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How old is the WNBA?

Jerry Lai-USA TODAY Sports

We continue Follow Up Month with a look back at this post from 2011 about average ages and repeating as champion.

First let's update our chart of the weighted average age of the league and its champions...

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The 2014 Mercury are the oldest championship team since the Comets dynasty. They don't have any exceptionally old players, 33 year old Penny Taylor is the senior citizen, but they also have very little youth. Only two players on the roster were under 26 and one of them (Tiffany Bias) barely played. They had six players who were 30+ by the end of the season. Some people seem to think the Merc with Griner and Taurasi are a dynasty in the making. I don't see it. I see a team that loaded up with veterans for a short run while they had the chance. Maybe Taurasi holds off Father Time for another few years and the Merc win another ring or two. I wouldn't bet on it.

I explained what a weighted average is in the last post. Still, people ask me how the weighted average age of the league compares to the mean age. Check this chart:

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As you can see, the weighted average is consistently higher than the mean, typically by about half a year. No surprise there. Veterans tend to play more than young players, all else being equal. The 11 player roster era led to a noticeable drop in the percentage of players under 30, which is only beginning to return to normal levels.

All of this data supports the theory that athletes peak around age 27. This has been well established for male athletes, but many have speculated that women might show a different pattern. There's not much to back the notion of a separate standard for female athletes. Let's look at the averages for All WNBA teams to see if the best of the best fall in line:

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All WNBA teams track the league as a whole pretty closely. Even the small sample size has not led to any wide variations. It would be difficult to argue that WNBA players as a whole peak anywhere other than their mid-late 20's. Individual players will vary greatly, of course. Sheryl Swoopes won the first of her three MVP awards when she was 29 years old. On the other hand, Nikki Teasley was pretty well washed up by the time she turned 27. This also follows men's sports, even in the supposedly pre-steroid era. Hank Aaron's best season came when he was 37 years old.

Next for Follow Up Month, we'll look at the best and worst draft picks ever.