The NBA’s Fading Stars

Four All-Stars in decline

To be a fading star can be brutal for athletes. It’s an unrelenting erosion of the physical self, the very thing that granted them wealth, fame, status, and identity, that grinds the body into dust until they’re deemed worthless and disposable. One moment, you’re a franchise player, and in the next, your contract is an anchor of despair. This vicious life cycle, where players debut, grow, peak, plateau, and then fade into obscurity, is called, somewhat diplomatically, an aging curve.

In basketball, there is a common belief that players’ peaks encompass their age 26 through 32 seasons, with the directly preceding and succeeding seasons representing the on and off ramps to their prime. While the overall population of professional basketball players may follow this trend, that doesn’t make it an ironclad law of nature.

This trend leads to the assumption that players who are excellent in their 20s will inevitably remain so into their 30s. However, aging curves have always been unique to the individual. Trae Young (26), Ja Morant (25), Jaylen Brown (28), and Bam Adebayo (27), four current or recent All-Stars, are all having their worst seasons in recent memory, and perhaps most concerning, these dips are not one-season blips, but rather they follow multi-year trends.

A BPM of 0.0 denotes an average player and anything around 5.0 is an All-Star, but the individual BPM figures are slightly less important than the general trend. Remember, it doesn’t matter if BPM favors or punishes certain types of players when you’re comparing a player to themself. However, the data tells a similar story of fast-fading stars who all had their best seasons in their early 20s before quickly trending toward mediocrity. So, how is it that four young stars have embarked on such rapid descents during the phase of their careers that is supposed to be their prime? And can they stave off this downward trend and produce a second peak?

Jaylen Brown (28)

Starting with the oldest of the cohort, Jaylen Brown, by BPM, is the least impressive of the bunch, which, on its own, is an interesting topic I covered over a year ago. Yet, despite his decline in BPM, the Celtics have only improved since his best season. In fact, Brown’s best season by BPM (2.5) came in the season the Celtics went .500 (36-36), the lowest win percentage of Brown’s Celtics’ tenure.

The problem Brown faces is he is a mediocre high-volume scorer. That’s a valuable skill in the grand scheme of the NBA, but it usually means you’re more famous than you are impactful. Compounding the issue has been the steady decline in his 3-point shooting. Brown’s 3-point efficiency peaked at 39.7% in 2020-21, hasn’t been above league average since 2021-22, and is sitting at a paltry 32.4% this season. If your one job is to score, you have to be excellent at it, but Brown has seen his true shooting relative to league average decline every season since 2019-20, and this season, it sits at 4% below league average.

**** TS+ is a player’s true shooting percentage relative to league average, where 100 is league average, 99 is 1% below league average, and 101 is 1% above league average, this stat will be referenced throughout the article as “League Adjusted (shooting stat)” ****

His decline in 3-point shooting has been a significant obstacle as he has shown minimal offensive skill development to offset a decline in scoring efficiency. His free throw attempt rate (FTAr) has generally been around average despite a decline in his 3-point attempt rate, and he has never shot above league average from the foul line. Another factor is Brown’s assist-to-turnover ratio has always been problematic. Simply put, he doesn’t have the all-around offensive game to support poor 3-point efficiency, but that could be changing.

Brown hasn’t become a free throw merchant or a dynamite passer, but he has shown marked improvement in those areas this season. His assist-to-turnover ratio of 1.81:1 is the best of his career, and his FTAr of .287 is his highest mark since 2017-18 when he was a significantly lower usage player. If he were to creep back towards league average from three, he could largely undo this multi-season decline. It won’t make him the offensive player the media pretends he is, but it’d make the Celtics the clear front runners in the East again.

Bam Adebayo (27)

Bam Adebayo is the perpetual Defensive Player of the Year bridesmaid. He has finished in the top five in DPOY voting five consecutive seasons but has failed to win and has never even finished second. Despite never taking home the big trophy, Adebayo remains an excellent defender, but his offensive game has been in pretty serious decline. In 2020-21, Adebayo posted the best offensive BPM (2.9), assist percentage (26.9%), and true shooting (62.6%) of his career. When combined with his excellent defense, he finished the season with a BPM of 4.9. At 23 years old, the Heat looked like they had a burgeoning All-NBA center on their hands.

