Why our Players are FAR from their peaks -- Statistical Analysis and Hypothesis

Good read. I'm intrigued by the positions in sports like center, pitcher, and goalkeeper that seem to last longer than others. With regards to asik, I'm ecstatic watching him develop at a rapid pace.

 

Cool article. thanks for posting.

There is one flaw in your thinking, though: Some of our players won't even remain in the league to see their "peak" age of 26. They will get cut. So you can't really say all our young players will improve. Yeah, their improvement curve might go up, but not as fast as the people competing for their job.

Also, the data from that site is only based on scoring metrics. No other criteria is used, it appears.

 

So who doesn't make the peak?

White - Can't get over his disorder.
Aldrich - bleh
Harden - Retires and create the first franchise strip club corp at 25.
TD - Already peaked yikes!
Delfino - Already in the old group.

 

Wow, a good read. It's always great to read an analytical posting in a sports fan blog.

 

This is part of the reason why this Rockets team is so exciting to me even when they lose. There's only upside.

AND, it's upside on a team that Wages to Wins has recently predicted will get 7th's seed in the playoffs, taking into account strength of schedule and strength of opponent, and then adjusted for season schedule. :grin: Playoffs against the OKC?

Quote from the site: "Houston is very intriguing given their youth. This is looking to very possibly be a very good team for a very long time."

 

Or if you're Luther Head...

 

Golden State not in the playoffs, despite the way they've been playing?

 

Yes, this is the most intriguing aspect of our team.

A lot of our players are very good, but they haven't even peaked yet.

 

For a brief comparison of the relationship between age and performance in baseball and bball, I'll paste from Berri's book Stumbling on Wins.
The focus of this section is on the performance peak in bball. See spoiler.

Spoiler

The analysis of basketball requires some context. J.C. Bradbury
examined 86 years of data in baseball and found that the peak performance
for a hitter or pitcher occurred at about 29 years of age. Although
the peak for a baseball player’s overall performance occurred in his late
twenties, the peak with respect to specific tasks is different. A player’s
ability to draw a walk—or for a pitcher to prevent walks—peaks around
32 years of age. In contrast, a pitcher’s ability to throw strike-outs peaks
at about 24 years of age. These differences are explained by noting that
the location of the peak is related to the physical skills an athlete
requires. Strike-outs primarily depend on pitch speed, or the physical
skills of the pitcher. In contrast, a batter needs plate discipline to draw
walks, discipline that improves as a batter gains more experience.

The study of hitters and pitchers can be related to a study of the
age at which athletes set records in track and field, swimming, tennis,
and golf. In sports that depended more on pure physical ability—
such as swimming, short-distance running, and tennis—performance
appears to peak in the early-to-mid twenties. When a sport depends
more on experience and knowledge—such as in long-distance running
and golf—the peak is closer to 30 years of age.

Is basketball like tennis or golf? In other words, does success in
basketball depend more on physical skills or experience and knowledge?
Although veteran players like to believe the latter, anyone
watching an NBA game must be impressed by the rare physical gifts
it takes to play in the Association. The study of performance and age
confirms this impression. Performance in the NBA appears to hit its
maximum at 24.4 years of age.

Although performance peaks around 24, the drop-off in performance
is not dramatic until a player approaches 30 years of age. To
illustrate, let’s imagine a team employs an average player at 24 years
of age, or a player with a 0.100 WP48. Table 8.3 reports what one can
expect will happen22 if nothing else changes (i.e., all other factors that
impact performance are unchanged) as he ages.

At the age of 25—if nothing else changes—his WP48 will be
essentially the same. After this point, though, performance starts to
decline. By the age of 30, our average player at 24 is now posting a
0.071 WP48. At the age of 32, this value is now down to 0.046; and at
35 his performance has dipped into the negative range.

Now let’s go back to the study of how coaches allocate minutes.
As noted in the previous chapter, a player’s minutes will peak at about
28 years of age. This suggests that coaches not only have problems
allocating minutes—remember the focus on scoring—coaches in
the NBA are also confusing basketball with baseball. The study of
aging and performance suggests there is not much of a penalty
imposed for thinking a player at 28 is close to his peak. After all, what
an average player will do at 28 (WP48 of 0.088) is not far from the
actual peak. However, one suspects that teams might think that the
difference between 24 and 28 would be similar to the difference
between 28 and 32, and that doesn’t appear to be true. An average
basketball player in his early 30s is well past his peak and can expect
to offer much less with each passing year.

TABLE 8.3 The Impact of Age on the Performance of an Average
NBA Player—Peak Age Is 24 Years

Age WP48 (Wins Produced per 48 minutes)
18 0.061
19 0.072
20 0.081
21 0.089
22 0.095
23 0.098
24 0.100
25 0.100
26 0.098
27 0.094
28 0.088
29 0.080
30 0.071
31 0.059
32 0.046
33 0.030
34 0.013
35 –0.006

To drive this point home, let’s compare the number of players still
employed in the NBA and MLB after age 30. About 30% of baseball
players are between 30 and 34 years of age, and 10% of baseball
seasons are played by players who are 35 or older. In contrast, only
20% of basketball players are in the 30 to 34 age group. And only 4%
of basketball seasons played are logged by players 35 or older. Given
how quickly players exit basketball after the age of 28, it seems
unlikely that this age is the peak on the hardwood.

 

Rockets will be Optimal Prime in 4 or 5 years

 

Interesting.

 

Good read, as long as our young core keeps improving in content

 

Interesting that Toney Douglas is in his Prime...scary.

 

torocan, I looked at the cited article and started tracking back the articles in that post. I do not have the interest needed to put in the time to understand the math behind the cited statistical model. Given the number of assumptions in the model presented, the conclusions are probably accurate to within 1 - 2 years. I mentally assigned a large margin of error, ie a LCI and it is good enough I guess.

I do not understand your conclusions about the "mini" peaks in a players career at 21, 26 and 30 years of age. Perhaps I am not intuitive enough. I guess one statisticians "peaks" are another statisticians "small sample size - within the margin of error".

But plugging the starters into a basic excel document and applying the projections in the cited article's "Distance is the scoring metric developed in a previous post" graph it looks to me like they peak in 2014 - 2015 time frame and then hold steady until after 2018 when they start to decline. The decline will be slow until the latter half of 2019 and then will accelerate rapidly.

 

peaks for bigs happen later than guards... think about it and we're in even better shape.

 

As always, good stuff Torocan. Rockets gonna shock the world in 2015 , lol

 

OK but why did jadakiss cry? Have a report on my desk by 5 pronto. This is groundbreaking analysis and I'm blessed to be a part of it.