APBRmetrics

This is one of those truisms that people keep saying to me, and I really don't whether or not it's actually true. I sorta recall MikeG doing some work in this area, but I don't recall the conclusion. Has anyone done research into this issue?

Brief, small, rough and simple inquiry on the topic:

29 players were 6-9+ and rookies in 2007-8. 11 were above .100 on winshares per 48 that season or 38%. The weighted average ws/48 was 0.69. In 2009-10 there were 19 players that height in their third season and still 11 above .100 or 58%. The weighted average ws/48 was .119. In 2011-12 there were 16 players that height in their fifth season and 8 above .100 or 50% (close to the same % that were in 2009-10). The weighted average ws/48 was .132.

35 players were 6-8 or shorter and rookies in 2007-8. 8 were above .100 on winshares per 48 that season or 23%. The weighted average ws/48 was .057. In 2009-10 there were 20 players that height in their third season and only 4 above .100 or 25%. The weighted average ws/48 was .069. In 2011-12 there were 16 players that height in their fifth season and 8 above .100 (a big increase over such players in 2009-10). The weighted average ws/48 was .105.

On this modest 1 player flight check it is the shorter players who are slower to develop in terms of ws/48 productivity. This could be repeated for a 5-10 year period to deal with the possibility that this player flight was not typical and on other metrics such as RAPM.

"Slower" might be relative to years in the league or relative to age. I'd probably go with the latter.
It seems we have looked at age of "peak season" and seen that bigs are more likely to have this at a later age.

If a metric (or several of them) are biased toward bigs, we should answer the question by looking at the individuals relative to themselves, at different ages.

Last year, the top 40 centers (minutes) totaled 1.25 WS/48
Top 100 forwards were at 1.17, and top 100 guards were 0.97

PER for these groups: 15.7, 16.1, and 15.2
(Players above 900 minutes.)

Thanks for the quick responses. I'd thought there was some existing research on this subject. Kinda cool that it's an open playing field, so to speak. Will look into it more when I get time. Thanks.

This is terribly lazy so take it with a grain of salt.

Years to begin peaking for some of the best (either league-leading or nearing their highest in Win-Shares or WS48):

David Robinson: 5 years
Kevin Garnett: 9 years
Tim Duncan: 5 years
Dwight Howard: 4 years

Michael Jordan: 3 years
Dwyane Wade: 3 years
John Stockton: 4 years
Reggie Miller: 3 years
Kobe Bryant: 4 years