Rapids History By The Numbers: #20

We're finishing off our first score of players and a lot of the big names have already shown up.  There are a few more left though, including a couple at #20.

Josh McKay (1996)
Ross Paule (1997-1999)
Henry Zambrano (2000)
Neathan Gibson (2001)
Mark Chung (2002-2005)
Nicolas Hernandez (2006-2007)
Tom McManus (2008)
Jamie Smith (2009-2013)
Joseph Greenspan (2015-2016)
Ricardo Perez (2017-2018)
Nicolas Mezquida (2019-2020)

There are three obvious choices on the list are Ross Paule, Mark Chung, and Jamie Smith.  They all played similar positions, mainly winger (though Paule moved around a bit more), so that makes comparisons somewhat easy.

On the national level, Paule was a two time All-Star in '98 and '99 and was the league player of the month in June of '98.  Chung was also a two time All-Star, in '02 and '03, he was also named to the MLS Best XI both those seasons, and was league player of the month in July '03.  He was also a league MVP finalist in 2002.  Smith's only national recognition was starting and winning MLS Cup 2010.

At the team level Smith only appears as having the 10th most corner kicks in team history.  Paule is third all-time in assists, ninth in corner kicks, and second in game-winning assists, though those numbers are split between his 3 seasons wearing 20 and his 2 seasons wearing 6.  Chung is 7th all-time in goals, 9th in assists, 8th in shots, 7th in shots on goal, ties for 7th in game winning goals, tied for 8th in game winning assists, and 6th in multi-goal games.

As far as longevity, Chung played in 84 games (starting all but 2 of them) and score 26 goals along with 20 assists.  Paule played 75 games wearing #20, starting 62 times, with 15 goals and 18 assists, and Smith started 39 of his 62 appearance and had 7 goals and 13 assists.

I think its clear that Smith is not the choice.  Paule suffers from splitting his Rapids time between two numbers, if he had played his whole career in Denver in one number he'd likely have been the best in that number.  Looking at just the time in #20 though, Mark Chung clearly had the best run.  Its appropriate to decide this today as Chung is celeb rating his 50th birthday.  Happy birthday Mark!