Franchise Starters: 10 Young Cornerstone Sports Stars

If you’re the general manager of a sports team and you’re looking to quickly improve your win-loss percentage, you may be heartened by this list of the 10 athletes under age 25 to start a franchise with, because it offers hope through youth and talent.

Whether it’s the ridiculous duo of Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott with the Dallas Cowboys or Karl-Anthony Towns with the Minnesota Timberwolves, it has never been a better time to be a young, skilled athlete, because the days of sitting behind a proven veteran are over.

The criteria for assembling this list are that each athlete has already made the transition into the pro ranks by putting up staggering, All-Star-caliber stats and has received acclaim for future superstardom.

And while it is important to remember that past performance does not equal future success, these 10 sports stars have done enough to make everyone bullish about their prospects.

Honorable Mentions

Chuck Burton/Associated Press

Kristaps Porzingis—He's not as all-world so far as the others on this list, but he's getting closer.

Mike Trout—He missed the cut by a few months as he turned 25 in August.

Kawhi Leonard—He turned 25 in June.

Kyrie Irving—He's a great offensive player, but his defense lags, which lessens his value.

Neymar

All Brazil football legends are known by one name, which is already an indication that Neymar da Silva Santos Junior, 24, is well on his way to achieving that lofty stature one day.

Another indication would be that since his professional debut in 2009 at the age of 17, Neymar has played with such dazzling skill that he is one of the few soccer players in the world who can break the decade-long stranglehold that Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have had on best-player-in-the-world trophies.

In the 2015-16 season, which included La Liga, Champions League, Copa del Rey and World Cup qualifying, Neymar scored 35 goals in 57 appearances.

The magical and devastating trio of Luis Suarez, Messi and Neymar scored 89 goals for Spanish giant Barcelona in the 2015-16 season, with Neymar netting 26 winners, good enough for fifth place.

Neymar’s combination of speed, dribbling ability, vision, passing and finishing are the reasons that Viraj Patel of The Cauldron named him to the starting 11 in his ranking of the world’s best soccer players younger than 25.

Neymar, who finished third in this year’s Ballon d’Or voting, has received high praise from former Brazilian soccer legend Ronaldo, who said the youngster has all the tools to take over Barcelona after Messi retires.

Anthony Davis

Despite his lingering injury concerns, The Brow is still the most lethal mix of size, strength and skill in the NBA—and that includes players older than 25.

Just 23, Davis, who was selected first in the 2012 NBA draft by the New Orleans Pelicans, is the name many general managers salivate over when discussing a franchise cornerstone.

In his fifth season, the silken power forward has career averages of 21.2 points, 9.7 rebounds and 2.4 blocks per game.

Through the early phase of the 2016-17 NBA season, Davis is putting up 30.5 points, 11.2 rebounds and 2.9 blocks, career highs in all categories, and has a ridiculous player efficiency rating (PER) of 29.55, per Basketball Reference.

Oh, and he also scored 50 points against the Denver Nuggets on Oct. 26, followed by a 45-point explosion two nights later against the Golden State Warriors.

Any franchise in need of a premier rim protector, rebounder, scorer, floor general and leader would be hard-pressed to do better than Davis.

In fact, in a 2015 general manager survey conducted by NBA.com, a whopping 86 percent of shot-callers answered that they would choose Davis if they could sign any player in the NBA. Kevin Durant was second at 6.9 percent.

Any questions?

Mookie Betts

What do you call a right fielder who just had one of the best seasons for a 23-year-old in MLB history that may actually be playing out of position?

If you’re in charge of the Boston Red Sox, you call him Mookie Betts, and you thank good fortune that one of very best players in the game has already mastered a position he was given because his natural spot is occupied by an all-timer in Dustin Pedroia.

Scott Lauber of ESPN.com described Betts’ 2015-16 season as good enough to justify an AL MVP award that was given to the transcendent Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim’s Mike Trout, with the Red Sox outfielder coming in second.

Trout earned 356 points and 19 first-place votes to Betts’ 311 points and nine first-place votes.

Lauber’s assertion was based on Betts’ superlative stat line of 214 hits, 31 home runs, 26 stolen bases and 41 doubles, which was only the second time in MLB history that a 23-year-old had achieved these numbers.

