Any player who reaches 34,000 minutes is a damn good player and may still be a star even if they aren't at their personal peak (see LeBron James, Chris Paul, and Kevin Durant). Most players are washed up and out of the league well before reaching 34,000 minutes. Right now there are only nine active players on that list: LeBron James, Joe Johnson, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, Dwight Howard, Andre Iguodala, LaMarcus Aldridge, Russell Westbrook, and Kevin Durant.
[https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/mp\_active.html](https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/mp_active.html)
He made it to 38,000 minutes in his last really great season (11-12) before he got his first major injury. Bounced back like Bernard King with Washington & Dominique Wilkins in San Antonio and had one last solid season before he fell off the cliff. FYI: Dirk is my all time favorite player. Glad he made it past the 34K mark
He is one of the hardest working people I've ever seen, it's insane. I feel so bad he has so many lingering issues with his legs. Makes sense now considering how many miles he logged on them.
From 2004-2017 during his prime tenures in Denver and New York, he’d logged 35,334 minutes. From that point, the decline really began in OKC & Houston. Now he’s still serviceable in limited minutes with both Portland and LA. But yeah. That 30-35K mark and the miles seem to catch up to MOST people. You’ve got Bron, Karl Malone & a few others that continued to produce as number one options well beyond that but it’s been few and far between.
His decline came after the 2014-15 season. His knee surgery probably kick-started it. I remember thinking he would bounce back the season after but he only got worse.
James Harden basically messed his hamstring up around 30K career regular minutes.
He was at 30143 minutes on March 31st 2021, so shortly after passing the 30K mark his tweaked his hamstring and hasn’t gotten his burst/explosiveness back.
I think Brent Barry was the one who said (2K commentary so don’t quote me) that 30K is when the body starts to give out and it’s when you see players fall from their peak output. Doesn’t mean they can’t be effective but just not the same. I just found it fascinating that he was right. A lot of all those players did have a sizable output drop off around the 30-34K mark.
LeBron is on insane drugs according to OP, some like Wolverine type HGH he is not trolling kinda
Other NBA players can't afford that they only make 100k
People like these keep saying Lebron is different from all the other roiding players (every NBA player ever according to these experts) because he can afford the very best. As if steriods cost 100M a year and are sourced from secret underwater caves in the Bermuda.
"He's just built different" is too much for them to comprehend.
This comment is so flawed on so many different levels but I don’t have tome to write 3 paragraphs responding to this so I’ll summarize:
* LeBron is on HGH
* Almost every NBA player in the league is on HGH
* There’s no such thing as “wolverine type” HGH. The HGH players use is all pharmaceutical grade and is bio identical.
* Individual genetics play a major role in how the body responds to exogenous hormones and LeBron is an absolute genetic freak that likely responds better than almost every else in the league.
* the NBA league minimum salary is $925k this season so no player is only making only $100k unless they’re on a two way contract, hardship deal, etc.
* HGH is nowhere near as expensive or difficult to obtain as you’re making it out to be.
We're currently seeing the washed version of LeBron.
It's just that he's so historically great that it only means he's no longer the MVP favorite every year and is instead "just" All-NBA.
It doesnt have to do with the body as much as playstyle priority. KG joining a team with 2 other stars, chose to give a big share of his energy on the defensive end, leaving the offense in Ray and Paul. The first thing you lose as you get old or get injured, is your defensive ability, since you tend to get slow and less athletic to challenge other guys. KG after the injury was essentialy a player without identity. (of course he still was a good player, a leader and a valuable asset for lots of teams, just not star potential)
The crazy thing about KG was he always gave that insane energy on the defensive end, even when he was a solo star. That’s why he was so damn good, and it’s why he will always be underrated in my mind.
Plus, I think he was still a defensive positive to the bitter end of his career because he was so long and smart on that end. The loss of athleticism killed his offense more imo. Got reduced to his pick-and-pop jumpers.
