I gave you a method for substantiating/dismissing your POV. Picking/ignoring outliers or trying to subjectively explain why players get better over time doesn't really go far in persuading others to your POV.

And it is less important that a player PEAKS when he is in his mid 30s, instead only that he is playing at a very high level.

I never said ignore outliers--I said its normally horrible to use outliers to prove points other than the possibility of outliers happening. I said using Malone as some sort of logical conclusion that makes it impossible for the league to get better in 1992 to 1999 and then making a giant logical leap that it also makes it true for the next 13 years is ridiculous. I'm not sure if the average player or how the distribution changed from 1992 to 1999 and from 1992 to 2012 for basketball. Using Malone to some how prove it got worse or at best stayed the same from 1992 to 1999 literally makes no sense. And conversely using it to prove that because that's true, the next 13 years have to be the same case is insanity.

In 1974-75 Dan Issel put up significantly worse statistics than every other season in his career, except his final season at 36. He was almost certainly hurt, or had some situation on his team preventing him from being as productive as normal. His PER is almost 25% less than what it was the next year. This is skewing the stats from age 25-27 that you posted down significantly.

There is also a significant difference between age 32-34 and 36 for most players. As you can see, Dan Issel's PER fell off a cliff at age 36 and it was the year he retired. Malone kept playing until he was 40, and was extremely productive at 39, and still pretty damn good at 40.

All these statistics show is that one can still be productive at 32-34. I never said otherwise.

It also shows that the league Issel played in almost certainly did not get significantly better between 1973-1975 and 1980-1982. Otherwise, his stats would have noticably dropped as he aged. I agree with you, unless there is further evidence we should consider, this probably implies the league did not get way better from 1982 to 1992 either.

However, there were only 23 teams in the league in 1982. In 1991-1992, there were 27. The average talent level in the league may have dropped in that decade (I don't think basketball improved by more than ~17.4% to offset this in only 10 years). However, there were 4 more teams, so there was more talent to choose from. Chances are the elite were about the same or got better.

Of course there is going to be variance between decades, and I think it's pretty clear that having Jordan/DRob/Barkley/Malone/Magic/Pippen/Ewing/etc. all in their prime at the same time was an extreme outlier, so the elite in '92 were quite a bit better than you'd expect normally if choosing one year at random.


This is true, and chance are a big reason for this is that the NBA was evolving a lot more rapidly prior to the 60's. As you aged back then you couldn't keep up with the younger, more athletic, and skilled players. Nowadays your experience can help offset your decline in athlecism to a point, because the league isn't improving significantly between eras.

If you remember, earlier in the thread, we noted that the track times you posted seems to plateau around 1960. This may be true of professional basketball as well.

Now you're getting it!

I think the argument is that even if the quality of play of 2012 is an improvement over 1992 (which on average, it certainly is), the improvement isn't enough to say that the 2012 team would beat the 1992 team.

I don't think play has increased to the point where the top of 2012 flat out beats the top of 1992. Otherwise, Stockton-Malone would not have been competitive in their twilight years <10 years ago. For more recent examples from the same era, Reggie Miller/Gary Payton/Shaq/Chris Webber would not have been competitive in their twilight years <7 years ago. Grant Hill, KG, Duncan and Jason Kidd should not be competitive today. Yet, they are or were still effective in modern day.

Thus, the difference is not significant, especially when you consider that the 1992 team was pretty damn stacked (outside of Bird/Magic/Laettner), versus the 2012 team which isn't even really that good of a representation of the best of today.

A better example would be to take the '96 team and place it against the '12 team. '12 team would almost certainly be a clear dog.

capone0,
I have a relatively simple question for you (well, for most people):

Do you understand the difference between proving a statement false vs. proving a statement true?

Here's another relatively simple question:

Do you understand that if I prove a statement on the opposing side false it helps my side because it shows the argument they presented is incorrect?

If you understand these questions, why the **** do you keep acting all indignant that omg I didn't prove anything by Karl Malone being awesome at 36? It's seriously really really ****ing stupid man.

First of all what is significant? So are you saying the only way it could be true is if EVERYONE in NBA history who was an all NBA player at 25 and was always signficantly worse at 35 then we would have significant improvement over time? I'm really confused at how you make these leaps.

Let's talk theoretical, if you had player Y who played in 1965--let's say Wilt Chamberlain who was let's say 25. And then he was transported to 2012 and at let's say 35 years old magically dominated the league the same way he did in 1965, then the only logical explanation is the peak play didn't move thus no significant change between leagues. When in fact, the rest of the league moved a ton and closer to him but b/c he dominates in a similar fashion--there is no chance of improvement?

I didn't dispose of him at all. Your post used one runner who could be transported as an argument that sprinting hasn't significantly improved. All I was saying is that this is a completely absurd argument, because when you look at the level of sprinting as a whole it's quite obvious that sprinting has indeed improved significantly - within the last 4 years 6 people have run as fast or faster than a single person had ever managed previously.

