A Look Back at the 2026 Training Camp
May 22, 2015 9:15:54 GMT -6
Madrid, New York, and 1 more like this
Post by Portland on May 22, 2015 9:15:54 GMT -6
The annual ABCA training camp concept fascinates me. I’m now entering my fourth season of number crunching on the topic… always thinking there must be a way to learn from what happens in TC and hoping to harness its mysterious powers to benefit the Trotters. I’ve compiled reams of data on this single, stupid sim – a process that the statistician in me believes will ultimately lead to answers - and yet I think I’m as far away from reaching a conclusion about it as ever. Certain players with good potential ratings and elite coaching staffs go in only to be crippled. Others who are barely able to make the pre-camp roster of a derelict, gm-less franchise somehow get sprinkled with the magic pixie dust and come out better than even their moms dared dream. In my gut I believe there have to be laws that govern training camp. I just can’t figure them out.
What follows is an analysis of the 2026 ABCA Training Camp. Enough time has passed since the camp that my scout should have reached some level of understanding of what happened to whom, and how good or bad it was. I personally find these numbers interesting, hopefully enough to share. It’s likely the veteran gms won’t be too surprised by this study, but it might help a few of us still wandering in the ABCA TC wilderness.
I have looked at the ratings (through my scout’s eyes) of 589 ABCA players and compared them at three specific points in time: 10/1/2026, 11/17/2026, and 4/23/2027. My goal was to look at player ratings changes about six weeks after TC and then again the following spring (roughly at the six-month point following camp) when presumably the scouts had had time to firm up their opinions of the players (and some of the dead had perhaps had time to rebound.) Note: I excluded the 2026 draft class in this analysis since they had just recently been created on 10/1/26 and hadn’t had time for their ratings to ‘settle in.’
Here are my observations - by player ages groups:
20 Year Olds: There were four 20 year-olds in my study who went through the 2026 training camp - Elden Campbell, Joe Smith, Stephon Marbury, and Kevin Garnett. Campbell was the oldest; he turned 21 shortly after the camp finished. Initially none of the four showed any decline in skill, but only one jumped – Marbury – and it was a fairly modest jump. However by the following April my scout was reporting that Campbell had suffered a slight decline from his pre-TC ratings. Smith and Marbury had improved a little; Garnett had made a nice leap. The bottom line on the 20 year-olds is 25% declined, 0% stayed the same, 50% improved a little, and 25% improved a lot. As a ‘class’ the 20 year-old improved less than any of the next four age groups.
This is probably a good point to discuss how these improvements being quantified. I’ll use Garnett – the biggest leaper - as my example. Garnett got a +7 mark from me, meaning he improved 7 more letter grades in various categories than those he stayed the same or declined in. Specifically, these were his letter grade changes between 10/1/26 and 4/23/27… again in the eyes of my scout:
INS, from C+ to B+
JPS, from B- to B
FT, declined from B+ to B
3PS, from D+ to C-
ORB, declined from B+ to B
DRB, from B+ to A
PSD declined from B+ to B
BLK, from B to A-
JMP, from C+ to B-
Garnett’s +7 was pretty impressive; only 32 of the 589 players in the study improved that much. Now the remaining age groups:
21 Year Olds: There were ten 21 year-old players in my study. Some notable names were Jason Kidd, Chris Webber, Ray Allen, and Jerry Stackhouse. Six weeks after the draft, 9-of-10 players showed a ratings increase with one making a very large leap. By the following spring there was one player who had blown up (Stackhouse at +13), a couple of +8’s (Allen and Aaron McKie). and a pair of +6’s (Voshon Lenard and Buck Johnson.) One player hadn’t exactly died but was looking pretty green around the gills: Jason Kidd, at -4. Lionel Simmons was the only other 21 year-old to have declined in camp. The bottom line on the 21 year-olds: 20% declined, 0% stayed the same, 30% improved a little, and 50% improved a lot. As a class, 21 year-olds improved more than any other age group.
22 Year Olds: There were thirty-four 22 year-olds in my study. This group included one legitimate ‘death’ according to my scout, in Anfernee Hardaway at -9. The only other near-death of a well-known player was the -4 posted by Antonio McDyess – whose JPS went from C+ to C- along with other small letter grade fluctuations. The big leaper in the group was Pervis Ellison with an impressive +12. There were a couple of +10’s (Brian Grant, Chris Jackson) and overall 25 of the 34 players had at least some improvement by the following April. The bottom line: 3% died, 12% had a small ratings drop, 12% were unchanged, 47% improved slightly, and 26% leaped. The overall group of 22 year olds went up by three letter grades between TC and April – not quite as impressive as the 21 year-old sample.
