We're in an age of outliers when it comes to aging superstars. Injuries are as persistent a problem in the NBA as they've ever been, yet the league is somehow also loaded with big names retaining relevance deep into their 30s (and in one notable case, beyond). Remember when the 2024 Olympics was supposed to be the swan song for LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant as the faces of the NBA? They're currently leading teams with a combined record of 27-10.

Some of the old guys very clearly still have it. Others are starting to slip. There are nine former All-NBA players in their age-36 season or later, so let's check in with each of them and measure how much they've had left in the tank thus far this season.

Stephen Curry (Age: 38)

Washed meter: 0 out of 10

We're choosing to ignore injuries here, though they've obviously become a persistent issue for Curry. When he's been on the court, Curry has been closer to his peak than anyone on this list. Even after leaving Wednesday's loss to the Houston Rockets after five minutes, he's still averaging more than a point per minute. He has a higher effective field goal percentage than he did when he became the NBA's first unanimous MVP in 2016. He's even trimmed his turnover rate to a career-low. He's playing fewer minutes than he used to, but who cares when you're still getting MVP-caliber per-minute production out of him? Curry is our baseline. This is what it looks like for an old guy not to be washed. 

Paul George (Age: 36)

Washed meter: 1 out of 10

He's playing fewer minutes than he once did, and he's getting the line less than he used to, but otherwise, you'd be hard-pressed to find a difference between this George and the version of him that last made an All-Star Team in 2024. If anything, he's been better this year, outscoring, outrebounding and outassisting his 2023-24 self on a per-minute basis. Only Dyson Daniels and Scottie Barnes are averaging more deflections per game among those who have played more than twice this season, and as a result, the Boston Celtics went from averaging the second-fewest turnovers per game in the NBA last season to the seventh-most thus far this season. Boston is getting everything it hoped for out of George this season.

Kevin Durant (Age: 38)

Washed meter: 2 out of 10

He's taking the fewest shots of his career by far -- just 13.2 per game when he's never been below 16 -- but nobody in Houston is complaining. No Rocket is taking 16 shots per game, but five of them are at double-digit shot attempts and Houston has the No. 3 offense in the NBA. This egalitarian approach is working, especially with Alperen Sengun and Jabari Smith playing the best basketball of their careers and Fred VanVleet back in the fold to organize it all.

Still, you'd expect a volume decrease on a great team to lead to improved efficiency (not that there's ever been much room for improvement on that front for Durant), not a decline. Durant simply isn't shooting at his usual standards thus far. He's made up for it with a sharp uptick in free-throw rate (a new career high and it's not especially close), but that's going to be harder to maintain as the season progresses and we reach higher-leverage games. You shouldn't exactly be afraid for Kevin Durant's shooting, but coupled with his decrease in volume, he might be inching into a very slightly different phase of his career. He's still a star. He just may not quite be the NBA's apex shotmaker at 38. 

Damian Lillard (Age: 36)

Washed meter: 2 out of 10

The early returns -- especially in light of his torn Achilles -- have been tremendously positive. He's playing fewer minutes as so many of these players are, but he's scoring at roughly the per-minute rate he did during his two-year tenure with the Milwaukee Bucks. The raw 3-point numbers look worse than they are. We're still in tiny-sample territory, and Lillard shoots at such volume that only a few games could easily take him from the 33.3% figure he's at now up into the high-30s to which he's more accustomed. The eye test is there. Every few games he turns a quarter or two into Dame Time.

His 3-point attempt rate is a preposterous 62%. That's new for him, and welcome in a role meant to support Deni Avdija. He's never getting to the basket anymore, but that's what Avdija is around to do. Like Durant, he's getting to the line far more than one would expect for a player of his age. That likely won't sustain, especially with his drive numbers declining. Still, it'd be hard to ask for more out of a small guard returning from perhaps the most devastating injury in basketball. Box Plus-Minus rates him as a top-20 offensive player thus far this season, and while the other all-in-ones aren't quite as bullish, the overwhelming sentiment is that Portland is getting something relatively close to the standard Lillard experience at a fraction of the cost. 

Draymond Green (Age: 36)

Washed meter: 4 out of 10

There are 133 players in the NBA averaging at least 26 minutes per game. Green is scoring less than half as many points per game (3.2) as any of them (Myles Turner, in 132nd, averages 6.7). The Warriors don't expect Green to score. They more or less never have. And it's not as though they truly play 4-on-5. Green remains heavily involved in the offense as a passing hub and hitting the offensive glass as much as ever. His defensive value remains through the roof. Even now, he's among the only players in the NBA that can credibly play center and guard -- not just switch, but truly guard -- on the perimeter.

But so much of what he does offensively is based on his tried-and-true two-man dance with Curry, who's now going to miss multiple weeks. Green has only played 28 minutes without Curry this season, but they've gone badly. We're about to find out how cumbersome a total non-scoring threat is to a basketball team that doesn't have the greatest shooter of all time. Green will still be valuable. But we're nearing the point where the offensive limitations he poses might become great enough to really make you wonder about his overall impact, especially with his defensive rebounding fading as well.

LeBron James (Age: 41)

Washed meter: 5 out of 10

Look, your answer here is going to depend on how you're scaling this. When the bar is his legendary chase down block on Andre Iguodala, you'd be justified in watching James himself get chased down by two-way forward Jalen Slawson and saying "it doesn't matter how good he still he is, no player in the NBA has slipped as much as he has simply because of how high his starting point was." That just isn't the only consideration here. He's fallen from a lofty perch, but landed on his feet.

