Brook Lopez Trade Assessments and Feeling Blindly for the Age Cliff

I don’t have any delusions that I’m correct in my stance on trading Brook. But the Locked on Bucks coverage of the topic really bugs me. Both hosts boil the subject down to some form of “Who are you going to get that’s better than Brook?” without ever acknowledging that he may only be X% of last year’s Brook. Don’t get me wrong, Brook has been remarkably consistent and effective at 35. Assuming a drop off in effectiveness can change the answer to the previous question. The crux of my curiosity is then: Is it reasonable to expect a drop off in Brook’s age 36 and if so, how much of a drop off?

I filtered Basketball-Reference for bigs (C, F/C, C/F) who played through their Age 36 (A36) season. I accidentally filtered it to only seasons with three players meeting this criteria, so it’s probably more of a random sample than an exhaustive list. I’ve sorted this list to by total minutes in A35 season to separate the Admirals from the Wenningtons.

I tried to think of some basic stats that could indicate general effectiveness of an aged behemoth. I came up with these justifications.

Total Minutes Played – I figured that this would capture the mix of health and usefulness. I assumed that a washed player would play less minutes. This would also put Brook’s current workload into perspective.
2PA – Since this list was filtered to bigs, I used 2PA as a proxy for offensive load and willingness to bang inside. This is as close as I could come for a standard stat being a proxy for Brook’s effort. For most players I would say OREBs, but Brook has historically been so moribund in that area that it doesn’t seem like a realistic indicator.
FTA – I figured this could be a measure of how well a big could use size, speed, or guile to overwhelm an opponent, or imply a generic “force of will.”
BPG – This seemed reasonable to consider for bigs. Maybe it reflects the intersection physical and mental skills.

Minutes Played

Brook ranked 4th on this list of most minutes during his A35 season with 2,410. Only a handful of guys posted MP > 2,000 in their A36 season. It would seem unwise to expect similar minutes played this year. Tim Duncan and Patrick Ewing would be the only bigs to put several MP > 2,000 seasons after A35. I aggregated the MP (subtracting Brook’s) by season to get the general trend and found that, on average, there is a ~25% drop in MP.

Two-Point Attempts

Brook has not been a 2PA monster since his Swamp Dragon days. His reliance on 3-pt shooting probably works to his (if not always the Bucks’) benefit. There is still a general drop off in the sample, but we’ve probably already seen the worst of it with Brook (down 36% in A35 season).

Free Throw Attempts

With Brook’s A35 decline in 2PA, we also see a commensurate drop (-30%) in FTA. Brook’s lagging Harden-like swipe through move on anything inside only draws a foul once in every 45 attempts (not a real stat), so if he ever gets that move to click, we could be in for windfall efficiency gains. Robinson, Duncan, Garnett, Hakeem and Ewing seem to be the only ones to maintain a substantial presence at the line past A35.

Blocks

Tim Duncan’s A36 season was wild and makes me appreciate him more. Brook’s numbers during both the Bud-era and clusterf(*#-era are both fantastic. Brook has same luxury as Duncan, sharing with another mobile shotblocker, so maybe it’s easier for him to maintain his excellence. My guess is that he maintains his dominance in this department.

Team Rebounding

This is not a stat that I analyzed in a similar fashion, but one that I considered late. This could be an “effort” stat for Brook and also one with a reason for concern. The Bucks ranked 1st or 2nd in total rebounds per game from ’18-’19 to ’22-’23, but fell to 9th last year (link). Brook’s reputation has always been that he increases team rebounding, so perhaps this decline is a harbinger. However, there were so many things changing (and going wrong) last year that it’s hard feel good about almost any conclusion.

Conclusion

Guys don’t retire because they get bored of making millions at 38. They retire because they lose because of any of the following: recovery time, pain tolerance, skills degradation, skills obsolescence, or mental reasons (desire, edge, composure, etc.). It’s not clear to me how Brook’s game will fall off. His efficiency will probably maintain due to his shot diet being so 3P-heavy. His shotblocking probably remains elite due to system and help. My guess is that his ability to stay healthy is his downfall and I’d be willing to bet it occurs this year. I’d bet on 60 games and a smaller decline (~15% drop) in most counting stats. For this reason, I’d still like Horst to continue to plumb the depths of Brook’s trade market throughout the year.

If Horst’s assessment is similar (i.e., talent is less likely to drop off than availability), perhaps he looks at Brook as a dice roll. If he’s healthy come playoff time, he’s a plus. If he’s not, that’s unlucky.

What do you think Brook’s A36 season will look like? What stats would you consider as indicators?

You don’t swing it like you used to, man.

– Tamatoa, a giant coconut crab

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Publish date : 2024-07-21 07:00:00

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