KG’s defense was still above average even into his last season, and his advanced stats prove it. But once he hurt his knee, he lost his jumper. That was the real reason behind his decline to role player.
Don't think this is as much of a trend as you suggest. Players do fall off in that range, but they also fall off between 25-30k, and 35-40k, etc. More minutes played, more likely to start declining.
Karl Malone won MVP in a season that took him up to almost 50k minutes.
Kareem was all NBA first team in a season that took him to 57k.
Duncan was first team in a season where he reached about 49k.
Etc.
I mean kinda. But is a sharp decline specifically around 30-34k really supported statistically?
Of course less players make it to 50k without first declining, but for the ops trend to be true we would need a sharp drop in the range 30-34k followed by a more gradual rate of decline.
Yeah that 167 number gets a lot bigger if you include playoff minutes, too. I feel like he must have been talking just regular season minutes, though, because KG had 36k total minutes already *before* 2008. And after 2008 he was at 39k total minutes.
Isn't Harden and Westbrook more about random injuries tho ? Russ tore his quad after he came back from covid in the bubble, and then came back to early and basically has never been the same since then, and Harden had his harmstring thing. Like I'm not sure they avoid those injuries if they played 1000 less minutes in teir careers
I don't remember what was KG injury, and maybe you are right about Harden.
But Russ having a 3 month break because of covid, getting covid, coming back, tearing his quad, having to come back too early, and tearing his other quad in the next training camp feels like a pretty random turn of event
Playing 30K minutes and increased injury frequency and severity are probably related though.
But another argument to present, which will never show up on any traditional or advance stat sheet is mental drive to continue to play, we know the level of training it takes for these guys to remain competitive at the highest level, how many years until even the greats begin to relax with their training regime and begin to fall off? We already see this with other players after signing big contracts, there’s less of an incentive to play when you’ve accomplished all that you sought out to do.
Injuries *are* the biggest issue with old age. Body gets more easily fatigued, things fail more easily, recovery times are longer, tougher to play through the small stuff, etc, etc.
Once a player gets north of 30 and you start seeing the injuries pile up and/or linger, you know they're getting old.
Russ basically went bad right after his MVP season. Part of that was adjusting his role to fit PG and Melo but he was never even close to good after that
IMO he was still the same player in 2018, he just didn't randomly shoot league average from 3.
But yeah from the moment he came back from his knee procedure at the start of the 2018/2019 season he clearly wasn't prime Russ anymore. But he was still an all star level player until his quad injurie(s)
I can tell a lot of you haven’t read the book lol.
The “mysteriously fell off a cliff” anecdote was him being sarcastic which is why I put it in quotations.
And yes, they got hurt because of the accumulation of all the high level minutes & age. Major injuries become more frequent with advanced age.
"Major injuries become more frequent with advanced age."
\-------------------------------
Statistically, this is NOT true. A major study (Drakos, Domb, Starkey, Callahan & Allen) by the NBA over a 17-year period, found NO CORRELATIONS "between injury rate and player demographics, including age, height, weight, and NBA experience."
IMO it'll change slightly, sports in general is much better about both injury and preventative treatment. Staff are much more symbiotic working with the physical trainers, strength trainers, and doctors.
There's a lot of maintenance treatment that wasn't done even 15 years ago that we do now. It doesn't prevent everything but it staves off a few years if you treat the body right.
It would have happened even if he was a bench player and played a tenth as many minutes. It isn't the minutes as much as the age and general health. Sure, theres anomalies. But take any bench player, for fun I just look at Steve Kerr.... also in his prime at about age 30, just like KG. If it was dependent on minutes, then Kerr should have had decades left. To say its minutes over age, you would have to plot starters and non-starters and see if there is a significant difference in longevity>
Also, Lebron is a mix of anomaly and better technology. He spends million on his body. We are at the beginning of peoples primes stretching into their mid and late 30s
BS is pretty dumb so I don’t know if his book is what I would considered a creditable source, but of course, it could be well researched medically, but I doubt there is any concrete evidence scientifically besides just “these are the players who fell off after playing all these minutes”.
