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Why Are the NBA's Best Players Getting Better Younger? YouTube (wsj.com)

Posted by msmash on from the new-age dept.

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.

6 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. Not that unusual by sjbe · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Not that unusual by geekmux · · Score: 4, Funny

      My question would be WTF this article is doing on slashdot? This is definitely not news for nerds or stuff that matters.

      Normally I would respond with something like You must be new here regarding this observation, but your UID tends to imply that you didn't fall out of the bit bucket yesterday.

      So I'll just kindly say Welcome back. I see you've been gone a while...

    2. Re:Not that unusual by jellomizer · · Score: 2

      This is happening across well every skill set beyond sports.
      It is more to the access of information from the internet and YouTube is one source to get some information.

      20 Years ago when I started my career. What I could program and how to program it was isolated to the knowledge-base in the Documents that gets shipped with the product+any wisdom from the people I work with+any thing I learned in school.

      So my skills back then was in a bubble. Looking back there are lot of things I could had done better with the technology at hand, if I had such a wide base of information to search for.

      Today I will search for how to do things, that I already know how to do to see if there is a better way out there. Back then that would be impossible or difficult.

      But if you want to cook better, you can search for receipts faster and easier then getting a cook book, and you can get a video on how to cook this and pause it and rewind at your own speed.

      Even if it is some stupid trivia on nearly any topic. Heck if I am eating lunch I will often Wikipedia some part in my lunch. Just because it was a passing interest. Such as how the Supreme Court had ruled that a Tomato is a vegetable, for Tariff and taxing purposes.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    3. Re:Not that unusual by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 2

      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.

      This. Also, almost all colleges and even many high schools have 'professional' training methods and facilities. Coaches learning how to coach better is just as much a part as individual players learning how to train.

  2. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  3. Magnus Carlsen too by Subm · · Score: 2

    Similarly, Magnus Carlsen attributes his greatness to having access to more games than his role models, at least in part, owing to the games all being online.