FrenchBlue23 :
If your remember, O'neal held the title of youngest player to play in an NBA game, a title that has since been broken by ummm Andrew Bynum.
Youth stats mean nothing. See, 'the quickest player to score 1,000 points' means something, because anyonebreaking that record could be any age. You could come into the league at 38 years old, blow up, and be the quickest to 1,000, and that would mean something.
But 'the youngest player to 1,000' means nothing. All it means is you came into the league earlier, and you scored points. You could come into the league at 17, ride the pine, get like 250 points that season, ride the pine the next season at 18, get like 250 for the season, then have a fairly decent start the next season, at 19, where you get 500 points before Christmas. Then, bam... you're the youngest player to 1,000, and it's not necessarily because you're better than everyone before you, or that you're better than everyone before you at your age. It's just that you came in quicker, which ITSELF means very little. I mean, it's something to brag about, but it's nothing of real substance. I guarantee GMs don't sit around and go, "C'mon, you know you want this guy. He's the youngest guy in the history of the NBA to get a triple double! You know you want that!"
Youth stats are too often thrown around like they actually mean something important, relevant, and they don't. "But ska, if you're the youngest to play in the NBA ever, then you're going to be around longer." Not actually. It's not like everyone can play 'till they're 40, and some dude that comes in at 18 is going to have 22 years in the league.
4L8O15S16T23!42
My 5 teams:
1. ANGELS,
2. LAKERS (I grew up on Angels/Lakers games),
3. UK WILDCATS (my wife is from Kentucky),
4. TN TITANS (we married and started our lives together in Tennessee),
5. L.A. SPARKS (WNBA/Sparks fan since Day One). When my teams aren't playing, I'll always show love for these SoCal teams: L.A. CLIPPERS, S.D. PADRES, Anaheim DUCKS, USC TROJANS, S.D. CHARGERS, L.A. AVENGERS, L.A. DODGERS, U.C.L.A. BRUINS, L.A. KINGS, L.A. GALAXY. "This game is in the refrigerator! The door is closed, the lights are out, the eggs are cooling, the butter's gettin hard, and the Jello's jigglin!" -
Chick Hearn (R.I.P.)