duncan, Kobe, and maybe Dirk will stay good a bit past the 40,000 minute mark...maybe three great years each for them after this one. That will probably put them about even with Jordan's total minutes played after his sixth championship (43,361)...and even Jordan said he was slowing down at that stage in his career.

I think the classic case right now is Garnett. There's no question that Garnett is still a dominant, great player--but is he as dominant as he was a few years ago? My feeling is that he's lost a quarter of a step. It's either so small that it doesn't matter or he's compensating for it--but I think KG began experiencing a physical decline a year or two ago. I think he's compensated by becoming more of a low post player so his loss in quickness doesn't matter as much--but that has cut slightly into his effectiveness as a player IMO. And, of course, eventually he'll just have a decline. My guess is he's got a year or two after this one at or very near is peak--big men tend to "age" a little more slowly, and his shift in play will benefit him a little in that regard.

Again, I want to point out how rare it is for players to get to 36,000-40,000 regular season and playoff minutes. Very few players other than superstars get close to that. It’s a ton of court time. Still, we have some comparisons. We are at the point in NBA history where he have had a lot of players play extended minutes before 23, before 25, and before 30. But the number of players who have been MVP quality players after they’ve played 43,000 career playoff and regular season minutes can be summed up like this:

Kareem
Malone
Wilt

They’re all big men. You can count Jordan if you use his last season, where he went over 43,000 in the playoffs…but he was under 39,500 going into that season. Everyone else comes up short. That’s why I’m dubious about Kobe or McGrady being dominant for 6 or 7 more years based on the fact that they’re “only” 28 or 29. If Kobe were to play as much in the next 6 years as he has in the past six, he’d be at something like 54,000 career minutes—46,500 regular seasons and 7,500 playoff. He’d be about even with Stockton, Miller, and Payton in total minutes, and those guys tailed off for several years before they retired. I just don’t think it’s likely he will stay that good for that long…although, as I mentioned before, I do think Kobe will stay near the top for several more years, and will continue to be valuable after that if he keeps playing, simply because of his desire. But since he’s never been anything like the iron men that Stockton, Miller, and Payton were, I don’t think he’s any sort of physical outlier.

Extra note: One reason I think that age means less than minutes is that there's no indication that players play longer now. If you look at the top 50 in career minutes, or minutes in a season, there's a pretty much dead even balance between older (started pre-1971) and newer players. That makes me think there's a limit to what a body can take, regardless of how good medical and rehab techniques get.

Absolutely--but some players just play through these things, or are less susceptible, or whatever. Look at Gary Payton. In his first thirteen years, he missed a total of 7 games. He's never had a major injuries, never had much in the way of joint issues--he's kind of a freak. His downturn started then--or maybe a year earlier. (I thought he'd begun to slow down before the 2002-3 season anyway.) Reggie Miller is another iron man--22 missed games in his first 14 seasons. He had a year longer at or near his peak--but played fewer minutes per season. But he hit the wall at pretty much the same spot--it was about 42,500 minutes for him. Those guys are the athletic outliers, who rarely get hurt and never have any sort of chronic condition. Here are their minute totals going into what turned out to be their final season at or near their peak.

Miller: 39,122
Payton: 38,362

So even guys that are modern players and have modern medical benefits and never have injuries and never miss games start their downturn at around the same time in minutes played. Guys that are even a little less fragile are more likely to slow down earlier. So I think that joint issues are part of it--but even players that have no real issues with it (or anything else) have a hard time mainting elite level past 40,000 career minutes.

[Jimmy76]

nash's late blooming makes him an interesting test-case, especially he's probably one of the strictest guys in the nba when it comes to health

only at 31372 minutes played which suggests he has another 2 full years (playing about 2500 minutes a season which is a little under par for his suns days) before we see decline despite being 36

im somewhat skeptical and think at a certain point age also becomes a factor even if minutes weigh much heavier in decline

[sp6r=underrated]

nash's late blooming makes him an interesting test-case, especially he's probably one of the strictest guys in the nba when it comes to health

only at 31372 minutes played which suggests he has another 2 full years (playing about 2500 minutes a season which is a little under par for his suns days) before we see decline despite being 36

im somewhat skeptical and think at a certain point age also becomes a factor even if minutes weigh much heavier in decline

I don't think there is any question that age plays a significant role in the decline players.

[Jimmy76]

nash's late blooming makes him an interesting test-case, especially he's probably one of the strictest guys in the nba when it comes to health

only at 31372 minutes played which suggests he has another 2 full years (playing about 2500 minutes a season which is a little under par for his suns days) before we see decline despite being 36

im somewhat skeptical and think at a certain point age also becomes a factor even if minutes weigh much heavier in decline

I don't think there is any question that age plays a significant role in the decline players.

