Comments on: League Continuity

By: Sidney Berrong

Sidney Berrong — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 13:29:14 +0000

Hi... I don't know if you've been making changes, but your pages aren't displaying correctly for me. The margins look all screwed up. I all worked fine the last time I was here. I don't know if it's on my end or if you've made a change... Just thought you might want to look at it. Thanks! Sidney Berrong

By: MCT

MCT — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 01:57:22 +0000

There may be something to the ABA and drug theories, but I think much of the difference is simply the flip side of why recent times have had the greatest stability. The length of NBA careers has tended to increase over time, and since 1977-83 is the earliest time period covered in the survey, players from that era had the shortest careers of any period covered in the study. Among the factors (some repetition of items already cited): --Conditioning, weight training and medical technology have improved over time, allowing players to extend their careers. --Player salaries have increased dramatically, providing extra incentive to play for a few more years. --Players now enter the pros at younger ages, theoretically allowing them to tack extra years onto the front ends of their careers (I'm not sure how true this actually is in practice, though). --There are far more NBA jobs available now than there were in the late '70s and early '80s. To begin with, there were fewer teams back then, and only one new expansion team was added in the 12 years between the merger and 1988. Roster sizes were also smaller. Between a point early in the 1977-78 season and the end of the 1980-81 season, NBA active rosters were reduced to 11, instead of the usual 12. Even after that, through at least the 1984-85 season, teams were still given the option to carry only 11. In addition, whether rosters were 11 or 12, teams in that era did not typically stash extra players on IL on a permanent basis as became the case in the '90s and '00s (when it became common for teams to carry 15 players at all times). The last point above may actually be the single biggest factor. With the ABA gone, rosters cut to 11, and further expansion on the slow track, I think the late '70s and early '80s was the toughest era for a marginal/aging player to stick in the NBA at any time since the explosion in the number of high-level pro basketball teams in the mid-to-late '60s. (The early-to-mid '80s weren't much easier, although the addition of one expansion team and the restoration of the 12th roster spot helped a little.)

By: Neil Paine

Neil Paine — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:43:58 +0000

Yeah, I knew the drug angle would be front and center... I don't think we'll ever be able to pinpoint precisely how many guys fell out of the league simply because of that (vs. just not being good enough), but it's telling that the numbers show the "Cocaine Era" as the time with by far the least continuity. I feel like that's the conventional wisdom on the high personnel turnover, at least. Also, Jason and Chuck both mentioned this idea of teams needing time to figure out if players could play at the NBA level or not, which makes sense. It would be akin to having a third of today's rookies go off and play in some alternate league that you knew was better than the NBDL but worse than the NBA. How long would it take to figure out who could play and who couldn't? Probably less time than you can tell with guys coming straight out of college, but since we're working with a 5-year window it's going to treat all of the early washouts the same.

By: Leigh

Leigh — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:26:48 +0000

cocaine is a powerful drug.

By: Chuck

Chuck — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:46:04 +0000

The main reason might be the advances in conditioning, weight training, and medical technology that have been made since then. Look at the number of players whose careers ended or went into serious decline at age 30 back then compared to now. As the NBA became more popular in the 1980s, it also became much more lucrative to play, so there was additional motivation to get the best out of yourself by committing year-round to maintaining your body.

The late '70s/early '80s was also the height of the cocaine era. There's no telling just how many careers were cut short because of drug addiction in those days.

You also have the lingering ABA factor. A ton of guys came into the NBA in 1977 who had played exclusively, or almost exclusively, in the ABA. It took teams awhile to figure out which of those guys could play in the NBA. Some (Dr. J, Artis Gilmore) were no-brainers. Others (Bird Averitt, Darnell Hillman), not so much.

By: Jason J

Jason J — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 14:03:47 +0000

That's an interesting question, and I don't really know that we can find one right answer. If you consider the major influx of talent plus the expansion, you might just see a lot of extended reshuffling as GMs try to balance rosters after the initial wave of ABA hirings. I'd say there were factors off the court as well. I wasn't around back then, but if it's true that Magic and Bird "saved" the NBA, then that must have been the time at which it was closest to dying. Therefore there may have been a lot of turnover because teams were working hard not to have to pay guys, plus whenever things are bad changes in GM and coach are common side-effects that often lead to player turnover.