#178: The best Age 21 and younger seasons in NBA history
Thinking Basketball
Thinking Basketball
4.8 • 965 Ratings
🗓️ 20 February 2023
⏱️ 78 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Who was the best 18-year old in league history? The best 20-year old? When do players become MVP-level players? In this episode, we discuss Luka Doncic, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady and a number of other great young players in their earliest seasons. With @codyhoudek. Support at www.patreon.com/thinkingbasketball
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | thinking basketball podcast my name is Ben welcome back to another episode and this one is this is going to be a crazy |
| 0:17.0 | episode this is going to be a fun one a couple of weeks or months ago I can't remember we talked about the best old |
| 0:25.1 | seasons in NBA history the best quote-unquote old seasons where we looked at |
| 0:30.2 | players in the mid to late 30s Cody where we start that like 30s at was inspired by LeBron James incredible 37 and 38 year old seasons he's 38 now |
| 0:46.0 | according to basketball references season age that's how we're going to do |
| 0:50.4 | this one the companion episode we are going to do this one, the companion episode. We are going to look at the best young |
| 0:56.0 | seasons in NBA history starting at the youngest possible age and just like with the old seasons we'll do a couple |
| 1:04.6 | years until we get to you know normal ages that most of the league are which means I |
| 1:11.0 | think we're starting at age 18 seasons, basketball reference, defined seasons by age based on your birthday, |
| 1:20.0 | sorry I get this all, always get this wrong, based on your age on February 1st of that season so if you're |
| 1:26.9 | 22 by February 1st that's your age 22 season even if you turn 23 on February 2nd and I think that's going to |
| 1:35.0 | disqualify you because I think we're going to start at age 18 and I don't think |
| 1:38.4 | we're going to get all the way up to 23 there's too many great players and |
| 1:41.0 | MVPs by the time you get to 23. |
| 1:43.4 | And I think that's important to differentiate because at 18, |
| 1:47.5 | you might think like LeBron James is an 18 year old. |
| 1:49.7 | But basketball reference actually counts him as a 19 year old because he's 19 by the time |
| 1:54.2 | that date rolls around. Yeah he was a December birthday so 18 when he came |
| 1:59.3 | into the league but turn 19 at the end of December and therefore in his rookie season in 2003 2004 |
| 2:07.1 | LeBron James is an age 19 season so we'll talk about him when we get to spoiler alert we'll talk about him when we get to spoiler alert. We'll talk about him when we get there. |
| 2:15.0 | Did he make the all NBA team in his age 19 season? |
| 2:19.0 | Did he actually I don't know that off the top of my head. I'm pretty sure he's made 19 straight all NBA teams so that would be the year that it's |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Thinking Basketball, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Thinking Basketball and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.