Player age has little to do with decline. It's the wear and tear on the body that predicts player dropoff. Call it the Indiana Jones Rule—“It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage.”

im not saying he's wrong im saying Nash is an interesting test case for the theory

I think he's closer to right than wrong and if Nash produces at this level for two more years without dropping off it strengthens his case a great deal

[TrueLAfan]

Keep in mind that I'm talking about best case scenarios. As I noted, few players actually get to 36000 plus minutes. That's rare air. Most players start to drop well before that.

But even if you do have a winning combination of starting young and playing a lot and few injuries...I still think the minutes get to you. KG is a good example. He's only 33. But he's an old 33. Lots of miles. He's not as effective; he breaks down more. I remember when I first suggested this that Mijny fans laughed and said, "Hey, KG is only 29!" When I said he was an old 29 with 32000+ minutes, they laughed and pointed at his age and injury free record. Didn't work out that way.

Nash is an interesting case, because he played (relatively) few minutes as a younger player. Still...look at it this way. Mike Bibby is four years younger than Nash (I know--weird, isn' it?) and has played a similar amount of minutes. Bibby's already well past his peak. It wouldn't surprise me if Nash's great roll ended after this year, or if he had one or even two more great years. I would be very surprised to see him go past that...but more from a mileage perspective than an age issue.

[tsherkin]

Thanks for replying, True.

[mysticbb]

Once I did a similar research. Used players with 30k and above minutes and looked for a correlation between their performance (PER, Win Shares) and their age/mileage. I can't find the xls right now, but I'm pretty sure that the correlation between decline and mileage was a little bit bigger, but not by much. I wouldn't call it significant. The problem is that as more minutes someone played as older he is most times. Well, the whole thing didn't gave me anything, because the correlation between age and mileage was just too high.

[TrueLAfan]

Once I did a similar research. Used players with 30k and above minutes and looked for a correlation between their performance (PER, Win Shares) and their age/mileage. I can't find the xls right now, but I'm pretty sure that the correlation between decline and mileage was a little bit bigger, but not by much. I wouldn't call it significant. The problem is that as more minutes someone played as older he is most times. Well, the whole thing didn't gave me anything, because the correlation between age and mileage was just too high.

The problem with looking at the examples/samples we have is that few players came into the league straight out of high school, or were 1-and-done college players. That means everyone started on a fairly level playing field. It wasn't until the 1970s that players started entering the league as 18 or 19 years, and getting substantial minutes prior to their 21st or 22nd birthday, and it wasn't until the 90s that it became common. Only four of the 25 players who played over 8000 minutes before they were 22* started playing in the NBA before 1993. The fifth was Shaq. KG was #6. Since then, there have been 19 others.

So we're only now getting a sense of whether playing 33,000 minutes before you're 31 is really that bad. People that look at age will/should say, "Look, he's 31. He's young. He has several more years at his peak." Eight players have done it.

Wilt (stayed dominant, but was lesser after 1970; 37218 minutes played at that point)
Oscar (still a good player as he aged, but dropped off after 1971; 36282)
Dr. J (much more durable than you'd think, but slowed down after 1984; 38300)
Moses (Still put up good numbers in 1987-9, but was slipping, Listed minutes are through 1989; 41415)
Isiah (Played a lot when he was young; had started to slip a bit just when he got final injury Career total; 35516)
KG (Last great year was 2008. Total minutes after winning title; 37863)
Kobe (Still great; probably has lost half a step, but compensates well. Total minutes right now; 37207)
Dirk (Still at or near peak. Total minutes right now; 33437)

Now here's the deal. Here's how old those players were after their last "great" year, and some info about their play

Wilt--33 years old; averaged 27-18-4 the year he got hurt
Oscar--33 years old; 5th in MVP voting
Dr. J--34 years old (turned 34 two months before the end of the season); 6th in MVP voting
Moses--34 years old (turned 34 two weeks before the season ended); 13th in MVP voting
Isiah--32 years old; injured in final seasons, 13th in MVP voting the year before.
KG--31 years old (turned 32 a few weeks after the finals); 3rd in MVP voting
Kobe--31 years old now; 2nd in MVP voting in 2009
Dirk--31 years old now; 10th in MVP voting in 2009

Now, if someone had told you that Oscar Rebertson was done as a dominant player at 33, or that a C who had won 3 MVPs would be done in MVP voting (and as a great player) at 34...or that Kevin Garnett's days as a top 5 player were over at 31...you'd have been laughed at. Celtics fans would have howled in 2008 if you'd suggested that mileage was starting to catch up to Garnett. KG just turned 32! He's not a banger! Played at least 70 games in every season; no injury record. And he's being rested more now. He'll be a great for a loooooong time! Except...no.

