There’s this “The Emperor Has No Clothes” moment little kids have where they’ll look at footage of soccer or basketball games from the 80s and say, to their horror of their wise elders, “wow, these guys SUCK!”But the young punks are right: athletes from the past really are worse.
The lesson: in the NBA the players who age well are taller than average for their position and have skills like shooting or passing that don’t decline with age. The guys who decline fastest after 30 tend to be short super athletes like Larry Johnson or Dwayne Wade.