23 Year Olds: This 52-player age group fared a little better than the previous one but wasn’t without a death or three, one of which was the worst death in the entire study: Grant Hill. Poor Grant looked worse immediately after camp, and the outlook got even gloomier by the following April. Keeping things in context of course, Grant’s ratings were amazing going into that camp so a -16 doesn’t mean he’s still not a nice player. Lesser deaths were Jim Jackson and Vlade Divac. In Jackson’s case, he wasn’t just mostly dead… his ABCA career is officially in the crapper now. Among the leapers my scout sees Brad Sellers +11, Tyrone Hill +10, Bobby Phills +9, Kenny Anderson +9, Will Perdue +9, and Greg Dreiling +9. For a couple of those guys even the jump doesn’t guarantee much of a career, but there are plenty of guys below these six who progressed nicely into first-time starting roles. The verdict on this group: 6% died, just 4% had a small drop, 13% didn’t change, 42% had a small to moderate ratings improvement, and a whopping 35% jumped notably.
24 Year Olds: There were 71 twenty-four year olds in my study and as a group they had the second largest increase after the 21 year-olds. There weren’t any titanic deaths on the level of Grant Hill, but dirt was definitely done to Reggie Miller and John Starks at -7, and Horace Grant at -5. Who got the great jumps in this group? Holy Latrell Sprewell. The Choker posted a +14, the biggest jump in the entire study. Not bad for player that changed hands three times during the period of the study. Other big leapers in descending order were Tyrone Corbin, Toni Kukoc, Rod Strickland (finally), Chris Dudley, and Isaac Austin. Many, many others were right behind those five. The tally: 3% died, 7% suffered a slight decline, only 4% stayed the same, 58% had a slight to moderate gain, and 28% leapt substantially. It was a good year to be 24.
25 Year Olds: The twenty-five year-old group was interesting in several respects. These 45 players had the tightest grouping on the death/leap spectrum. Nobody fell off the planet, and nobody blew up. The worst regression was Roy Tarpley, and the big gainer was Bobby Hurley. Those mid-game trips to the men’s room must be paying off for Bobby. The final synopsis: 20% declined, 13% stayed the same, 58% gained nicely, and 9% leapt fairly nicely. Its notable that this is the first age group were decliners were at least one-fifth of the eligibles, and had the smallest overall gain in ratings so far.
26 Year Olds: More decliners, less leapers in this age group, to no one’s surprise. These 66 twenty-six year olds did have an overall but less-pronounced ratings gain. And there were some legitimate, undeniable leaps. Frank Johnson blew up at +13, Danny Manning and Tim McCormick went +10, and good old Jerome Kersey finally hit the lotto at +11. On the other end of the spectrum some ugliness went down. In order from true death to mostly dead, we had the despicable Tim Hardaway at -14, Dikembe and A.C. Green at -10, Chris Mullin at -8, and Clyde the Glide at -7. Remember that ratings category drops are only damning if they happen in a skill that’s important to the position you play, and my system doesn’t evaluate drops to that depth. But there’s no denying -7 and -8 results are not good news no matter which skills you’re shedding. Overall this group had 8% deaths, 17% small to moderate declines, 9% didn’t move whatsoever, 48% improved slightly to moderately, and 18% jumped.
27 Year Olds: The rubber is now hitting the road with this group. From this point in the study forward, no one blew up. There were some solid gains for certain players – Rod Higgins, the wily Oscar Schmidt, Fat Lever, Robert Hawkins, and Stan the Man Eremin all had good ratings increases. The decliners were led by Orlando Woolridge who apparently had his thumbs removed in TC. Kyle Macy, Joe Klein, and That Magic Johnson were the next worst drops. Overall: 2% died, 31% slid slightly or moderately, 6% stayed the same, 45% gained to some degree while 16% had good leaps. Overall the group did better than I had expected, I guess.
28 Year Olds: The range of ratings changes is narrowing again, with more players simply staying the same. Some pretty bad things happened to Dave Greenwood -10 and James Donaldson -8 and plenty of others dropped enough that they were no longer locks for starting roles in the ABCA. Still my scout saw leaps but mostly they were previously-mediocre players becoming less mediocre, not stars being made. Eddie Johnson and Greg Kite were the best leapers in this age group. The percentages were: 2% died, 35% tailed off to a slight-to-moderate degree, 16% had no movement, 37% increased slightly to a little better, and 10% made what I would call a leap. As a group there was a fractional improvement among the 28 year-olds.