James has been declining gradually for years in subtle but noticeable ways. He drives less. He runs fewer pick and rolls and takes fewer shots out of isolations. Those numbers tick down bit-by-bit each year. He pads his point total with more transition buckets these days. He preserves his energy more carefully defensively, his value manifesting in his IQ and communication more than anything else. The Philadelphia 76ers are still getting plenty out of him. This roster full of ball-handlers needs a connector. James has always been capable of such a reduced role. He perfected it for the Los Angeles Lakers last season.

He's shooting badly from everywhere -- especially 3-point range, a quietly critical issue for Philadelphia considering Joel Embiid's decline on that front. The 76ers don't ask him for high usage, so getting the five or six hard drives he's capable of per night matter more than stacking the volume he once did. You'd rather have a few big plays than a bunch of lesser ones. How much of what we've seen this season is him pacing himself vs. the reality of playing a 24th NBA season won't really be knowable until bigger games come in the spring. For now, LeBron James is firmly a role player. He's a very valuable role player, one who does things, especially as a passer, that no other role player in NBA history has. But he's a role player nonetheless, and for someone as accomplished as James, that represents meaningful decline even if it doesn't constitute the end of the useful portion of his career. 

Klay Thompson (Age: 36)

Washed meter: 5 out of 10

The Miami Heat rank 23rd in 3-point percentage despite Thompson shooting above 40% on over nine attempts per game. That's how dire the offensive situation in Miami is. Andrew Wiggins and Tim Hardaway Jr. have struggled mightily so far. The entire theory of a team running most of its offense through bigs -- as Miami does with Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo -- rests on having high-level shooters to space the floor. Thompson is really the only trustworthy Heat shooter at this stage, and to his credit, he's holding up his end of the bargain on that front. He's never taken more 3s per minute than he is this year, and he's making plenty of them.

The trade-off here is that Thompson has been among the most vulnerable defensive players in the entire NBA this season, especially among those with real size. Thompson used to be an elite point-of-attack stopper. He transitioned into guarding bigger forwards as injuries and age sapped his mobility. Now, he's having trouble with just about everyone. Opponents are scoring 1.278 points per possession against him in isolation this season, per Synergy Sports. He really struggles to navigate screens at this stage. Late in games especially, Heat opponents are building a lot of their offense around finding and attacking Thompson.

The Heat are an average defense when Thompson sits and a terrible one when he plays. The former might be the problem here. The Heat were supposed to be great defensively with Antetokounmpo and Adebayo in the front court. They were supposed to be able to abide one defensive weak spot when the reality here is that almost everyone on the team has been worse on that end of the floor than Miami needed them to be. Thompson looks bad in part because everyone here does, but without the support we expected him to have, he's stuck out like a sore thumb defensively in ways that are going to prove problematic in the bigger games coming in April and May.

James Harden (Age: 37)

Washed meter: 8 out of 10

Harden has always been an extremely flawed player. You accepted the defensive issues and the turnovers and the slow, deliberate pace at which he played because he was such a uniquely gifted shot-creator that he remained enormously valuable in spite of those things. That isn't the case anymore. Not even close. Cleveland has been 19 points per 100 possessions better with Harden off the floor this season. As Danny Cunningham noted before their win over the New York Knicks Wednesday, every member of Cleveland's rotation had a worse net rating with Harden on the floor to that point in the season.

So much of Harden's game for the past two decades or so has started with the rim pressure he's generated. That's mostly been gone this season, and with it has been a lot of Harden's value as a passer. Less help means fewer corner 3s to pass into. When bigs aren't scared of him as a scorer, they don't frantically step up to meet him on drives, opening up his lethal lobs. Harden still gets to the line. He still self-creates plenty of 3s. But without that rim pressure, the flaws become less excusable.

Harden had his best game of the season on Wednesday, a 32-point outburst in that win over the Knicks. Maybe the first few weeks are a blip. Maybe he just wasn't in shape -- he's admitted he didn't play much pickup over the summer. But fitness has always been a concern, and at 37, it's possible and perhaps probable that he can't simply play his way back into shape during the season anymore. He looks like a different player, and if he is, whatever hopes Cleveland had of contending this season likely go up in smoke.

DeMar DeRozan (Age: 37)

Washed meter: 8 out of 10

Harden and DeRozan are polar opposites as offensive players, but big picture, they're going through a similar process. You put up with DeRozan's antiquated shot-selection and poor defense because he got to the basket, got to the line and made all of his long 2s. Well, he's shooting 39% from mid-range this season, his lowest mark in more than a decade, and you can't live in mid-range on 39%. Now, DeRozan's decline as a finisher sticks out far more, and in turn, the fact that he can't really defend anymore becomes harder and harder to justify with minutes. Denver is getting crushed in all of DeRozan's minutes, with or without Nikola Jokić on the floor.

The Nuggets don't have much of a choice but to keep relying on DeRozan. This roster has a severe ball-handling deficit beyond Jokić and Jamal Murray. Someone else here needs to dribble, and DeRozan at least still manages to get to the line relatively often, and he does so without turning the ball. That's helpful. It's not enough. The entire premise of DeRozan as a valuable player rests on his ability to make shots most players shouldn't take. He isn't this season, and if that's the case, there are just few other ways he can make up for it to remain an impactful player.