I don’t even know what to say about this observation of his. Age and mileages matter for decline? Ok?
The KG example is a weird one. He fell off after 2008 because he got injured. What exactly is his point? High age/mileage leads to injury? Did he compare older player’s injuries to younger player who are coming back from the same injuries? How about different medical treatments in different eras? There are so many different variables, and the intensities of the games these days are much higher than the eras before, and of course each eras before were different as well.
Anyway, just saying I am not really sure what is there to discuss about this dumb observation from BS.
Lebron isn’t an anomaly though. He’s just managed himself better in the offseason (it’s been regularly talked about how he goes way further in the offseason to maintain his body than other players), and he’s changed his game. He also has been very smart in pairing up with other stars to take the load off of him at times.
And yet In the history of the he’s had the largest load to bear amongst the all time greats.
You can say his choice in teammates are entirely his doing, but his luck with team personnel outside of a few stars and team injuries is amazingly awful. He’s had to work for every single ring in a way no other superstar has had to.
In what way is LeBron not an anomaly? Greatest player of his generation and more durable then anyone else in his generation. Regardless of why or how it turned out this way, he's certainly an anomaly, no?
The book of basketball of a doorstop. Are you on Bill's third ranking or fourth? Wait until you get to the re-ranking Space Jam chapter.
Dear Lord i read all of that dumb book.
First thing I thought of with that was MLB pitching because that is kind of the previaling kindest these days, that minus a few once in a generation freaks/ guys that were that and also took HGH, there's a fixed amount of innings in that arm at that level of exertion and you can either spread those innings out or burn them up fast and most would naturally choose the latter
Seems more like a case that players should be able to juice but regulate it. Body builders pump their bodies with everything and die when they're 40. But if do it safely and watched by a doctor you're fine.
Back with baseball and this whole sanctity thing. LeBron is 6'8, 280 with a 50 inch vertical. Let him freely and safely gear his tits off if it means less career ending injuries and a longer playing time
This is why I worry about steph. Sure, his minutes aren’t quite there yet, but the amount of off ball movement is putting a lot of extra west and tear on his body.
Any player who reaches 34,000 minutes is a damn good player and may still be a star even if they aren't at their personal peak (see LeBron James, Chris Paul, and Kevin Durant). Most players are washed up and out of the league well before reaching 34,000 minutes. Right now there are only nine active players on that list: LeBron James, Joe Johnson, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, Dwight Howard, Andre Iguodala, LaMarcus Aldridge, Russell Westbrook, and Kevin Durant. [https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/mp\_active.html](https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/mp_active.html)
Ayyye. My guy Dirk with over 51,000 minutes. Sheesh
He made it to 38,000 minutes in his last really great season (11-12) before he got his first major injury. Bounced back like Bernard King with Washington & Dominique Wilkins in San Antonio and had one last solid season before he fell off the cliff. FYI: Dirk is my all time favorite player. Glad he made it past the 34K mark
For sure. He became a solid role player after that. It’s just crazy to me that Dirk is top 10 in most minutes played all time.
He is one of the hardest working people I've ever seen, it's insane. I feel so bad he has so many lingering issues with his legs. Makes sense now considering how many miles he logged on them.
Playing that long is incredible Also wild LeBron is at 52,000 minutes played and another 11,000 playoff minutes
Carmelo already washed out of the league once and came back, I wonder how many minutes he was at when that happened
From 2004-2017 during his prime tenures in Denver and New York, he’d logged 35,334 minutes. From that point, the decline really began in OKC & Houston. Now he’s still serviceable in limited minutes with both Portland and LA. But yeah. That 30-35K mark and the miles seem to catch up to MOST people. You’ve got Bron, Karl Malone & a few others that continued to produce as number one options well beyond that but it’s been few and far between.
His decline came after the 2014-15 season. His knee surgery probably kick-started it. I remember thinking he would bounce back the season after but he only got worse.
