Average NBA Starters 1963-2008; Comparison w/Normalized Stat

[mojomarc]

Two issues in the 70s. It was the era of expansion (end of 60s through end of ABA) and there were a lot more bad teams in the leagues. Combine that with the ABA and it is intuitive that there are a LOT more marginal players than in the 8-10 team early to mid 60s for example.

That's true only if the population bases in each period were the same. They weren't. The cohort that made up the 70s prime NBA players accounted for about 20% of the overall male US population, while in the 60s they only accounted for 10%. That means the 60s had half the teams, but they also had half the talent for the teams. That means that in 1973, for example, you had roughly similar numbers of marginal players even with the ABA's presence.

This was less true in the ABA but people discount those teams because of the weaker league.

They shouldn't--the ABA teams routinely beat NBA teams in exhibitions, and it is pretty telling that a rather large proportion of the 1977 all-star game was made up of ABA players, far in excess of the number of teams they had in comparison to the 1976 NBA.


One other point about the 1983 team and why they were so low. It wasn't just a population trough, but the combination of the population trough with the influx of money into professional sports which caused a spike in drug usage among players (poor old Michael Ray...). This can only really happen, though, when players feel like there is so little cohort competition that they don't need to take care of their bodies, which was the demographic trend of the time.

[penbeast0]

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mojomarc said: "That's true only if the population bases in each period were the same. They weren't. The cohort that made up the 70s prime NBA players accounted for about 20% of the overall male US population, while in the 60s they only accounted for 10%. That means the 60s had half the teams, but they also had half the talent for the teams. That means that in 1973, for example, you had roughly similar numbers of marginal players even with the ABA's presence. "

Where did you get the 20%/10% cohort figure from? I'm very curious. And have you extended this analysis to the modern worldwide expansion of the talent pool and what it should do to the statistical base today?

P. S. Wow, I'm normally the one defending the ABA. For what it is worth, the ABA approached the NBA level of talent (minus Kareem anyway) closer and closer through it's lifetime. Someone on APBR did a nice survey comparing per minute numbers for league changers which gave rough approximations of how much a players numbers would improve or decline switching leagues. In the first two ABA years it was 20% or so (more than an NBA expansion team!) but it then dropped to below 15% and by 75 it was down around 5%. The stars switched leagues more than the rank and file due to marketing/contracts so this may overstate the equality a bit but it's the best stat base for comparing numbers I've found yet and I have the formulas per stat in Word somewhere (sorry, no link).

[T-Mac for MVP]

Why would anyone trust "league averages" ?

[penbeast0]

Not sure what you are trying to get at TMAC? If you mean why would a team take a chance on an "average" starter; if you have your stars, getting supporting players that are better than almost 1/2 the starters in the league is great. If you are making a statistical argument, can you clarify?

[writerman]

of course I especially like it because it supports what I've been saying here for a long time--talent-wise and size-wise there's not a nickle's worth of difference between the league today and the 60's. The talk about today's athletes being athletically superior is just so much BS. Any differences are almost totally stylistic, and as you know, I'm not a big fan of today's dominant style that overemphasizes highlight-reel dunks and overrates athleticism and is dismissive of smarts and good fundamentals.

[wigglestrue]

HOF thread.

[Elway=GOAT]

Props to you, this thread is fantastic and one of the better ones I read on this site. In terms of useful regarding the game of basketball, across generations.

Also shows that the guys today, are not bigger/stronger/taller like some make them out to be. Very interesting.

[richboy]

of course I especially like it because it supports what I've been saying here for a long time--talent-wise and size-wise there's not a nickle's worth of difference between the league today and the 60's. The talk about today's athletes being athletically superior is just so much BS. Any differences are almost totally stylistic, and as you know, I'm not a big fan of today's dominant style that overemphasizes highlight-reel dunks and overrates athleticism and is dismissive of smarts and good fundamentals.

This doesn't say what the average size of the players at that position were. If I'm correct he chose what players to take. How does this prove athletism?

[mojomarc]

Where did you get the 20%/10% cohort figure from? I'm very curious. And have you extended this analysis to the modern worldwide expansion of the talent pool and what it should do to the statistical base today?[/quote]

From looking at the population pyramids with birth years and assuming a 10 year "prime" for players. Therefore, for the 70s I was assuming that players were in their prime from the ages of 21-31 and looked at the proportion of the total male populations that were between those ages in the years in question. What is fascinating about it is that the 1968-1978 decade was the only one where the median age (in other words, half younger and half older) of the male population was under 30 (27.2 in 1970, for example). This means the fatest part of the NBA talent curve was also overlayed with the very fattest part of the population curve, explaining a lot about why there were so many great players (particularly centers) during that period.

As far as extending that analysis, I haven't. I didn't crunch the numbers very far, but rather estimated them as the trends are so large that more detailed analysis wasn't really necessary (when you have literally four times the births per year in 1947 compared to 1945 and that trend continues for the next 13 years or so, it's pretty easy to figure out that sometime after 1967 (and probably 3-4 years after) you're going to start to see a considerable surge in athletic accomplishment based on demographics alone and that the relative accomplishments are going to decline after that, and while that doesn't tell you which era will have the absolute best individual player or players, it does correlate quite closely to which era has the best "average" players.

When you start adding in international players, though, you increase your available talent pool, but the big question is by how much, so it is very difficult to pinpoint those effects. Suffice it to say that by the late 90s/early 00's, international players demographically bouyed up a rather weak talent pool which, demographically, is just now starting to be supplemented by the Gen-Y-plus folks like Lebron and Dwight Howard entering the league within the last few years.

[ILikeTheGrizz]

of course I especially like it because it supports what I've been saying here for a long time--talent-wise and size-wise there's not a nickle's worth of difference between the league today and the 60's.

Then why do you always choose the older player over the younger- except for Jordan of course, younger players can be over him? I mean, don't you have like Hal Greer over Shaq. If the league is basically the same, how can you say that?

[penbeast0]

Hadn't realized the baby boom was that extreme. Checked my history book and they called it a 30% increase over the prior generation.

Still, I think you are underestimating expansion which took professional basketball from 8 teams in 1965 to 28 (17NBA, 11 ABA) in 1971, a 350% increase in players in the league.

[Kobay]

you could almost palm the basketball players arms back then tho compared to now which is nearly impossible cuz they all take steroids. Some white players back then had beer belly. Have you seen Will Ferall?