29 Year Olds: The first group to regress, albeit just slightly. 46% of this group stayed virtually the same before and after TC. No outright deaths, just a few awkward slides like Jim Brewer, Rick Mahorn, Mychal Thompson, and Bobby Jones. Zoran Slavnic, like the fine wine he is, had the best improvement of everyone here at +7. Bob McAdoo also found the fountain of youth, proving anything can happen. The numbers: 31% dropped more than a little bit, 46% stayed the same, 22% improved pretty nicely, and Zoran was the 1% leaper.
30 Year Olds: Only 43 guys in this group, and hey we had another leaper, although John Jett didn’t appear on many radar screens. Dennis Awtrey surprisingly improved the next most. The biggest losers were DJ at -6, followed by the usual suspects: Campy Russell, George McGinnis, and Steve Mix. The 30 year-olds ended with 33% having moderate declines, 37% staying about the same, and 30% improving to some (mostly slight) degree.
31 Year Olds: Ouch. This was a small, 27 member class and only one single member of it improved: Herm Gilliam. Going into the tank? Pee Wee, Nate Archibald, and Rigor Artis were the worst plungers but plenty more followed, as you would expect. The results: 81% declined with plenty of those substantial, 15% stayed about the same, and Gilliam represented the remaining 4%.
32 Year Olds: 20 players, and amazing four got a little better: Joe Ellis, Rick Barry, Joe Caldwell, and someone named Sylvester Blye. Overall 70% of this group declined, and the decline was the worst of any group… even among the older players.
33 Years Old, and Older: We’re down to the last 41 players in the study, and 31 of them declined. The 37-year old Wilt and 34 year-old Tom Meschery suffered the worst indignities of age, joined by plenty of others just behind them. The best at fending off Father Time? Let’s have a hand for Elvin Hayes, who actually got a little better on balance, as did Meadowlark, The Logo, and the unstoppable Jerry Lucas. I can’t explain any of that other than sheer luck, but it’s interesting to see that not everyone becomes a big block of silly putty at 33 and above.
Conclusion: I’m sure mileage may vary between scouts, seasons, and blind lady fortune… but there you have the 2026 TC results from my perspective. Personally I think I gained a little confidence that older players don’t have to crap out 100% of the time. I could see myself, for the first time in my period as gm of Harlem, acquiring a player or two in the future above the age of 30.
What follows is an analysis of the 2026 ABCA Training Camp. Enough time has passed since the camp that my scout should have reached some level of understanding of what happened to whom, and how good or bad it was. I personally find these numbers interesting, hopefully enough to share. It’s likely the veteran gms won’t be too surprised by this study, but it might help a few of us still wandering in the ABCA TC wilderness.
I have looked at the ratings (through my scout’s eyes) of 589 ABCA players and compared them at three specific points in time: 10/1/2026, 11/17/2026, and 4/23/2027. My goal was to look at player ratings changes about six weeks after TC and then again the following spring (roughly at the six-month point following camp) when presumably the scouts had had time to firm up their opinions of the players (and some of the dead had perhaps had time to rebound.) Note: I excluded the 2026 draft class in this analysis since they had just recently been created on 10/1/26 and hadn’t had time for their ratings to ‘settle in.’
Here are my observations - by player ages groups:
20 Year Olds: There were four 20 year-olds in my study who went through the 2026 training camp - Elden Campbell, Joe Smith, Stephon Marbury, and Kevin Garnett. Campbell was the oldest; he turned 21 shortly after the camp finished. Initially none of the four showed any decline in skill, but only one jumped – Marbury – and it was a fairly modest jump. However by the following April my scout was reporting that Campbell had suffered a slight decline from his pre-TC ratings. Smith and Marbury had improved a little; Garnett had made a nice leap. The bottom line on the 20 year-olds is 25% declined, 0% stayed the same, 50% improved a little, and 25% improved a lot. As a ‘class’ the 20 year-old improved less than any of the next four age groups.