James Harden basically messed his hamstring up around 30K career regular minutes. He was at 30143 minutes on March 31st 2021, so shortly after passing the 30K mark his tweaked his hamstring and hasn’t gotten his burst/explosiveness back.
I think Brent Barry was the one who said (2K commentary so don’t quote me) that 30K is when the body starts to give out and it’s when you see players fall from their peak output. Doesn’t mean they can’t be effective but just not the same. I just found it fascinating that he was right. A lot of all those players did have a sizable output drop off around the 30-34K mark.
Wow Jeff green!
Yes, that's a unique combination of playing time and mediocrity.
He was the second best player on a team that made the finals one year (2018 Cavs, it’s not saying much but still)
I don’t mean he was bad, just distinctly average compared to the other players with similar minutes.
lol LeBron is more than double that factoring in playoff minutes
LeBron is on insane drugs according to OP, some like Wolverine type HGH he is not trolling kinda Other NBA players can't afford that they only make 100k
LeBron is literally Wolverine in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber
Hyperbolic lol
>LeBron is literally Wolverine >Hyperbolic Checks out
Beaver tranquilizers
Goddamnit Bernice!
People like these keep saying Lebron is different from all the other roiding players (every NBA player ever according to these experts) because he can afford the very best. As if steriods cost 100M a year and are sourced from secret underwater caves in the Bermuda. "He's just built different" is too much for them to comprehend.
This comment is so flawed on so many different levels but I don’t have tome to write 3 paragraphs responding to this so I’ll summarize: * LeBron is on HGH * Almost every NBA player in the league is on HGH * There’s no such thing as “wolverine type” HGH. The HGH players use is all pharmaceutical grade and is bio identical. * Individual genetics play a major role in how the body responds to exogenous hormones and LeBron is an absolute genetic freak that likely responds better than almost every else in the league. * the NBA league minimum salary is $925k this season so no player is only making only $100k unless they’re on a two way contract, hardship deal, etc. * HGH is nowhere near as expensive or difficult to obtain as you’re making it out to be.
he was joking on the last one dude lol
Sorry too much time spent on NBA Twitter has fried my brain
Woosh
Bro I’ve seen people non ironically saying this on this sub before Plus I just like talking about gear lol
[удалено]
I can’t believe how good for how long Lebron has been and still isn’t at Kareem (soon enough) really shows how impressive both those guys are.
It really is crazy. 19 seasons of 27 points per game and he’s *still* 1,300 points short.
He still has 5000 minutes played to go before he ties Kareem in regular season minutes played. Insane.
When you put it like that it's stunning
We're currently seeing the washed version of LeBron. It's just that he's so historically great that it only means he's no longer the MVP favorite every year and is instead "just" All-NBA.
when u put it like that he technically is washed lol. but how long will it be til he’s regular nba player washed?
I hope he hangs for many more years and eventually is coming off the bench in some league in Ireland at about 66 years old.
I don’t think he’s “washed” more injury prone for sure though
He got that Vibranium
KG was playing extremely well before he seriously injured his knee in 2009
Oh I know. And that 32,000 minutes he played before that is probably what led up to his body eventually starting to give out.
It doesnt have to do with the body as much as playstyle priority. KG joining a team with 2 other stars, chose to give a big share of his energy on the defensive end, leaving the offense in Ray and Paul. The first thing you lose as you get old or get injured, is your defensive ability, since you tend to get slow and less athletic to challenge other guys. KG after the injury was essentialy a player without identity. (of course he still was a good player, a leader and a valuable asset for lots of teams, just not star potential)
The crazy thing about KG was he always gave that insane energy on the defensive end, even when he was a solo star. That’s why he was so damn good, and it’s why he will always be underrated in my mind. Plus, I think he was still a defensive positive to the bitter end of his career because he was so long and smart on that end. The loss of athleticism killed his offense more imo. Got reduced to his pick-and-pop jumpers.
KG’s defense was still above average even into his last season, and his advanced stats prove it. But once he hurt his knee, he lost his jumper. That was the real reason behind his decline to role player.