We've seen the results of the first high school players (Moses, KG), and they don't appear to be more durable than anyone else in terms of total on court time. If I were betting on current players, I'd say Kobe has a shot to stay near elite past 40000 minutes...he may make it to 42000 or so. That's two more years. Maybe, maybe not. I actually think Dirk has a good chance to stay great for several more years. His game isn't predicated on quickness, he's a big man that isn't a banger, he's never had anything like a major injury. This year will Dirk's 11th consecutive year playing over 2769 minutes. That's impressive. But I still think that he'll hit the wall in the low 40s.

[tsherkin]

True, you're using regular season AND playoff minutes for these totals, right?

[mysticbb]

Looking at the numbers I would say he is just using regular season minutes.

Anyway, I can't find my old xls, but we have holidays on the weekend in Germany. I might find the time and collect the data for the players with some 25k+ minutes (regular season) and include their playoff minutes. I will try to find a correlation between age and performance development and mileage and the same development. 234 players played 25000 minutes or more in either BAA/NBA and ABA. That should give me a large enough sample size.

[TrueLAfan]

Yes, I am using just regular season minutes. I've considered using playoff minutes too, but in terms of the OP, it ends us basically being a +10 rule, i.e. tacking 10-12% more onto the minutes. If the regular season estimate was 36000-40000 minutes, it goes up to around 39500-45000 with playoffs added in. A couple of things:

--There's more playoff games now, so we'd expect modern players to have more playoff minutes...
--...but the game is less violent now, which has got to have some small effect. Between that and rehab, older players get slightly shafted.

Ultimately, though, it doesn't matter much. At the levels being discussed, you have to be a player without major injuries that played starters minutes for a long, long time. Figure 2850 minutes a year...that's 37 minutes a game for 77 games. If you start out at that level--no buildup--it takes 13 years to get to 37000 minutes. That's 13 years without injury as a full time starter, staying at your peak level at the end of that period. The number of players that can do (and have done) that is tiny.

Sidenote--but an interesting/important one. People often talk about "medical advances" making a difference, as in "Modern players have the benefits of weight training and better medical treatment and rehab, so they're obviously going to have longer careers." Which is true. Except it isn't...not in basketball, not in others sports. Rehab and medical advances will allow players to recover more quickly from injuries...but it won't make them more durable in a long-term sense. We're back to a fundamental observation--the human body wears out at a certain point, and the physical rigors of NBA basketball are considerable. There is not evidence that players today play longer--actually, it's the opposite. This is the NBA top 10 players in career minutes played, shown with the year they entered the league.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1969)
Karl Malone (1985)
Elvin Hayes (1968)
Moses Malone (1974)
Wilt Chamberlain (1959)
John Stockton (1984)
Reggie Miller (1987)
Artis Gilmore (1971)
Gary Payton (1990)
John Havlicek (1962)

Five of the top 10 played their first game before 1971--37 years ago. Think it's a fluke with that group? Bill Russell, Dan Issel, Oscar Robertson, Julius Erving, Hal Greer, and Walt Bellamy are in the next 20. They started in 1971 or earlier too. So here's the deal. Here's what rehab and medical improvements have meant to player longetivity. Nothing. Zero. Players do not play more minutes. They do not spend more time on the court. This is not a supposition--this is fact. We have thousands of players as evidence; thousands of careers. This kind of why I think the ceiling has more to do with on-court time than age...because whether play more minutes in a season or less, in a violent era or not, coming out as a high schooler or at 22...there's a period when the human body wears down, even if a player has everything else going for him.

[jicama]

--There's more playoff games now, so we'd expect modern players to have more playoff minutes...

This doesn't seem to be the case, though.
Back in the 8-team NBA, only 2 teams missed the playoffs. A lot more guys get zero playoff minutes these days, in a given season.
The big difference between then and now is that there's a bigger potential for disparity in the % of players' minutes which are in playoffs.
Of 62 players with at least 10,000 career minutes and less than 2% of their minutes coming in playoffs, the average first season is 1984. Median is 1986. At least 11 are active players.

Of all (10,000-min.) players coming up in this century, average playoff minutes are 6.4% of season minutes. Same for those entering in the '90s.
In the '80s, that number was 7.3% . In the '70s, 6.5%. In the '60s, 7.5%. In the '50s, 7.9% .

Other than an dip in the '70s, most guys have gotten fewer playoff minutes in later decades. This mostly reflects that more teams miss the playoffs every year, as a % of total teams.
There were a few seasons in the expanding '70s when not quite half of teams made the playoffs.

[TrueLAfan]

Well--you're right and wrong. You're not taking into account the increase in the number of playoff games with the shift from 3 or 5 game series to 7 game series. Average playoff minutes actually peaked in the 1980s from 1984 to 1988, when there were about 763.8 playoff minutes per NBA team. It's about the same now as it was in the 1960--between 683 and 720 minutes per game. (The sixties would be lower, but they tended to be a more competitive era; around 85% of possible playoff games were played in the 1960s and 1970s; it's been around 80% ever since.) The two flat spots were 1972 to 1983 and, to a much lesser extent, 1996-2002.

