How many prime years are left for Westbrook?
After the Oklahoma City Thunder decided to trade Russell Westbrook to the Houston Rockets for Chris Paul and first-round draft picks, the question arrises of how effective the 2017 NBA MVP will be as he enters the later part of his playing career.
During a recent episode of The Hoop Collective podcast, it was mentioned that it’s “not every day an MVP in their prime is available for a trade” – which led to an interesting question about what stage of his career Westbrook is in.
It was discussed that it was “debatable analytically” though it was not long ago he won the league’s Most Valuable Player.
Perhaps the biggest issue for Westbrook is his massive contract that will be on the books for the Rockets. He is set to earn $38.5 million next season and then $41.4 million in 2020-21 and then $44.2 million in 2021-22.
While that may be the hangup that diminishes his value, it still doesn’t quite answer the question of what value he will have on the basketball court as he gets older. The guard will be 31 years old when the season begins next year and 34 years old by the time his contract expires.
According to our research department, just 15.7 percent of instances where a player received ALL-NBA honors this century have been 31 or older. Only 19 players have earned that nod at this age, though several have been big men whose frame continued to benefit their game.
Ignoring those examples because they will not have a similar age regression as Westbrook, we can look at guards in the past 19 years that have had success as they got older.
This is the full list of backcourt players since 2000 who have an ALL-NBA selection this late in their careers: Chauncey Billups, Gary Payton, Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, Manu Ginobili, Paul Pierce, Steve Nash and Tony Parker. For what it’s worth: Payton, Bryant, James and Nash are the only examples who appeared more than once. Bryant and James both played wing, which means Payton and Nash are the only point guards with such a denotation.