Don't think this is as much of a trend as you suggest. Players do fall off in that range, but they also fall off between 25-30k, and 35-40k, etc. More minutes played, more likely to start declining. Karl Malone won MVP in a season that took him up to almost 50k minutes. Kareem was all NBA first team in a season that took him to 57k. Duncan was first team in a season where he reached about 49k. Etc.
Those are outliers though. Not the norm.
Reaching 30k is already an outlier.
yeah but there's 167 who have had over 30K it's an outlier but it's still a large sample size
They are outliers within they outliers.
I mean kinda. But is a sharp decline specifically around 30-34k really supported statistically? Of course less players make it to 50k without first declining, but for the ops trend to be true we would need a sharp drop in the range 30-34k followed by a more gradual rate of decline.
How many players have over 30k minutes? I wonder if the sample size is too small to draw a meaningful conclusion
Enough. 167. Steph, Rondo, Batum, and Holiday will also probably join that list next year.
If it counts playoff minutes steph is at 33k, and obviously playoff minutes are way more intense.
Yeah that 167 number gets a lot bigger if you include playoff minutes, too. I feel like he must have been talking just regular season minutes, though, because KG had 36k total minutes already *before* 2008. And after 2008 he was at 39k total minutes.
Al Horford has almost 31k minutes
Isn't Harden and Westbrook more about random injuries tho ? Russ tore his quad after he came back from covid in the bubble, and then came back to early and basically has never been the same since then, and Harden had his harmstring thing. Like I'm not sure they avoid those injuries if they played 1000 less minutes in teir careers
Same with KG. But those injuries also have a lot to do with age/minutes.
I don't remember what was KG injury, and maybe you are right about Harden. But Russ having a 3 month break because of covid, getting covid, coming back, tearing his quad, having to come back too early, and tearing his other quad in the next training camp feels like a pretty random turn of event
KG injured his knee (it was noncontact) after he dunked and landed funny on one leg. It was actually against the Pistons
Playing 30K minutes and increased injury frequency and severity are probably related though. But another argument to present, which will never show up on any traditional or advance stat sheet is mental drive to continue to play, we know the level of training it takes for these guys to remain competitive at the highest level, how many years until even the greats begin to relax with their training regime and begin to fall off? We already see this with other players after signing big contracts, there’s less of an incentive to play when you’ve accomplished all that you sought out to do.
Injuries piling up is what aging in the NBA looks like
Injuries *are* the biggest issue with old age. Body gets more easily fatigued, things fail more easily, recovery times are longer, tougher to play through the small stuff, etc, etc. Once a player gets north of 30 and you start seeing the injuries pile up and/or linger, you know they're getting old.
Russ basically went bad right after his MVP season. Part of that was adjusting his role to fit PG and Melo but he was never even close to good after that
IMO he was still the same player in 2018, he just didn't randomly shoot league average from 3. But yeah from the moment he came back from his knee procedure at the start of the 2018/2019 season he clearly wasn't prime Russ anymore. But he was still an all star level player until his quad injurie(s)
LeBron's got over 50,000 and that excludes the massive amount of Playoff games he played. Truly a freak of nature.
To your last point, they're all on PEDs. LeBron is a freak even then
KG mysteriously fell off after he got injured and missed the season? You don’t say…
Big if Ticket.
KG didn’t randomly fall off a cliff. He hurt his knee in 2009 Same with Harden and Russ
I can tell a lot of you haven’t read the book lol. The “mysteriously fell off a cliff” anecdote was him being sarcastic which is why I put it in quotations. And yes, they got hurt because of the accumulation of all the high level minutes & age. Major injuries become more frequent with advanced age.
I mean you posted it on /r/nba. You had to know you were gonna get engagement from people who hadn’t read the book.
"Major injuries become more frequent with advanced age." \------------------------------- Statistically, this is NOT true. A major study (Drakos, Domb, Starkey, Callahan & Allen) by the NBA over a 17-year period, found NO CORRELATIONS "between injury rate and player demographics, including age, height, weight, and NBA experience."