The fact that Betts, who turned 24 after the season ended, pushed Trout for the MVP award speaks volumes about how baseball writers evaluate his talent and impact, especially since Betts put up his numbers on a team that went to the playoffs.

Betts’ talent is so evident that Trout hailed him after winning the AL MVP.

“I got to know him a bit,” Trout said. “He’s a special talent and hopefully it’s going to be a battle the next 10-15 years.”

Auston Matthews

By now, the legend of Matthews’ NHL debut with the Toronto Maple Leafs is something that Canadian hockey fans will print in a children’s book format and recount to their children some day.

The storyteller will clear his throat and intone: “And lo, on that day when Astonishing Austen, a strapping lad of 19, scored four goals against the Ottawa Senators, all who watched marveled at this feat and greatness was bestowed upon him that night.”

Matthews, who was picked No. 1 in the 2016 NHL draft, has lived up to the preseason hype as the eventual savior of the Maple Leafs’ franchise. Even though he’s hit a bit of a wall in the past 10 games, his blend of size, speed and skating skill and stick-handling has fans salivating about his prospects.

Through the first 16 games of the season, Matthews had six goals and six assists, but more importantly he has shown poise and maturity, light-years beyond his age.

Jason Diamond of Rolling Stone wrote that Matthews’ first game proved he is the future of hockey, a player who gives Maple Leaf fans genuine hope that he can lead them to the Promised Land.

Karl-Anthony Towns

In his rookie season, the player known as KAT played all 82 games and averaged 18.3 points, 1.7 blocks, 10.5 rebounds and 2.0 assists at the age of 21. He was the unanimous Rookie of the Year.

Through the early part of the 2016-17 NBA season, he is averaging 21.8 points, 8.5 rebounds and 1.3 blocks, with a PER of 22.76, per Basketball Reference.

Although Towns is listed as a center, what makes him so unique is that he has embraced the NBA’s movement toward the positionless player.

He is equally as effective at power forward as he is at center. Because he has three-point range—he shot 34 percent last season and is shooting 42 percent this season—he can stretch slower centers out to the perimeter, where he can take them off the dribble or hit that trey.

By confounding the traditional notions of a center as a back-to-the-basket player, Towns is redefining what “center” and “power forward” mean in a league where versatility has become the lingua franca of success.

Towns is also an outstanding defender and nimble passer and has already taken the reins of leadership on a young Timberwolves squad that is a future powerhouse.

That’s probably why FoxSports.com's Rob Perez ranked him fourth on its list of the 25 best NBA players younger than 25. His all-around game makes him a cornerstone for any franchise that wants success.

Michael Fulmer

Fulmer, 23, of the Detroit Tigers was named the 2015-16 AL Rookie of the Year, and he earned every vote with an 11-7 record, .611 win percentage, 3.06 ERA, 132 strikeouts and one shutout. He also struck out 11 batters in a May game, tying the Tigers record for most strikeouts by a rookie pitcher.

His numbers were so good that he challenged his Detroit Tigers teammate Justin Verlander as to who was the ace on that pitching staff.

In fact, Fulmer would have placed in the top 15 for pitchers with the lowest ERA in the American League, but he just missed the innings-pitched number to qualify.

The reason Fulmer gets on the list ahead of some other stellar younger players is that many general managers rank good pitching ahead of good hitting and fielding when it comes to building their teams.

That fact proved true when the Tigers traded Yoenis Cespedes to the New York Mets in 2015 to acquire Fulmer.

At the time, Ben Badler of Baseball America wrote that if Fulmer’s changeup became more reliable, he had the chance to become a solid No. 3 starter. Badler was prescient, but he undersold Fulmer just a bit.

With only one full season under his belt, Fulmer has emerged as one of the best young pitchers in baseball.

Dak Prescott

At this point, the Dak and Zeke Show in Dallas has become must-watch sports TV. But, honestly, who saw this coming?

Well, the Cowboys brass will tell you that a little thing like Prescott picking up a Styrofoam cup from the ground and tossing it into a bin is the type of attention to detail they saw when they worked him out prior to the 2016 NFL draft.