This is probably a good point to discuss how these improvements being quantified. I’ll use Garnett – the biggest leaper - as my example. Garnett got a +7 mark from me, meaning he improved 7 more letter grades in various categories than those he stayed the same or declined in. Specifically, these were his letter grade changes between 10/1/26 and 4/23/27… again in the eyes of my scout:
INS, from C+ to B+
JPS, from B- to B
FT, declined from B+ to B
3PS, from D+ to C-
ORB, declined from B+ to B
DRB, from B+ to A
PSD declined from B+ to B
BLK, from B to A-
JMP, from C+ to B-
Garnett’s +7 was pretty impressive; only 32 of the 589 players in the study improved that much. Now the remaining age groups:
21 Year Olds: There were ten 21 year-old players in my study. Some notable names were Jason Kidd, Chris Webber, Ray Allen, and Jerry Stackhouse. Six weeks after the draft, 9-of-10 players showed a ratings increase with one making a very large leap. By the following spring there was one player who had blown up (Stackhouse at +13), a couple of +8’s (Allen and Aaron McKie). and a pair of +6’s (Voshon Lenard and Buck Johnson.) One player hadn’t exactly died but was looking pretty green around the gills: Jason Kidd, at -4. Lionel Simmons was the only other 21 year-old to have declined in camp. The bottom line on the 21 year-olds: 20% declined, 0% stayed the same, 30% improved a little, and 50% improved a lot. As a class, 21 year-olds improved more than any other age group.
22 Year Olds: There were thirty-four 22 year-olds in my study. This group included one legitimate ‘death’ according to my scout, in Anfernee Hardaway at -9. The only other near-death of a well-known player was the -4 posted by Antonio McDyess – whose JPS went from C+ to C- along with other small letter grade fluctuations. The big leaper in the group was Pervis Ellison with an impressive +12. There were a couple of +10’s (Brian Grant, Chris Jackson) and overall 25 of the 34 players had at least some improvement by the following April. The bottom line: 3% died, 12% had a small ratings drop, 12% were unchanged, 47% improved slightly, and 26% leaped. The overall group of 22 year olds went up by three letter grades between TC and April – not quite as impressive as the 21 year-old sample.
23 Year Olds: This 52-player age group fared a little better than the previous one but wasn’t without a death or three, one of which was the worst death in the entire study: Grant Hill. Poor Grant looked worse immediately after camp, and the outlook got even gloomier by the following April. Keeping things in context of course, Grant’s ratings were amazing going into that camp so a -16 doesn’t mean he’s still not a nice player. Lesser deaths were Jim Jackson and Vlade Divac. In Jackson’s case, he wasn’t just mostly dead… his ABCA career is officially in the crapper now. Among the leapers my scout sees Brad Sellers +11, Tyrone Hill +10, Bobby Phills +9, Kenny Anderson +9, Will Perdue +9, and Greg Dreiling +9. For a couple of those guys even the jump doesn’t guarantee much of a career, but there are plenty of guys below these six who progressed nicely into first-time starting roles. The verdict on this group: 6% died, just 4% had a small drop, 13% didn’t change, 42% had a small to moderate ratings improvement, and a whopping 35% jumped notably.
24 Year Olds: There were 71 twenty-four year olds in my study and as a group they had the second largest increase after the 21 year-olds. There weren’t any titanic deaths on the level of Grant Hill, but dirt was definitely done to Reggie Miller and John Starks at -7, and Horace Grant at -5. Who got the great jumps in this group? Holy Latrell Sprewell. The Choker posted a +14, the biggest jump in the entire study. Not bad for player that changed hands three times during the period of the study. Other big leapers in descending order were Tyrone Corbin, Toni Kukoc, Rod Strickland (finally), Chris Dudley, and Isaac Austin. Many, many others were right behind those five. The tally: 3% died, 7% suffered a slight decline, only 4% stayed the same, 58% had a slight to moderate gain, and 28% leapt substantially. It was a good year to be 24.
25 Year Olds: The twenty-five year-old group was interesting in several respects. These 45 players had the tightest grouping on the death/leap spectrum. Nobody fell off the planet, and nobody blew up. The worst regression was Roy Tarpley, and the big gainer was Bobby Hurley. Those mid-game trips to the men’s room must be paying off for Bobby. The final synopsis: 20% declined, 13% stayed the same, 58% gained nicely, and 9% leapt fairly nicely. Its notable that this is the first age group were decliners were at least one-fifth of the eligibles, and had the smallest overall gain in ratings so far.
