... the strength of the average NBA player can be measured relative to the previous season, by his minutes and his rebounding rate, over those 2 seasons.
league-strength relative to 1977: varying cumulative index
These representative seasons are relative highs and lows (inflection points, in graphing terms), across the columns. The relative values vary, depending on the parameter at top.
Under the column headers, larger number = greater strength of competition. _________________ `
There's no I in analysys.
I would say it's somewhere between 1.004 and 1.008. I think 1.005 might be a little low.
Now that I'm thinking about it more, maybe not. I'm sure a lot of people would choose .998 (referring to the idea that the game peaked around the mid-80s). I voted 1.005. But you know, it's probably lower than that. I'm not sure that the league is any stronger than it was in the mid-80s, but I don't think it's weaker.
Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Posts: 1871 Location: Delphi, Indiana
Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 6:14 am Post subject:
As I assembled these data, I noticed a couple of things about the '50s-thru-'00s:
- As is pretty well known, later decades have seen players going strong well into their 30's, even to age 40. In the '50s-'60s, everything after age 30 was 'borrowed time'.
- Also easily seen, lots more younger players in the league lately.
So basically, the core/plateau group of 24-28 year-old players is a smaller % of the total (minutes) than it once was.
- Yet through all this, the 24-28 contingent is and has always been a 'plateau' period: Minutes and RebRt do not change much or at all during this time. RebRt drops very slightly, though: Correcting for this, I've introduced the factors (.99, .995, ... 1.01) shown as column headers.
So when you 'agree with' a factor like 1.002 (say) because you feel the league is just about as strong as it was in 1987 (1.27), you also should check your feeling for the index in 1971 (.82), and 1953 (.79). You should find yourself agreeing equally all along the timeline.
Does anyone suggest why there should be a peak at 1998? It's a peak in all columns, but it's an alltime high according to a 1.002-1.004 factor. _________________ `
There's no I in analysys.
I wish I had an idea for the last question. My first thought was that the prep-to-pro exodus hadn't yet begun, but Garnett was two years in by then. Certainly it hadn't peaked yet.
Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Posts: 1871 Location: Delphi, Indiana
Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2008 7:57 am Post subject:
Using the 'most favored' 1.002 factor, the last 32 years look like this:
Code:
1976 .920
1977 1.000 - The merger year; players from 5 ABA teams assimilated.
1978 1.011
1979 1.041 > Steady rise in talent concentration
1980 1.093
1981 1.089 - Dallas franchise added, 1/23 of the total league.
1982 1.125
1983 1.141
1984 1.165 > More steady rising
1985 1.190
1986 1.248
1987 1.255
1988 1.255 - Rise stops; talent has peaked.
1989 1.224 - Charlotte + Miami. Biggest dropoff since '69.
1990 1.188 - Minny + Orlando. Even bigger talent drop.
1991 1.197 - One year of modest rise
1992 1.172
1993 1.152 - League bottoms out.
1994 1.187 > On the rise again
1995 1.206
1996 1.188 - Vancouver + Toronto added
1997 1.244 > Rise continues
1998 1.274 - All-time high for talent?
1999 1.251 - Lockout season interrupts rise
2000 1.260
2001 1.248 > 2 years of decline
2002 1.205
2003 1.237 > 2 years of rise
2004 1.261
2005 1.238 - Charlotte added (again)
2006 1.214 - Another year of decline
2007 1.247 - And a rise.
It's gratifying to see the expected downturn in every expansion year. The recent Bobcats addition isn't particularly noticeable in the 2004-06 interval.
The anomalies, to me, are: the '91-93 dropoffs, the '98 high, the '00-02 recession, and the '05-'06 sag.
A one-year drop could be the result of an abnormally high injury rate among better players. There would be an average rate, and relatively injury-free seasons. Could 1997-98 be one of the latter?
The biggest one-year rise in the competitive index is from '96 to '97; the biggest dropoff (other than expansion seasons) was from '01 to '02.
Comparing these 2 seasons, 1997 and 2002, for overall player health, I can sort (from players with just 200 minutes), by my own T Rate, and compare their minutes/games:
Code:
by 'T': top 50 top 100 top 200
year gms min gms min gms min
1997 73.2 2700 74.1 2547 69.5 2085
2002 70.5 2568 71.6 2430 70.8 2063
So the top 200 players were about equally viable in these sample years. But the top 50 and 100 were noticeably more impaired in 2002 than their equivalents in 1997.
Missing at least 20 games in '02: Webber 28, Iverson 22, Brandon 50, Francis 25, Mashburn 42, Marshall 24, Hill 68, McDyess 72, Coleman 24, Jordan 22, Carter. That's 11 from the top 50, and doesn't detect players <200 minutes.
In '97, 9 of the top 50 'T's missed 20+ games; Shaq most with 31.
2002, relative to 1997, missed some 6600 minutes of play, from various allstar-level players. And 11,700 minutes from top-100's -- equivalent to losing 400 minutes from each team's top 3-4 players. _________________ `
There's no I in analysys.
Joined: 31 Dec 2004 Posts: 980 Location: Durham, NC
Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 7:57 am Post subject:
First shalt thou take out the Holy Calculator. Then, shalt thou use three. No more. No less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt use, and the number used shall be three. Four shalt thou not use, nor either use thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, is used, then, calculatest thou thy Holy Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet with thy merger year, who, being pivotal in Mike's mind, shall snuff it.
But seriously, I chose 1. Why? Because I think it's silly to compare 2007 to 1977. It's impossible to take everything into account.
Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Posts: 1871 Location: Delphi, Indiana
Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 10:26 am Post subject:
Yes, it's probably silly to play, watch, analyze, or talk about basketball, since it's just a bunch of guys running around in shorts, bouncing a ball, etc.
Some say the old-timers would mop up today, and some say the opposite. Maybe one side is entirely right, and the other is quite wrong. Maybe curiosity, in and of itself, has no survival value, and thus is a 'silly' impulse.
It's possible to study voting trends from the '50s to the present. You don't have to take everything into account, or anything specifically. You may just track the evolution of voter psychology: How many voted, whether they voted conservatively, etc.
How you interpret a trend is up to you. You may even doubt that a trend has been detected, and so have no interpretation. Or you may just not care. If you don't care, but you go to much trouble to say so, that may seem silly, too. _________________ `
There's no I in analysys.
Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Posts: 1871 Location: Delphi, Indiana
Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 9:44 pm Post subject:
I guess if you have a strong feeling toward one part of the spectrum, the other parts may seem 'silly'. But each person will have his idea of which are plausible and which aren't.
But no, I don't know which end(s) of the spectrum you'd find implausible. I figure it's good to have some extreme options, if only so everyone can feel comfortably moderate. _________________ `
There's no I in analysys.
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