Being the Youngest Doesn't Make One the Best

One thing that really annoys me, especially in baseball and basketball, where players can enter and have entered the leagues at various stages of life, is when a player achieves a record or a milestone and is lauded as being the “youngest player in the history of the league to accomplish ‘X’”. I always look at that as being a stat for the sake of creating a stat, because being the youngest does not actually mean that said player is the best, it just means that he entered the league at an age where he is probably going to be the youngest to do a lot of things because he or she had had more time in their career to try.

Recently, Detroit Pistons’ Center Andre Drummond notched his 16^th career 20-rebound game, to which ESPN lauded Drummond by announcing that he had achieved the most 20-rebound games before the age of 22 in the history of the NBA. ESPN displayed a graphic that indicated that Drummond’s 16 games were more than previous leaders Dwight Howard and Shaquille O’Neal, who both had 13, and Moses Malone who had 12. What made this stat so maddening is the disparity between the four men on the list with regards to the number of games that they each had played before their 22^nd birthdays.

Andre Drummond entered the NBA after one year of college, and played his first game of NBA basketball in October of 2012, at the age of 19 years and 2 months. Dwight Howard entered the NBA directly from high school, and played his first NBA game in October of 2004, at the age of 18 years and 10 months. Seemingly, these two individuals, if their rebounding prowess is such that they are able to have repeated 20-rebound games, should be able to produce numerous 20-rebound game before the age of 22, as Drummond will turn 22 at the conclusion of his third full NBA season, and Howard turned 22 two months into his fourth.

Shaq, who was tied for second on the list with Howard, entered the NBA after three years of college, and turned 22 just after the All-Star Break of his second NBA season, meaning that he had roughly 120 games in which to accomplish the feat, meaning that he achieved the same number as Howard in less than half the number of games.

Malone’s case is the most unique because he came to professional basketball straight from high school just like Howard, but he graduated from high school at the age of 19, and spent two full seasons in the ABA before joining the NBA. Malone played his first NBA game at the age of 21 years and 7 months, meaning that he had approximately 70 games to play before he would turn 22. Malone would reach 20 rebounds 12 times in those 70 games, meaning that once every 6 games that his team played, Malone would grab 20 rebounds. This is compared to Shaq doing it once every ten games, or Howard and Drummond doing it once every twenty games.

The point is that being the youngest to do something does not mean that said player is the best to achieve it because I always ask how long it took the player to achieve the milestone.

Wilt Chamberlain averaged 27 rebounds per game during his rookie season, but he played his first NBA game two months after his 23^rd birthday. Bill Russell average just under 20 rebounds per game during his rookie season, but played his first NBA game eight months after his 22^nd birthday, meaning that, if ESPN was to count 20-rebound games before the age of 24, chances are, these two men would have the most by a wide margin.

Dwight Howard is credited as being the youngest player in the history of the NBA to achieve every rebounding milestone from 1,000 to 9,000. As I mentioned, Howard entered the NBA from high school, meaning that he is going to be the youngest player to achieve a number of career milestones, provided he is good enough to reach those milestones. Unfortunately for Howard and the stat keepers, Howard grabbed his 9,000^th rebound with the first rebound of the last game of his 9^th NBA season. Chamberlain grabbed his 9,000^thin the 41^st game of his 5^th season, and Russell got his in the 47^th game of his 6^th season. By the time Howard got his 9,000^th, Chamberlain already had more than 17,000 and Russell had more than 15,000, which is why I say that being the youngest is fine, but how long did it take the player to achieve it?

Now, I am not attempting to belittle the accomplishments of Andre Drummond, Dwight Howard, Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, Alex Rodriguez, Ken Griffey, Jr. or any other professional athlete who has the opportunity to enter his or her league at a point earlier in life than most other players. 

However, being the youngest player to achieve a milestone is not an automatic sign of greatness, especially if the playing field is not level. Howard, James, Bryant A-Rod, Junior Griffey, Moses, Shaq, Wilt, Russell, Magic and others achieved greatness over time. Time will tell if Andre Drummond is truly great, or is achieving milestones younger than most solely because he is younger than most. 

There's More to Stats Than Just Numbers

The funny thing about statistics, especially in professional football, is that they are not as clear and precise as they are made out to be, and nowhere is this more apparent than during this year’s free agent signing period.

As some players get signed, and rumors persist about where other players might go, it is startling the things that are reported and considered by the media with regards to the productivity and potential of certain players. Maurice Moton reported in an article for Bleacher Report that Raiders GM Reggie McKenzie is not ready to fully anoint  Latavius Murray as the team’s starting running back, even after Darren McFadden left for Dallas and Maurice Jones-Drew retired, because Murray is “an unproven commodity with only three career starts and 20-plus carries in only two games in 2014”. On the surface, this would look like a valid reason to search for a running back, but looking deeper, and with a mild understanding of football, it is not hard to see what has happened here.

Murray was a reserve in 2013, playing behind Darren McFadden, who the team was trying to get as much of a return on their investment as they could, even though it was clear that he was not what they expected that he would be when he was drafted. In 2014, the team added Jones-Drew, who proved to be as ineffective as McFadden, and this forced the coaches to insert Murray into the lineup, which might not have happened had RB Kory Sheets, who spent 2013 setting rushing records in the CFL, while finishing second in the league in rushing, and winning the MVP of the 2013 Grey Cup with a CFL-record 197-yard game, not gotten injured at the start of the season.

Murray’s having only started three games is not something within his control, nor is his only having carried the ball 20 times in two games solely his doing. The player does not decide if he is going to start, the coaches do, so for the GM to look at his lack of starting experience as a reason to doubt the back, he should ask the coach why that player hasn’t started more. Also, is it possible that the lack of 20-carry games is the result of the fact that the Raiders spent so many games playing from behind that the team was forced to pass more while attempting to make the games respectable? It is difficult to run the ball when the game clock is not an ally.

In truth, this logic exists for nearly every position on the field. WR Michael Crabtree was said to have had “a disappointing 2014 campaign in which he only caught 68 passes for 698 yards and four touchdowns”, but consider that he played on a team where Anquan Boldin caught 83 balls, and a total of 14 receivers caught at least one of  Colin Kaepernick’s 289 completions. Crabtree was the second leading receiver on a team that didn’t really light up the league through the air, and caught 63% of the balls thrown his way, and without looking at every game on film, who knows if the other 37% were bad throws by the QB, were well played by the corners, or were the fault of Crabtree?

If a cornerback only has two interceptions in a season, he is considered unproductive, but it begs the question of how many balls were thrown in his direction. While there are many stats in football that could possibly be attribute solely to the players effort and ability, the most glaring would be tackles on defense and quarterback sacks (but blocking plays a part in these), and pass completions, even though there is a degree of blame that can be attributed to receivers and corners with that one.

Every stat in the game of football is a combination of the player, the play calling and other players on the field, so to look at a player and say that because he hasn’t carried the ball 20 times in a game, it is unlikely that he can, maybe he hasn’t because he is on a bad team that has to throw to stay in games, or because he plays for a running back by committee coach.

This is not to say that every player is better than their stats. More accurately, there might just be more to the player than their stats and more to the stats than just the surface numbers.