Lakers Bench last evening

babyskyhook wrote:Bob-

For sure Kobe has played more minutes than MJ at 31 due to coming straight out of high school and being on playoff teams every year of his career except one. He has also been to as many Finals at 31 as MJ was in his entire career.

bsh,

Yes, Kobe has had quite the good career. As far as having more minutes than MJ due to coming out of high school, that is undoubtedly true and the central reason. However, I'm not sold yet on the "if you're in your early 30s your body has got to be here" perspective. College players play a fraction of the number of games pros do and the competition is much smaller and less physical. I'm a little busy now, but one of these days I'm going back to that basketball-reference.com page that outside found for us and see how many players that started playing younger than, say 20, played into their late 30s. Moses Malone comes to mind, obviously, but I'm curious to see who else.

My hypothesis (it is insufficiently researched to be called a "theory" yet) is that the old adage that is generally applied to cars is also true with all things that get heavy use (including athletes) and that is "it's not the years that count, it's the mileage".

Even if my hypotheses stand up to review, and 1) smalls burn out earlier than bigs and 2) minutes (regardless of when they are incurred) age players at similar rates; that certainly doesn't make it an immutable Law of Nature. Kobe (and Ray Allen too, for that matter) and other athletes who are completely focused on their physical training could easily be exceptions to the rule and play deep into their 30s.

bob