## 4 Discussion  
The study of physical growth of Lisbon district boys (Portuguese) revealed an age at peak height velocity around 13.45 years of age. In addition, the study of maturational status-related variation of 13-14 years of age (U-14) Portuguese male elite regional basketball players, in relation to physical fitness attributes and individual game performance showed that: (a) older players and early maturing players exceed significantly their peers in body size, body composition, jump power and upper body strength (handgrip and medicine ball throw) in all sorts of maturity classification (i.e., when using 13.30, 13.45 and 13.81 as APHV); (b) among the 172 athletes (sample 2), only 5%, 7% and 22% of the subjects were early maturing players, and 16 players and six players (9%, 3.5%, 0%) were late maturers when basketball player's predicted mean, Portuguese and international reference for APHV were used (i.e., 13.30, 13.45, 13,81 years); (c) older players surpassed their younger peers in PIR (per game and per minute), points scored per game and minutes played per game while early maturers performed better only in rebounds (APHV = 13.81 years) and on-time mature players had higher values of PIR/min and points/min compared to the other maturity groups (APHV = 13.30 years). \begin{table} \begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c} \hline \hline  & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**Maturity Groups (13.30)**} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**Effect of Maturity (13.30)**} \\ \hline
**Variables** & **Early (\(n\) = 8)** & **On-Time (\(n\) = 148)** & **Late (\(n\) = 16)** & \(H\) & \(p\) & \(\eta_{P}^{2}\) \\ \hline GAME PERFORMANCE & & & & & \\ PIR/game & 2.29 \(\pm\) 2.89 & 2.32 \(\pm\) 3.42 & 0.41 \(\pm\) 2.22 & 5.29 & 0.071 & 0.030 \\ PIR/min & 0.04 \(\pm\) 0.48 & 0.14 \(\pm\) 0.23 \(\infty\) & \(-\)0.01 \(\pm\) 0.18 & 6.62 & 0.036 & 0.038 \\ Points/game & 3.01 \(\pm\) 1.74 & 3.95 \(\pm\) 2.67 & 2.51 \(\pm\) 1.52 & 5.53 & 0.063 & 0.032 \\ Points/min & 0.22 \(\pm\) 0.12 & 0.27 \(\pm\) 0.15 \(\infty\) & 0.17 \(\pm\) 0.08 & 7.41 & 0.025 & 0.042 \\ Rebounds/game & 3.18 \(\pm\) 1.76 & 2.89 \(\pm\) 1.90 \(\infty\) & 1.60 \(\pm\) 0.89 & 9.98 & 0.007 & 0.056 \\ Minutes played/game & 12.8 \(\pm\) 2.7 & 14.1 \(\pm\) 3.9 & 13.2 \(\pm\) 3.2 & 1.81 & 0.405 & 0.011 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}   
* APHV, age at peak height velocity; BMI, body mass index; CA, chronological age; CMJ, countermovement jump; CMJ-S, countermovement jump with arms swing; MBT, medicine ball throw; SUM HG, sum of right and left handgrip; PIR, Performance Index Rating; TT, T-test; V20-m, speed 20 m test; %FM, fat mass percentage; FFM, fat-free mass. “Significant difference between early and on-time mature players, \(p\) < 0.05. \(\theta\) Significant difference between on-time and late mature players, \(p\) < 0.05. \(\infty\) Significant difference between on-time and late mature players, \(p\) < 0.05. Although the variety of analytical procedures; the secular growth trend, as most of longitudinal studies were done between 70 and 90; the different proportions of populations; the little variation (more or less a year) of sex-specific estimates of timing and tempo; the APHV have been frequently considered to categorize athletes according to maturity [11; 33]. Portuguese boys' APHV, estimated with PB model 1, was 13.45 years of age with a velocity in the PHV of 6.8 cm/year. The mean APHV for males in this study was somewhat early compared to most of (13.8-14.3 years of age) other PB model 1 analysis [34; 35; 36; 37]. The mean APHV for boys in the present study was also early compared to that for boys in the Wroclaw Growth Study, 14.0 \(\pm\) 1.2 years [38]. The results suggest that our athletes might grow and develop slightly early compared to the majority of samples studied longitudinally although later than a Japan sample [33]. In contrast, the mean velocity (6,8 cm/year) in the PHV was smaller when considering the aforementioned samples (range 8.8-9.7 cm/year) [33; 34; 35; 36; 37; 38].