Predicting Future Top Level Performance: What is Relative Age Effect? What Correlates to Future Success?

Kobe, Declan Rice, Relative Age Effect, Bio Banding, and the Impact of Junior/Youth Performance on Senior/Professional Performance.

This isn’t a story of late arrivers… Kobe Bryant entered the NBA at age 18 and Declan Rice was a star Premier League player at West Ham United by age 17.

This is a story of how a player’s youth performance has almost no correlation with future top-level performance. Often it’s players who struggle their way to the very top of a sport after being deemed not good enough.

Kobe Bryant

Zero. That’s the number of points I scored the entire summer when I was 12 years old. I didn’t score. Not a free throw, not an accidental layup, not even a lucky throw-the-ball-up-oops-it-went-in basket. - Players tribune

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