Cavsfansince84 wrote:The one thing that could change how we view a lot of this is if breakthroughs get made about how we age. I mean we are seeing this already with LeBron to some degree. If 10-20 years from now guys are playing as well at 36 as they did at 26 and can play till they are 45 then some of these records will fall. For all we know now Luka may end up playing until he's 50 and have a 20 year long prime. Which might mean he ends up with 50k points and 20k assists and 2200 games played. Wilt's 48.5 and 50.4 seem like the two hardest to be broken. I mean how often do guys even play 48 minutes in a single game anymore? Almost only if its double ot or a game 7.
Good point, just for context there have been 86 seasons in NBA history when someone 38 or older played more than 700 minutes.
66 occurred this century.
27 occurred in the last ten years.
I think it is a product of several things.
First, the average person in the developed eats way worse than 50 years ago due to the increase in sugar consumption and other garbage food. This is an underdiscussed fact you can see in the obesity/diabetes rates. I'm not attacking people here I have a sweet tooth I'm trying to kick.
But the average athlete eats a lot better now than in the past. There is just a lot more knowledge about nutrition now. And teams/athletes have greater incentives now to follow proper diets than in the past. The potential profits/salaries are just much higher now.
I'm not sure how much more improvements are available on this front.
Second, medicine is consistently getting better. As example, Penny's career never would have been nuked by arthroscopic surgery. It is a common surgery now. Duncan lost more athleticism from his torn lateral meniscus in 2000 than he would have now.
I suspect we will see consistent improvements here. As societies get richer we spend more and more money on improving medicine.
Third, performance enhancing drugs. I'm fine with em. I know a lot of fans hate em. I think they've been ubiqutious forever but similar to medicine each generation gets a better batch of drugs.
Fourth, training keeps getting better. I suspect trainers have figured out ways to reduce the number of injuries.
Fifth, load management. A lot of fans hate load management of players. They are silly. The decision of teams to not have players crank out 40mpg/81gp seasons may mean fans get the occasional games without stars. For me that isn't a problem I can enjoy a game even if most of the marquees names are out. But even if you watch basketball only for the stars you still get more seasons on the back end with the occasional resting of players.
