Slashdot Mirror
Why Are the NBA's Best Players Getting Better Younger? YouTube (wsj.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: This is happening across the entire league. The best NBA players are getting better younger. They were born with advantages that weren't available to older players and had access to more information than anyone before them in the history of basketball [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled]. Justin Tatum, a high-school basketball coach, could tell his son to watch clips with three words: "YouTube this guy." Which sounds totally normal until you remember it wasn't possible until very recently.
NBA players who grew up watching Michael Jordan couldn't even watch clips of Michael Jordan. LeBron James didn't have YouTube. He's been in the league for longer than YouTube has been a company. But today's young players have spent their entire lives watching basketball on demand. The extraordinary amount of knowledge at their disposal is one of the reasons they're entering the league with polished skills and making their influence felt immediately. YouTube allowed Kristaps Porzingis to admire Kevin Durant all the way from Latvia, Joel Embiid to emulate Hakeem Olajuwon and Tatum to geek out about Bryant.
NBA players who grew up watching Michael Jordan couldn't even watch clips of Michael Jordan. LeBron James didn't have YouTube. He's been in the league for longer than YouTube has been a company. But today's young players have spent their entire lives watching basketball on demand. The extraordinary amount of knowledge at their disposal is one of the reasons they're entering the league with polished skills and making their influence felt immediately. YouTube allowed Kristaps Porzingis to admire Kevin Durant all the way from Latvia, Joel Embiid to emulate Hakeem Olajuwon and Tatum to geek out about Bryant.
This is happening across the entire league. The best NBA players are getting better younger.
That's actually happening in a lot of sports. I coach another sport (wrestling) where the average age of an Olympic champion has gotten 2-4 years younger in the last 10 years. A big part of that is access to opportunities train and compete and information that older people like myself simply didn't have access to.
My question would be WTF this article is doing on slashdot? This is definitely not news for nerds or stuff that matters. While I'm sure there are NBA fans reading slashdot, this is pretty far away from what this site is supposed to be about.