Oden vs. Howard (and other star centers)

Stats for each players first 10 NBA games, adjusted to 30 minutes.  (Oden averaged 19.9 minutes per game in his first ten; Howard averaged 29.9)

For added perspective, I've added:

Aldridge's first ten games, also adjusted to 30 minutes;

Al Jefferson's game 20-30 (giving him a chance to adjust at his young age;

Bynum's first ten games of his second season (because he played limited minutes in his first season), adding the latter two because of their reputations as among the top centers in the NBA this year:

Jermaine O'Neal first ten games of his fourth year, age 21:

and Dikembe's Mutombo's first ten games of his first season, when he was five years older than Oden is today.

Points/rebounds/turnovers/blocks

Howard:  6.5   10.3    2.4    2.2

Oden:    12.7   10.6    2.7    2.55

LMA:        8.1     4.7     .4      0.8

Al J:         8.4      4.7    1.0    1.3

Bynum  12.4      9.3    1.8    2.2

O'Neal    7.6       9.2     2.2   0.8

M'tbo     14.7     10.8    3.1   1.9

Howard was a year younger than Greg, but Oden is coming of an entire year layoff, so experience would seem to be a wash, or even favor Howard during his first year.

The only player to outperform Oden in any category was Mutombo, who scored more in his first ten games.   But note that he shot early and often: 15.4 shots per game, hitting just over 43 percent from the field.  So Oden has been more efficient than Mutombo was over these compared ten-game stretches.

I've left out Shaquille, who had a sensational rookie year from its beginning, and David Robinson, who started very well.  Shaquille also was young, but represents a true exception.  Robinson was 25 years old when he began his NBA career, so I think comparing him is less fair.  I use Mutombo because despite being much older than Oden is today, Dikembe illustrates the typical pattern: star centers do not start their career with outstanding performances. 

Their typical pattern is similar to other NBA players: Steady improvements between years one, two, three, four and five, which typically is among the player's peak years.  Peaks can be as short as three years or, in the special case of Karl Malone and very few others, as long as ten.

Based on these comparisons, no one should be discouraged by Oden's performance.  The evidence, instead, more stronly suggests that he could be very special.

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But having said that Shaquille was the overwhelming exception:

Shaquille's numbers:  18.5 pts; 11.9 rebounds; 2.7 blocks; 3.6 turnovers

However, Shaquille's superior scoring numbers came from the fact that he averaged almost 16 field goal attempts and almost 11 free throws per game.  The fact is, he was a net liabilty offensively during those ten games.  Had he merely averaged 40 percent on his field goals--a percentage which dooms a team to losses, and 60 percent on his free throws--missing close to five points a game from the line, he still would have averaged 18.65 points per game, which is more than he averaged.

To make matters worse, he averaged a turnover more per every thirty minutes, which to all intents and purposes negates the additional rebound more than Oden per game that he grabbed (in fact, some efficiency rankings subtract more points from a turnover than they reward for a rebound, and with good reason.  A turnover is a shot lost; a rebound tha Shaq did not get could have gone to one of his teammates, at no net loss to the team.

So Shaq's scored more points and grabbed one more rebound per 30 minutes than Greg has, for the first team games of their professional careers.  But most, if not all, systems that rank player's effectiveness would, I beleive, actually give Oden higher marks--higher, in fact, than all of the players listed above.