A couple months ago we asked “Who is the oldest team in the NBA?” if you take into consideration minutes played. We updated the graphic to include data up to 01/08/11. The left column is the average player ages using standard averages, the right column is the average player ages after adjusting for minutes played. The thickness of the lines represents the amount of change in average age.
The teams playing the oldest players are hands down performing the best. The five teams with a win pct of .700 or better (Mavs, Celtics, Heat, Lakers, Spurs) are the oldest teams in the league.
Suns, with a win percentage of .412, is the only team among the six oldest teams, with a win percentage below 700 .pct. This is a depressing thought for Suns fans as their team is neither winning games (14 -20) nor actively adding young talent (30.27).
The Cavs are equally depressing, with the worst win percentage in the league (.222) with an average age of 28.26. Old and losing no way to go through life…
On the bright side, two of the youngest teams in the league, the Knicks (avg age 24.96), and the Thunder (avg age 23.97), are both currently above a .600 win .pct
Additional Notes:
In addition to updating the data for minutes and age, we shifted from measuring player age to the year, to measuring player age to the day, which should result in a more accurate outcome. Many thanks to our newest collaborator Matt Gordon who collected the birthday data. We look forward to collaborating with Matt more on future posts.
Thanks again to Ben Fry who’s MLB graphic on salary vs performance was borrowed from heavily for the format of this graphic and for co-developing and sharing the processing programming language which we use for the majority of our work.
Also, be sure to check out Tom Ziller’s recent post on the impact of age on team performance. We thought it was pretty cool stuff.
How did you handle the magic: weighting of all minutes played by team, weighting by all minutes played this season for current players, Orr minutes played for magic by current players?
Hey Alex,
That was a concern in constructing this. The data I have does not split the season totals up, so JRich’s minutes would factor entirely into the Magic. I realize this isn’t optimal and may tease out the pre/post trade minutes for the next version (especially if the 15 player trade goes through). The weight is against total player minutes, not team total minutes.
I have possession totals for every player, if you want them. They’re calculated from Aaron’s matchup files.
(I should have said, I can give you possession totals, including the breakdown by team – so Richardson’s totals in Phoenix and Orlando, for example.)
Wow, look at the Thunder at the bottom of both lists. If Westbrook signs a 5 yr extension, they are going to be a contender for the next decade. When you are that young and you win over 60% of your games, the future is bright.
You used to see it with guys like Kareem retired at age 41 Robert Parish hung it up at age 43 and Kevin Willis called it quits at age 44 who played beyond 40 at a respectable level. But I think playing into your 40s has become frowned upon. In fact he is amongst the league leaders in assists so far this year with 9.8 per game which is above his career average of 9.2.
Monex, an interesting point. Do we have any data whether or not the average age of teams has significantly changed over time? It would also be interesting to see the average age of teams vs. win percentage in historical perspective.
Googled this issue and found your posts. This year may skew the data as the compressed schedule favors younger legs. As a 76ers fan, I like where we are, young enough to run and talented enough to hang in while we wear you down. Interestingly, the previous strike-shortened season (50 games) catapulted the 76ers from playoff team to division leader. This is a year for our guys to learn how to win.