Well, since 2020-21, pretty much everything has fallen off for Adebayo. His offensive BPM stands at 0.1 this season, and combined with declining defensive metrics, he’s sporting his worst BPM (1.1) since his rookie season. So, what exactly happened here? The easy answer is Adebayo stopped being a monster finisher at the rim and stopped getting there nearly as much.

At his best, Adebayo was finishing over 75% of his attempts at the rim, and they were accounting for over 35% of his shots. Even though Adebayo is a good mid-range jump shooter for a center, no one hits 75% of their jumpers. Losing all of those attempts and the efficiency that comes with it was always going to hurt his offensive profile. However, something else happened in 2021-22 that was out of his control.

In the summer of 2021, the Heat brought in Kyle Lowry as their full-time point guard. The move propelled the Heat back to the Eastern Conference Finals, but it took a sizable chunk out of Adebayo’s playmaking responsibilities. His assists per game fell from 5.4 to 3.4, but his turnovers per game remained static at 2.6. This decline in playmaking continued into the next season before he started to see it tick back up over the past two seasons. Unfortunately, by then, his shooting efficiency had gone from stellar to poor. Barring a sudden shooting improvement, it’s possible we’ve already seen the best offensive version of Adebayo, but that doesn’t mean he’ll continue to slide into obscurity.

Counterintuitively, with Jimmy Butler out of Miami, Adebayo could see his production rise. This season, he has averaged 8.03 assists per 100 possessions without Butler on the court compared to 6.01 with him, and his TS% has been better without Butler as well (51.1% to 54.6%). However, Adebayo’s shot quality and turnovers per 100 possessions were both better with Butler on the court. Depending on how these forces even out, there’s a chance he’ll drag his offensive BPM back into his post-peak range of 1.7 to 0.8.

Trae Young (26)

I feel like I have to say this every time I write about Trae Young, but contrary to popular belief, he is not a high-volume 3-point marksman. For his career, he has a league-adjusted 3-point attempt rate (3PAr) and 3-point efficiency of 104 and 98, which is basically what noted 3-point sniper Talen Horton-Tucker is doing this season (105 & 98). The secret sauce, which shouldn’t be a secret because we have seven seasons of data now, is that Young is one of the game’s best passers and free throw merchants.

*Bold denotes league leader

Young’s combination of free throw generation and passing gives him a tremendous floor on offense. Despite one season with an effective field goal percentage (eFG%) above league average, Young has a career offensive BPM of 4.9, with his high watermark coming in 2021-22 at 7.1. However, grifting and dishing can only get you so far.

Unsurprisingly, Young’s best shooting season is also his best season, and his eFG% has been downright putrid since 2021-22. Over the past three seasons, Young has a league-adjusted eFG% of 91, and, despite all the free throws, it has dragged his true shooting below league average with it. His elite playmaking has still kept him an effective offensive player, but even that has seen some decline. While Young’s assist rate remains top of the charts, turnovers have started to eat away at his playmaking value.

Tracking Young’s turnover percentage and true shooting is crucial to deciphering his value. His true shooting percentage has a 0.934 linear correlation to his offensive BPM, and his turnover percentage clocks in at -0.901. The free throws and the assists provide the foundation, but turnovers and efficient shooting are the ceiling.

The question is, can Young get back to scoring the ball pseudo-efficiently from the field while limiting turnovers? The Hawks have doubled down on defensive-oriented wings and guards to insulate Young defensively but at the cost of floor spacing. The Hawks are 24th in 3-point efficiency this season, and a better-spaced floor should, in theory, allow Young to score more efficiently and widen passing windows, limiting turnovers.

Building around Trae Young is tricky. He possesses two elite traits that are essential to generating efficient offense, but his flaws necessitate a very specific supporting cast. To fully actualize his offense, you need spacing, but to have a competent defense, you need elite perimeter defenders. There are already too few 3-and-D wings in the league, which makes building the perfect roster around Young’s strengths and flaws nearly impossible.

