Amen Thompson or LeBron James?

Assessing 2027 free agents

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On ESPN.com, former NBA front office guy Bobby Marks has published a peek into next summer’s free agents. Giannis Antetokounmpo, Stephen Curry, and Nikola Jokić comprise Marks’ highest tier, followed closely by Kawhi Leonard, LeBron James, and Karl-Anthony Towns.

Bobby’s a nice guy who sent pizza to us reporters while we were staking out the labor talks 15 years ago.

But we have got to stop huffing this old-player glue.

Marks’ top six players, “All-NBA” or higher, will average, next summer, 35 years of age.

Going through the last 25 years of All-NBA players … the players who get that honor average 27 years old. Two-thirds of them fall between 23 and 30, after which the odds fall off such a steep cliff that in a typical year there’s one all-NBA player aged 34 or older.

This is neither darts nor billiards. It’s a young man’s game.

This squares with a chart we published two weeks ago in a post about teams ditching stars.

35-year-olds just don’t often matter much to winning NBA games.

It’s possible that Kawhi would sign an extension that begins when he’s 36, and then make an all-NBA team. But it’s incredibly unlikely.

Again, the question underlying Marks’ story is, more or less: who’s going to be good from 2027-2030?

There are many arguments for advanced statistics. The strongest, to me, is that without them we’re just working off vibes. It’s helpful to introduce evidence, not as a be-all and end-all, but as an anchor to make better decisions.

I know he can’t shoot, but how could it be that Amen Thompson only makes Marks’ fourth tier? Thompson’s already elite! Last season, Thompson was the fourth-most productive among all the players Marks mentions, trailing only Jokić, Durant, and Kawhi in generating Estimated Wins for his team.

Next summer, Amen will presumably be about as good or better … and a decade younger than those three big names.

Ausar Thompson, Cason Wallace, Brandon Miller, and Brandin Podziemski only have to stay on the career paths they’re already on to be elite producers by the end of this decade.

Bucks guard Ryan Rollins will be 24 when free agency hits next summer. As a 23-year-old, in Dunks and Threes data, Rollins delivered his team an estimated 6.7 wins. That’s good for about 50th in the NBA, well ahead of LeBron James, Jimmy Butler, and Jrue Holiday. Rollins didn’t make Marks’ list at all.

Just for fun, I fed Claude 20-plus years of the advanced statistics DARKO and EPM, and asked it to project which 2027 free agents are on track to perform at a high level from 2027-2030. Claude factors in who has already played well, who has a good track record of availability, and how careers typically go.

All kinds of young names arrived high on the list including 24-year-olds Ajay Mitchell and Moussa Diabaté, and 22-year-olds Anthony Black and Keyonte George.

What emerges is that the average age in Marks’ five tiers goes the wrong way. His oldest categories are ranked highest. The two tiers he ranks lowest contain almost every player on an evidence-based path to help a team win in 2029-30.

Claude also listed players to avoid signing at all, in order of conviction, and the list includes some big names from Marks’ list: Zach LaVine, LeBron James, Maxime Raynaud, De’Andre Hunter, Rui Hachimura, Dejounte Murray, Paul George, Anthony Davis, Kyrie Irving, and Damian Lillard.

I’m not asking you to believe Claude. I’m asking you to take Claude’s baseline projections as evidence that our current basketball commentary is wacky in how it fails to account for the effects of time. Time is inevitable, and has a strong track record of making young NBA players better and old players worse. How do I know that players like Amen Thompson matter more to the NBA’s future than LeBron James and Stephen Curry? Because this sport reminds us of that every year.

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