At the ripe old age of 23, Prescott has mashed his foot on the NFL’s neck and shows no signs of relenting.

According to Pro-Football-Reference.com, Prescott has completed 67 percent of his passes for 2,835 yards, 18 touchdowns and only two interceptions.

He already has three fourth-quarter comebacks in his young career, and his ability to learn from mistakes and not repeat them bears the hallmark of a 10-year vet, rather than a fourth-round draft pick who some GMs thought had character issues because of his spring arrest for DUI.

But at this point, half the teams in the NFL would trade their starting quarterback for a chance at a young stud who seems poised to dominate the league for years with his running mate Ezekiel Elliott and the best offensive live in football.

Not only is Prescott the unquestioned leader of the Cowboys, who own the best record in the NFL at 10-1, but, according to Nate Davis of USA Today, he is running third in the NFL MVP race behind teammate Elliott and Oakland Raiders starting quarterback Derek Carr.

Paul Pogba

Pogba, 23, a talismanic midfielder with one of the coolest surnames in international soccer, has already been named the best player in the world younger than 23. That was just an appetizer for his world-record-setting transfer fee from his former Italian club Juventus to Manchester United this past summer.

It may be hard for some fans to look past Pogba’s $116.4 million transfer fee, but, the truth is, the midfielder has already developed into a pitch general with uncanny speed, power, vision and skills.

According to FourFourTwo.com, which analyzed Pogba’s statistics in comparison to seven other top midfielders—including Cesc Fabregas of Chelsea and Andres Iniesta of Barcelona—the once-and-again Man U player fares quite well when stacked against the best.

During the four seasons he played prior to joining Man U, Pogba scored 34 goals in 178 games, third behind Yaya Toure of Manchester City and Fabregas.

In that same time period, Pogba had 32 assists, ranking sixth on the list of players chosen for the comparison, and also created 54 chances on goal.

But Pogba’s greatest value is in his ability to control the pace of a game, much the same way a point guard takes the reins of a team on offense in the NBA.

He has supreme dribbling ability, admirable technical skills and the height to win headers to clear the ball in his own goal area or to create scoring chances in the opponents’ end of the pitch.

With at least a decade of “Peak Pogba” on the horizon, few players in the world are as valued as the French national. Through 14 appearances for Man U, he has two goals, 23 tackles, 10 blocked shots, 21 interceptions and 111 one-on-one duels won.

Pogba will never be Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo when it comes to scoring goals, but his overall excellence on both ends of the pitch, and the room he has for further development, makes him an invaluable asset for any elite soccer club in the world.

Connor McDavid

Perhaps even more than Auston Matthews, McDavid, 19, is a player who has shown dazzling promise as a second-year player for the Edmonton Oilers.

Oilers officials clearly believe in McDavid, as he is the team’s captain and best player, even though he isn’t old enough to grab a drink with most of his teammates after a game.

Through 22 games, the No. 1 pick in the 2015 NHL draft has 10 goals, tied for fourth-best in the league. He also has 18 assists and 28 points, which leads the NHL in both categories.

Those numbers and McDavid’s unnatural maturity make Arizona Coyotes coach Dave Tippett’s accolades ring more true.

“You get generational players that come along every so often and they become great players; the names everybody knows,” Tippett said in an interview with Craig Morgan of ArizonaSports.com. “He’s going to be a top player in this league for a long time.”

Ezekiel Elliott

The player named Zeke is not only the best running back in the NFL through Week 12, but he may also be running away with the MVP vote, ahead of teammate Prescott and even the legendary Tom Brady.

All the 21-year-old Elliott has done since entering the league this season is lead the league in rushing yards with 1,199 and rank second in rushing touchdowns with 11, one behind league leader LeGarrette Blount of the New England Patriots.

Zeke also leads the league in rushing first downs at 71 and has already broken the Cowboys' rookie record for rushing yards in a season, held by Tony Dorsett with 1,007 yards in 1977.

Elliott and Prescott are writing their records in pencil, because every week they have to erase their numbers and add new ones to a body of work that has already made Dallas a legitimate—and scary—Super Bowl contender.