The NBA Playoffs are in full swing with half of the first round series decided and the other half nearing their end. Every team left in the tournament is hoping their lineup has the right makeup to take home the Larry O’Brien Trophy. The long held belief by sports fans is that experience wins in the playoffs, but with young teams like the Oklahoma City Thunder taking the league by storm, we wondered if the old adage holds true. We examined the roster of each team that won a playoff series in the last five years to find out how much experience matters in the postseason. Take a look at our findings and methodology below. 4i2s6j
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Experience might win titles, but youth stays in the hunt 4rt1w
At the end of the day the old adage about experience in the playoffs does hold up, but it’s a little bit more complicated than that. NBA Championship winners have on average the oldest and most experienced rosters in of years in the league. But if experience is what drives playoff wins it would stand to reason that conference champions would be the second most experiences, and so on and so forth. Instead, teams that can’t get past the semifinals round hold that distinction. Conference semifinalists are tied for the second oldest average roster and gave the second most experienced squads. The difference is that players on teams that get knocked out in round two seem to be a little more worn out by the end of the season. They average the most games played and minutes per game of any team that makes it out of the first round.
While young teams might not generally be the ones planning victory parades, their youthful energy does seem to help them make pretty deep runs. Conference champions and runners-up (or basically any team that made their conference finals but didn’t win the NBA championship) had the least experienced rosters on average. Conference champions tied for the second youngest average age as well, while their vanquished opponents had the youngest average rosters.
Based on our analysis, teams with championship aspirations should aim for a roster that averages around 27 years old with roughly six seasons of experience in the league. Only two teams, the 2019 Toronto Raptors and 2021 Milwaukee Bucks, have had squads that averaged fewer than six years in the league, though their players did fit the age profile. Only one team, the 2020 Los Angeles Lakers, have won with an older roster. Their average age of 29 and average experience of over eight seasons in the NBA are both the highest of any team to win a series since 2019.
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Methodology 4j42b
All rosters and statistics are courtesy of Basketball Reference. Team rosters examined only include players who appeared in the playoffs for that team. Total games played, games started, and minutes played are all from that year’s regular season to track usage over the course of the season. You can find our full data set here, including breakdowns by year and team.