Right, I indicated that using outliers to prove a point is not going to persuade anybody. But there have been great NBAs who have performed at a high level well into their 30s. Gary Payton basically flatlined thru age 35. Olajuwon held up very well, with a 23 PER at 36 and 21 at 38. Jordan had a 25 PER at 35 as well. Malone is just the most extreme. Outlier by definition would imply orders of magnitude beyond expectation.

First, it is a fact. T3 is T3. It is not an argument. I am illustrating the point to show that the progression of 100m Olympic times in the last 25 years is not as dramatic as many believe because people have conveniently forgotten about Ben Johnson. There are several other factors I indicated to conclude that sprinting has not significantly improved from a purely "born better" model. You picked out Ben Johnson.

Bolt is the outlier in that he is completely different from a athletic perspective than almost all other sprinters. In that regard he could have been from any era.

capone0,
Just FYI, for all your spazzbox tarding about not a single person understanding what my argument is saying, this guy seems to get it exactly. Is English not your first language? Or are you just really really dumb?

Those supporting 2012 ignore 1996 team because it essentially destroys their argument of athletic progression for top tier talent.

But not Ben Johnson, right?

Well, anyhow, I was informed earlier that a close win against LIT means DT>>>2012, so I'm assuming that same Captain Anecdote is creaming over 2012 after a 30 pt dismantling of the Argentina team.

All I'm saying is that the fact that the norm now is what only an outlier of a similar level to Bolt was capable of clearly shows that there has been significant improvement. Sure tracks might have a small amount to do with it (although if you believe Carl Lewis they don't) but it's very obvious that the average level of world class sprinting has improved significantly, even in just the last decade.

Even if you put this down to PEDs it's still hard to argue it hasn't improved significantly because clearly Johnson was also on PEDs, and to be caught with the testing they had back then he was probably using them a hell of a lot.

You've said this like 5 times and no one has cared or taken you seriously any of those times. But just keep saying it. I'll ask you to consider that you might be mistaken about why people are ignoring your argument though.

How tall was Ben Johnson? What was his length of his stride? LOL

How did the improvement in athletic ability/skill become so directly intertwined in the argument here anyway? It in no way has any bearing on the relative skill levels of the 2012 team and 1992 team, only on the level of their competition and so how we should judge performances against said competition.

I am not claiming that 100m performance has not improved. Only that there are many reasons to explain the marginal improvement over time, and that if someone were able to benefit from modern improvements we can see how much somebody could actually improve.

Sure it does. Ceteris paribus, if the overall skill and athleticism has increased over time by X%, we would expect the same to hold true at the extremes, despite what Matt seems to keep claiming. Now, we dont have to consider this in a vacuum, and its certainly possible this ISNT true, but the larger X is, the less and less likely it becomes that there is no increase in ability at a further and further distance from the mean.

Enough of an improvement to show that an Olympic team from era X would definitively be a favorite over an Olympic team from era Y, without regard to the actual team makeup. Basically saying the league improved so much there's no way the top players from one era would be better than the top players from another.

And actually, the 2012 side is more extreme than that. We don't even have the top players on the 2012 team, there are some pretty significant improvements that could be made.

I have no idea what you're even saying here. I think you are confused because your "extremely logical" brain is making **** up as you go along and for some reason you think I'm saying things that I'm not.


What the ****.

Sure, except I am not the only person saying it and it is quite true. So I can safely assume that there really is nobody offering a contrary position, except perhaps you who will not state 2012 > 1996 but seem to imply that is arguable.

iggy made a lot of specious arguments, this was one of them, and it's become the torch by which the 92ers have decided to light the path.

Matt: You are making an argument against something that no one currently in the thread is making besides perhaps iggy. Please, please stop doing this.

Are you just as confused as capone0 as to what I've been saying this entire thread? You can be honest.

THEN WHY IN THE HELL DO YOU AND EVERY OTHER ****** IN THIS THREAD KEEP BRINGING THE KARL MALONE THING BACK UP?

Caps for emphasis not mad promise.

It's true we would expect the level to improve at the extremes but that doesn't mean it has. If you were to randomly distribute players along a curve and pick a squad from each then you would expect the 2012 team to be better. We're not talking about generalisations though, we're talking about known specifics and I think it's pretty clear that the 1992 team were further from the mean level of competition than the 2012 team are. Whether this was likely or not is pretty much irrelevant and that's all the argument could help determine.

where do you guys get that peak age is 25-27?? I did some of my own (extremely limited) research about a year ago. I took like 10 players (yaya lol sample size, tahts y i'm asking) from the kobe, kg, jkidd, era and found each of their three year peaks and i'm pretty sure like 8-9 of the 10 peaked at exactly 27-29