To do this, I made use of a client called basketball-reference-web-scraper to scrap the data. I used statistics which I could find from, the leading website for advanced and comprehensive basketball data. This were categories which I felt played a huge part in determining the best years of an athlete. Most importantly, I planned to perform analysis on the peak ages based on position and era of players. In order to increase the scope and rigour of my research, I looked for and included the data of all such players from 1950 to 2019. In addition, I extended my research to cover every single player who played at least 5 years in the league and completed at least half of the games in these seasons. It is a per-minute rating developed by columnist John Hollinger, and widely regarded the go-to statistic to determine player performance. I decided to decipher the peaks of players using a composite indicator known as Player Efficiency Rating (PER). However, these accolades are given based on fan favorites and opinions of panelists. Most studies found the peak of players by studying their ages when they were selected for All-Star games or as the top players in that year. PART 1 Why I made my research different, and how:īefore embarking on my research, I looked through several existing publications of studies on NBA players’ peaks. The methods and findings of this study would be of interest to any party who shares the love for this sport.

Thereafter, a model can be developed and used to predict the peak age of the players who have recently entered the league. Using a variety of scraping, visualisation and modelling tools in Python, this study aims to determine when these athletes have reached their peaks and spot any trends in the peaks of retired/existing players.

While some players have found their best years to be before the age of 25, others have gone on to peak much later in their careers past the age of 30. A major part of most debates is how to determine when a certain player has past his prime. Being one of the many million fans of this league, I have watched sport analysts debate non-stop as they compare the teams and players. The National Basketball Association is the top basketball league in the world, a stage where the most talented players around the world showcase their skills and fight for accolades.

Python nba play by play