Basically, we're in another high period now...the average number of playoff games per team in the league is 2.68 (about 643 minutes) since 1960. The expansion to 29 teams in 1995 dropped things below average for 7 years, until first round series became best of 7 instead of best of 5. Unless we have another 2 or more team expansion, the amount of playoff minutes will remain a little high--a smidge lower than the 1980's peak, but higher than the 1971-1983 nadir, and the post-expansion drop in 1995...about 7-10% higher than the 50 year average.

[ElGee]

Sidenote--but an interesting/important one. People often talk about "medical advances" making a difference, as in "Modern players have the benefits of weight training and better medical treatment and rehab, so they're obviously going to have longer careers." Which is true. Except it isn't...not in basketball, not in others sports. Rehab and medical advances will allow players to recover more quickly from injuries...but it won't make them more durable in a long-term sense. We're back to a fundamental observation--the human body wears out at a certain point, and the physical rigors of NBA basketball are considerable. There is not evidence that players today play longer--actually, it's the opposite. This is the NBA top 10 players in career minutes played, shown with the year they entered the league.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1969)
Karl Malone (1985)
Elvin Hayes (1968)
Moses Malone (1974)
Wilt Chamberlain (1959)
John Stockton (1984)
Reggie Miller (1987)
Artis Gilmore (1971)
Gary Payton (1990)
John Havlicek (1962)

Five of the top 10 played their first game before 1971--37 years ago. Think it's a fluke with that group? Bill Russell, Dan Issel, Oscar Robertson, Julius Erving, Hal Greer, and Walt Bellamy are in the next 20. They started in 1971 or earlier too. So here's the deal. Here's what rehab and medical improvements have meant to player longetivity. Nothing. Zero. Players do not play more minutes. They do not spend more time on the court. This is not a supposition--this is fact. We have thousands of players as evidence; thousands of careers. This kind of why I think the ceiling has more to do with on-court time than age...because whether play more minutes in a season or less, in a violent era or not, coming out as a high schooler or at 22...there's a period when the human body wears down, even if a player has everything else going for him.

You have to be careful about assuming causality here. It seems to me, from watching old games and reading about the practices of those players (say, pre-1971) that the game today is more taxing, more intense. Players play nearly year-round from a younger age, and instead of spending hours on a bus, are in the gym working out. It seems (I've never seen a study) that torque-related injuries are more plentiful today than 30 or 40 years ago -- athletes cut and push harder (sometimes too hard) than ever before. Thats' brutal on the body. But this wear and tear on the body is still offset by modern nutritional knowledge and rehab.

The results might like a wash (or even favor older players in total MP), but the game is harder today and, from my understanding of medicine, nutrition and training, the advances help to offset it. So these improvements haven't mean nothing to longevity, it's just that longevity rates haven't improved on average due to other variables. (And is that true in all sports? Because I've seen some 40-45 year olds in a number of sports who are in better athletic condition than anything I saw in the 80s.)

[jicama]

ElGee says just what I was thinking. Even though there may have been more 'violence' in earlier eras -- also the physical demands of bus travel, bad shoes and facilities, etc -- the minute-to-minute grind in the NBA sure looks a lot less taxing in Wilt's day.

So, Oscar and Wilt could play 45-48 minutes per game for 10-12 years, before fading fast. As the game became more physical, coaches limited players to fewer minutes. As a result, fewer players had unnaturally short careers -- in terms of years and games played.

But back to trends in playoff minutes added to season minutes. Of the top 200 players in total minutes (thru 2009), the median is 8.7% of minutes being in playoffs. However, 1/4 of the group is above 11.5%, and another 1/4 is below 6.4%. There's a wide range, equivalent to a few thousand (playoff) minutes.

And the still-bigger picture is that players' accumulated minutes are a major determinant in their career length. A GM may look great in drafting a 19 year old, and a coach might squeeze the kid for 42 minutes a night. But the player is likely to wind up with a similarly-sized career, whether he has 10 or 10,000 minutes by age 22.

[Rerisen]

Because I've seen some 40-45 year olds in a number of sports who are in better athletic condition than anything I saw in the 80s.)

I think if you take a player from the modern era, with modern medicine and training they could certainly play to a later age in past eras vs players that didn't have access to those things. So you are right, in that its not that longevity isn't increasing 'potentially' as in how long guys stay more productive, but the problem is that a guy that is 38 and has access to all the modern medicine and training is still competing against 25 year olds that have access to the same advantages, or actually, even the next generation that is coming along in these fields. So no matter how much these things can slow or offset aging, the 25 year old is still going to push the 38 year old out of a job.