Ja Morant (25)

The final fading star also has the best chance to recapture his shine. Morant is not only the youngest of the cohort but has real injury-related excuses. Morant rattled off back-to-back seasons with BPMs of 6.1 and 5.7 at 22 and 23 before suspension and injury limited him to nine games in 2023-24. However, while the Grizzlies have been flying this season, Morant has struggled to regain the form that made him one of the league’s bright young stars.

Combining the past two seasons into one, Morant, over his past 41 games, has a BPM of 2.7 and an offensive BPM of 2.8. That’s a far cry from where he was before, and it begs the question, why? For starters, Morant’s offensive profile is surprisingly similar to Trae Young’s. He has below-league-average efficiency from the field, bolstered by trips to the line, and is a dynamite passer. How he gets there is very different from Young, but the results have a lot in common. However, one area where Morant used to differ from Young was his ability to limit turnovers.

Morant is sporting a career-high turnover percentage of 17.3%. If the tradeoff was more turnovers for more assists and scoring, it could be a worthy sacrifice, but that hasn’t been the case. Morant is scoring less and assisting at about the same rate compared to his two-season peak. Injury and layoff could be the culprit, but it probably isn’t the only explanation for a drop this dramatic.

Most of Morant’s offensive value comes from his ability to pressure the basket. He’s a career 31.9% 3-point shooter, and that figure hasn’t shown any directional trend. It’s safe to assume, that for Morant to be fully operational, he needs to get to the basket and either finish, draw a foul, or find an open teammate. Unfortunately, he has found it harder to get to the basket and has begun settling for more threes.

Two trends have emerged from Morant’s shot chart. The first is that on shots ten feet and in, Morant is taking a lower percentage within three feet of the rim (not good). The second development is Morant looks to be trading mid-range jumpers for 3-pointers (usually good). While getting closer to the rim is always better than taking a floater, it’s generally also a good idea to trade mid-range jumpers for threes. However, I don’t think that’s the best course of action for Morant.

Opposing defenses are almost always giving Morant an open three. If he could hit them, that’d be great, but he’s shooting 32.1% from three this season. And while he has been utterly abysmal from the mid range this year, defenses still have to react to his penetration. Morant should almost never trade a jumper for penetration, and every 3-pointer signifies a missed opportunity to challenge a defense.

Personally, I’d file Morant’s performance this season under “wait and see.” We may not see him get back to his 2021-22 level when he hit over 70% of his shots at the rim and paired it with a career-best 34.4% from three, but it’s too early to tell if this is his new normal, especially on the turnover front.

Epilogue

This exercise wasn’t designed to tear apart these players. It was to look into four well-known stars who have shown decline far earlier in their careers than we would expect. There are a multitude of explanations for these declines. Some are within their control and others are not. However, if a player has a great season at 22, that doesn’t mean they’ll have a better one at 25 and then 27. Sometimes, the best is not yet to come.

Another topic to dissect is how reliance on athleticism and/or being undersized could shift a player’s aging curve. Ja Morant is listed as 6’2, Trae Young is 6’1, Bam Adebayo is a 6’9 center, and Jaylen Brown is a 6’6 small forward. Positionally, this quartet is undersized and, save for Young, uses their incredible athleticism to cover the skeletal ground they concede. Without significant skill development, the effects of declining athleticism are more pronounced for undersized players, and athleticism peaks very early.

This isn’t to suggest that teams shouldn’t target great athletes, but it’s a reminder that not everyone’s aging and development curve will be the same. There’s still time for Morant, Young, Adebayo, and Brown to add another layer to their game; some already are, but it’ll still be an uphill battle to recapture their prior statistical heights. In the NBA, the margins are razor-thin and the gulf between stardom and mediocrity is perilously close. I’m hopeful they’ll figure it out and their careers will see a second wind, but without change, these four are fast approaching their basketball mortality.

For any inquiries about work, discussion, and the like you can email me at nevin.l.brown@gmail.com.