26 Year Olds: More decliners, less leapers in this age group, to no one’s surprise. These 66 twenty-six year olds did have an overall but less-pronounced ratings gain. And there were some legitimate, undeniable leaps. Frank Johnson blew up at +13, Danny Manning and Tim McCormick went +10, and good old Jerome Kersey finally hit the lotto at +11. On the other end of the spectrum some ugliness went down. In order from true death to mostly dead, we had the despicable Tim Hardaway at -14, Dikembe and A.C. Green at -10, Chris Mullin at -8, and Clyde the Glide at -7. Remember that ratings category drops are only damning if they happen in a skill that’s important to the position you play, and my system doesn’t evaluate drops to that depth. But there’s no denying -7 and -8 results are not good news no matter which skills you’re shedding. Overall this group had 8% deaths, 17% small to moderate declines, 9% didn’t move whatsoever, 48% improved slightly to moderately, and 18% jumped.
27 Year Olds: The rubber is now hitting the road with this group. From this point in the study forward, no one blew up. There were some solid gains for certain players – Rod Higgins, the wily Oscar Schmidt, Fat Lever, Robert Hawkins, and Stan the Man Eremin all had good ratings increases. The decliners were led by Orlando Woolridge who apparently had his thumbs removed in TC. Kyle Macy, Joe Klein, and That Magic Johnson were the next worst drops. Overall: 2% died, 31% slid slightly or moderately, 6% stayed the same, 45% gained to some degree while 16% had good leaps. Overall the group did better than I had expected, I guess.
28 Year Olds: The range of ratings changes is narrowing again, with more players simply staying the same. Some pretty bad things happened to Dave Greenwood -10 and James Donaldson -8 and plenty of others dropped enough that they were no longer locks for starting roles in the ABCA. Still my scout saw leaps but mostly they were previously-mediocre players becoming less mediocre, not stars being made. Eddie Johnson and Greg Kite were the best leapers in this age group. The percentages were: 2% died, 35% tailed off to a slight-to-moderate degree, 16% had no movement, 37% increased slightly to a little better, and 10% made what I would call a leap. As a group there was a fractional improvement among the 28 year-olds.
29 Year Olds: The first group to regress, albeit just slightly. 46% of this group stayed virtually the same before and after TC. No outright deaths, just a few awkward slides like Jim Brewer, Rick Mahorn, Mychal Thompson, and Bobby Jones. Zoran Slavnic, like the fine wine he is, had the best improvement of everyone here at +7. Bob McAdoo also found the fountain of youth, proving anything can happen. The numbers: 31% dropped more than a little bit, 46% stayed the same, 22% improved pretty nicely, and Zoran was the 1% leaper.
30 Year Olds: Only 43 guys in this group, and hey we had another leaper, although John Jett didn’t appear on many radar screens. Dennis Awtrey surprisingly improved the next most. The biggest losers were DJ at -6, followed by the usual suspects: Campy Russell, George McGinnis, and Steve Mix. The 30 year-olds ended with 33% having moderate declines, 37% staying about the same, and 30% improving to some (mostly slight) degree.
31 Year Olds: Ouch. This was a small, 27 member class and only one single member of it improved: Herm Gilliam. Going into the tank? Pee Wee, Nate Archibald, and Rigor Artis were the worst plungers but plenty more followed, as you would expect. The results: 81% declined with plenty of those substantial, 15% stayed about the same, and Gilliam represented the remaining 4%.
32 Year Olds: 20 players, and amazing four got a little better: Joe Ellis, Rick Barry, Joe Caldwell, and someone named Sylvester Blye. Overall 70% of this group declined, and the decline was the worst of any group… even among the older players.
33 Years Old, and Older: We’re down to the last 41 players in the study, and 31 of them declined. The 37-year old Wilt and 34 year-old Tom Meschery suffered the worst indignities of age, joined by plenty of others just behind them. The best at fending off Father Time? Let’s have a hand for Elvin Hayes, who actually got a little better on balance, as did Meadowlark, The Logo, and the unstoppable Jerry Lucas. I can’t explain any of that other than sheer luck, but it’s interesting to see that not everyone becomes a big block of silly putty at 33 and above.
Conclusion: I’m sure mileage may vary between scouts, seasons, and blind lady fortune… but there you have the 2026 TC results from my perspective. Personally I think I gained a little confidence that older players don’t have to crap out 100% of the time. I could see myself, for the first time in my period as gm of Harlem, acquiring a player or two in the future above the age of 30.