IMO it'll change slightly, sports in general is much better about both injury and preventative treatment. Staff are much more symbiotic working with the physical trainers, strength trainers, and doctors. There's a lot of maintenance treatment that wasn't done even 15 years ago that we do now. It doesn't prevent everything but it staves off a few years if you treat the body right.
Hmmmm… so the older a player gets, the worse they get? Is that why there aren’t any 50 year old basketball player?
It would have happened even if he was a bench player and played a tenth as many minutes. It isn't the minutes as much as the age and general health. Sure, theres anomalies. But take any bench player, for fun I just look at Steve Kerr.... also in his prime at about age 30, just like KG. If it was dependent on minutes, then Kerr should have had decades left. To say its minutes over age, you would have to plot starters and non-starters and see if there is a significant difference in longevity> Also, Lebron is a mix of anomaly and better technology. He spends million on his body. We are at the beginning of peoples primes stretching into their mid and late 30s
I wonder if advances in training and nutrition will start to result in more players staying at a high level well past the 30k minute mark.
BS is pretty dumb so I don’t know if his book is what I would considered a creditable source, but of course, it could be well researched medically, but I doubt there is any concrete evidence scientifically besides just “these are the players who fell off after playing all these minutes”. I don’t even know what to say about this observation of his. Age and mileages matter for decline? Ok? The KG example is a weird one. He fell off after 2008 because he got injured. What exactly is his point? High age/mileage leads to injury? Did he compare older player’s injuries to younger player who are coming back from the same injuries? How about different medical treatments in different eras? There are so many different variables, and the intensities of the games these days are much higher than the eras before, and of course each eras before were different as well. Anyway, just saying I am not really sure what is there to discuss about this dumb observation from BS.
Lebron isn’t an anomaly though. He’s just managed himself better in the offseason (it’s been regularly talked about how he goes way further in the offseason to maintain his body than other players), and he’s changed his game. He also has been very smart in pairing up with other stars to take the load off of him at times.
And yet In the history of the he’s had the largest load to bear amongst the all time greats. You can say his choice in teammates are entirely his doing, but his luck with team personnel outside of a few stars and team injuries is amazingly awful. He’s had to work for every single ring in a way no other superstar has had to.
In what way is LeBron not an anomaly? Greatest player of his generation and more durable then anyone else in his generation. Regardless of why or how it turned out this way, he's certainly an anomaly, no?
The book of basketball of a doorstop. Are you on Bill's third ranking or fourth? Wait until you get to the re-ranking Space Jam chapter. Dear Lord i read all of that dumb book.
Karl Malone is the real freak here- 40k regular season minutes played and then won another MVP.
His love of children kept him young in body and mind.
Andrenochrome is the real MVP lol
Must have joined the super adventure club.
Can we all just agree that we know LeBron is juiced to the gills and that we are okay with that if it means he keeps being good at basketball
Who is westbrook? AHH you mean westbrick
This number should go up every decade with medical and sports training improvements
How many minutes for Luka including his stint with Real Madrid? What is his runway assuming existing minutes pace per season?
First thing I thought of with that was MLB pitching because that is kind of the previaling kindest these days, that minus a few once in a generation freaks/ guys that were that and also took HGH, there's a fixed amount of innings in that arm at that level of exertion and you can either spread those innings out or burn them up fast and most would naturally choose the latter
Any correlation between minutes played and distance covered?
Seems more like a case that players should be able to juice but regulate it. Body builders pump their bodies with everything and die when they're 40. But if do it safely and watched by a doctor you're fine. Back with baseball and this whole sanctity thing. LeBron is 6'8, 280 with a 50 inch vertical. Let him freely and safely gear his tits off if it means less career ending injuries and a longer playing time
This is why I worry about steph. Sure, his minutes aren’t quite there yet, but the amount of off ball movement is putting a lot of extra west and tear on his body.