A study on the Portuguese League of Basketball — Part 5

Portuguese youngsters’ impact (or the lack of it)

To better understand how the teams use their young players, I will take a look on the impact 21-year-olds and younger have in the LPB. Spoiler: it’s far, VERY FAR from good. Some graphics may even shock some of the more sensible viewers.

High Impact — averaged 15+ minutes and 8+ points

Medium Impact — averaged 15+ minutes or 8+ points

Low Impact — averaged -15 minutes and -8 minutes

So, the first and most noticeable point of this is… there’s only two graphs. It’s positive that both of them are from the most recent seasons but it sure isn’t positive that only three under-21 players had a high impact on their teams in the last 4 (that are really 2) seasons. It is a problem that needs to be addressed as quickly as possible.

So, this doesn’t get that much better, huh? Portuguese young players struggle to have a medium impact in the LPB. This means, they don’t even have minutes to play. 2017/18 was clearly the best year of the three, while 2018/19 doesn’t even appear on the list. And, yet again, there is a clear problem regarding development and evolution.

Here, we find the majority of the players. Guys with “garbage time” minutes and no real contribution to their teams. They end up staying with their teams or leaving for worse situations (smaller clubs in LPB or lower leagues), with no real development in their game.

We could put all the guilt on the coaches that don’t give minutes to these young guys, but we can’t (and shouldn’t, in my opinion) force them to play guys with less talent just because of their nationality. Again, this is something that comes from years past, to their younger years, as they don’t develop as they need to reach a higher level and compete.

Next up: So… where do we go from here?