The Lost Veterans: What players still of age to play in the NBA have left the stage early?

[Doctor MJ]

So something DQuinn brought up in another thread has stuck with me and I wanted to open up a specific discussion here about one aspect of it:

so players are playing less and what are we getting?
in 1998 41 guys age 34 and over played
so far in 2026 we have 29,
And that is with more roster spots available.

So less guys are playing to an older age.

First thing I'll note, that I and others brought up before, is that the LeBrons of the world are playing longer than ever, so this isn't a thing that is affecting all players, and that raises the question of who is being affected.

What 34+ year old guys "should" be playing today but aren't?

Now I have that should in quotes because obviously, there are many explanations for why a guy isn't playing, and I actually want us to focus on that so we don't chalk up multiple distinct things for one cause. Is it injury? Is it a guy aging poorly do to playing style? Is it mental/social? Did the guy just have other things he wanted to do?

I'll just note one other thing before ending the OP here. Unless I missed someone, there are only 2 former all-stars age 34 or younger who are no longer in the NBA:

Victor Oladipo: 33, last played age 30, injuries.
Ben Simmons: 29, last played age 28, mental.

Feel free to mention more guys, but I think it's pretty clear that mostly we're talking about a lower tier of player who in the past would have played to 34 and now isn't making it.

Who are these guys?

[penbeast0]

Wondering if the biggest group of "old guys" that used to hang around were the backup center types as in a Hawk Offense era, centers didn't run that much and the phrase "old guy moves" was mainly about the post up, holding, and similar tricks of the older eras.

[eminence]

I'd want to see a chart comparing all years, in my mind at least '98 was pretty much the peak of the old guys era, this era may be more in line with historical norms.

Dame is out and worth mentioning as potentially still a real contributor.
Gordon Hayward retired pretty early with his own injuries and probably could've stuck around if he'd wanted. Cousins less voluntarily.

Could the rise of international players be contributing? Teams less likely to keep old guys around if they can't contribute on the court and management doesn't feel they contribute as much to 'culture' or mentorship? The players themselves could be heading back home for their last couple of seasons.

Bojan Bogdanovic and Ricky Rubio as potential examples for each.

[Dr Positivity]

Probably because of more young guys to replace them. Players like Hayward, Gallo, RJax, Blake, Danny Green are candidates. Maybe salaries going up made some players with nagging physical problems more comfortable retiring similar to Brogdon like how we quietly lost a Bogdanovic a few years ago. Also might be some chance involved such as 2010 draft not pulling its weight for players barely over that threshold.

[LA Bird]

Andrew Bynum had his last full season in 2012 and he only turned 38 a few weeks ago. I remember thinking he would overtake Howard to be the best center but then both got injured and the league ended up in the dark ages with DeAndre Jordan at 1st team All NBA. Oden is also only 37 now.

People are so eager to downplay LeBron's longevity that they don't notice no one else today is actually lasting that long in the league. We talk about how great Curry is playing for his age but his career minutes is still behind Isiah Thomas. And nobody considers Isiah to have great longevity. The closest contemporary to LeBron is Paul at #20 all time in minutes but that's still a much larger gap than between Kareem and Elvin Hayes (#7) or Gilmore (#14).