I guess anything is possible, but we've been waiting on Travis Outlaw's BBball IQ to improve for quite awhile now -- not to say that it hasn't improved some -- but at some point (usually around 24-26) 95% of players are pretty much what they are going to be in the NBA.
I assume he's always practicing. Players don't improve forever, even if they keep practicing. If he's 21, one would expect his practice (and playing games) to lead to significant improvements. If he's 24, not so much.
But like I stated about, he only has two years of NBA experince and has improved since his ones before. I don't expect Dirk or Amare but you can't honestly say because he is three years older than he says, he won't improve at all.
I always figured there are 2 scales when talking about player development. The first is skill/Bball IQ. I think this imporves the most during the first 3/5 years in the league which puts most players, as minstrel said, 25-27 years old. The next is physical maturity/deterioration. If this is true Yi will obviously start to deteriorate sooner but I don't think that it should affect him reaching his "potential" whatever that may be. As for the example of a 40 year old versus a 21 year old rookie. Yes, I do think that the 40 year old can improve his skills just as much as the rookie but will suffer a huge physical dropoff every year, offsetting any gain in skills.
It's not just deterioration. It's physical capabilities. A 24 year-old is closer to his physical peak than a 21 year-old. If both a 21 year-old and a 24 year-old are producing at the same level, the odds in terms of who's going to be a better player are MARKEDLY better for the younger player. Ed O.
I'm kind of confused about what the hangup is in this conversation... If you look at the drafts since 2001, you'll see that there have been 35 players who were international, non-US college players selected in the first round of the draft that went on to play in the NBA (I don't have info on Vasquez, Karolev, etc.). If Yi had been 19 (almost 20), he would have been in the same category as risks such as Tskitichvili, etc. If he was actually 22, (almost 23), it's a little different. ONE PLAYER since 2002 has been drafted in the first round from overseas who was 22 years old...Thabo Sefalosha (22yrs, 1mo.) Going back to 2002 nets you Yao and Jiri Welsch. Yao is the only pick higher than 13 in the last 8 drafts has been international and 22 (or older). There have been 12 internation picks in the lottery higher than that, but all of them were 21 or younger. So whatever the correlation b/w skills vs. upside, or what the curve looks like, etc. is moot...NBA GMs have shown through history that 22y/o internationals don't get picked in the lottery (unless you're Yao), while 19-21 y/o internationals have been averaging about 2 per year in the lottery. So my take is that there was an intentional effort by Yi (who certainly knows how old he is), his agent (who should have checked) and potentially the Chinese gov't to defraud some NBA GM by having Yi picked MUCH earlier that he would have, having that owner defrauded out of millions of dollars that would not have been required to choose Yi at a later draft slot (which his age and status would certainly have borne out). To say otherwise is trying to spin it away from those with responsibility. If the Players' Union fights this, they are complicit in the fraud. If the team decides to keep playing him, fine. But this isn't an issue of "who cares". The issue seems to be "Yi is a fraud".
Correct me if I'm wrong (I don't watch much of the Nets) but from what I've seen he is about where he needs to be physically. He needs to work on assertiveness, a go to move, D, and I'm not sure about his ball handling or range. All that stuff he can learn with time in the league, regardless of age. If we were talking about someone like Durant it would be different becuase he needs to physically mature in order to make his skills work better. He will never be a bruising type PF but I don't think that's what Mil or NJ were hoping for. Yi seems to already have the athletic abitlity, quickness, and strength he will need.
I don't put that kind of limit on a player. If he's fast and quick and strong now, imagine how fast and quick and strong he might end up being if he were the same level at age 21. Ed O.
