Age Is Just a Number for NBA's Most Efficient Teams
The Golden State Warriors, Atlanta Hawks and Portland Trail Blazers have a lot in common these days.
Each will have at least two representatives in Sunday's NBA All-Star Game, courtesy of phenomenal first halves to the 2014-15 season. Given their impressive play so far, it should come as no surprise that all three rank among the top 10 in both offensive and defensive efficiency. They are the only three teams to share that distinction, no less, per NBA.com.
The good folks at RealGM laid this out in an intriguing Venn diagram that also takes age into account:
(Note: RealGM calculated average age based on players who've garnered at least 15 minutes per game this season.)
Indeed, Golden State, Atlanta and Portland have benefited from their own particular combinations of youth and experience.
| Warriors | 42-9 | 109.6 (2nd) | 97.3 (1st) | 26.5 (17th) |
| Hawks | 43-11 | 107.3 (5th) | 100.2 (7th) | 28 (10th) |
| Trail Blazers | 36-17 | 104.9 (10th) | 99.6 (4th) | 27.1 (14th) |
Four of the Warriors' five starters are 26 or younger, with Stephen Curry (26) and Klay Thompson (25) comprising the Splash Brothers backcourt. But three of their key role players—rim-protector Andrew Bogut, bench big man David Lee and perimeter stopper Andre Iguodala—are all in their early 30s.
The Hawks skew slightly older than their West-leading counterparts. Jeff Teague, 26, is Atlanta's youngest starter; Kyle Korver, 33, is the oldest; and Paul Millsap just turned 30, while Al Horford and DeMarre Carroll will hit 30 within the next year or two.
As for the Hawks bench, 11 years separate their youngest (Dennis Schroder, 21) and their oldest (Pero Antic, 32) second-stringers, though both are NBA sophomores.
Of these three teams, the Blazers' starting five is the most balanced age-wise. All-Stars Damian Lillard, 24, and LaMarcus Aldridge, 29, bookend Terry Stotts' preferred lineup, while Nicolas Batum (26), Robin Lopez (26) and Wesley Matthews (28) fall in between. Portland's real age skews a bit older on account of the major minutes played by Chris Kaman (32) and Steve Blake (34) off the bench.
As it happens, Blake is the oldest player on any of these three teams who averages at least 15 minutes per game. Atlanta's Elton Brand, 35, is the senior member of this trio, but he's averaged just 12.5 minutes for Mike Budenholzer's bunch.
Whether any of this is meaningful in the larger historical context is another story.
According to Basketball Reference, the Hawks, Blazers and Warriors rank 10th, 14th and 17th, respectively, in terms of average age, from oldest to youngest. That age difference, of 1.5 years from Atlanta to Golden State, represents more of a clustering among the NBA's regular-season elites than we've seen in recent seasons.
Last season, the San Antonio Spurs, Los Angeles Clippers, Oklahoma City Thunder and Toronto Raptors were the only top-10 teams on both ends. They ranked fourth, eighth, 15th and 19th, respectively, in average age, with 3.4 years separating them.
The season before that, the Spurs (seventh-oldest), Thunder (17th) and Miami Heat (second)—separated by 4.3 years from Miami to OKC—were excellent on both ends. If you go back to the lockout-shortened 2011-12 campaign, you'll find the Heat (fifth), Thunder (25th) and Chicago Bulls (11th) in that exclusive group.
If anything, then, the fact that three of the top teams in the league this season are closer in average age than we've seen in recent seasons is probably more a matter of mere coincidence than the product of a verifiable trend.
Josh Martin covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter.
