Layups: The Oldest Teams in 2010-11
Posted by Neil Paine on January 11, 2011
Good visualization here from Hoopism:
Who is the Oldest Team in The NBA? 2010-2011
They give both the raw average of the entire roster, and the average weighted by minutes played, with a line indicating the change as a result of the different weighting. For instance, the Bulls have a lot of veterans on the team, but give more minutes to their younger players; conversely, the Cavs have a lot of young players, but give more PT to their older players.
(H/T: TrueHoop.)
January 11th, 2011 at 2:26 pm
This is quite interesting, but what about weighting by WS? The importance of players' decline with age depends on their importance to the team, not minutes played (although minutes played is much better than no weighting). The heat, for example, will be much younger averaging by WS, phoenix will probably be even older. This should be a better indicator to the future decline in the current roster.
January 11th, 2011 at 2:51 pm
I second the above, and would also love to see this weighted by usage. You can give a lot of minutes to old role players whose job it is to set screens and box out, but the young guys might be the ones calling the shots.
January 12th, 2011 at 12:54 am
I third the above. Seeing these comparisons weighted by winshares would be an interesting way to forecast team standings 3-5 years out. Assuming of course that winshares in year 1 are the best predictor of winshares in year 2, 3, 4, etc, which point alone might need some clarification. It could be, for example, that for younger players, especially, usage % or even minutes better predicts future winshares.
The other thing is that in the short-run (eg, 1-2 years out) winshares is kind of a confound, because older players usually don't retire until their performance starts to tank. So, geezers with big winshares may wait and retire at older ages than a age-graded model would predict. Here, I'm thinking of the current Celtics team, where a few years ago people were already starting to forecast collapse with the putatively imminent retirement of the Big Three.