Is Michael Jordan the best team sport athlete of all time?
- Thread starter Mysterio79
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i can't tell if you're talking about his dominance as a player or his effect on the sport
Messi and Ronaldo are the best attackers to have ever lived. This has become almost universal fact. It's almost a pre-requisite in elite tier football for centre backs to be "ball playing CBs" and to be just as quick as the strikers they are defending against.
Athletes in general are getting stronger thanks to advancements made in nutritional sciences and football tactics are getting better thanks to data analytics.
It's cumulative.
Messi, Ronaldo, Mo Farah, Usain Bolt, Federer, Nadal, Serena, Lebron, Phelps....
It also really depends on how you approach this question because there isn't a definitive answer to the question. For me, I tend to put a lot of credence in how dominant a player was relative to their era but I will account for how weak or strong their era is too. If we're simply going by some hypothetical best player regardless of era, I think that also introduces more questions because then what happens when that player from 1000 years ago or some other time period is granted access to the best modern medicine and training, how much does that change them and how would they then compare to the best of today?
I'm not very interested in football so I can't really speak to how good they are relative to players 70-80 years ago or certainly not much further back then that. A lot of the other people you've mentioned are athletes that don't play team sports.
Then you start discussing potential, not actual results. I think it's much healthier to talk about what actually did happen, rather than delve into paths not taken. Yeah, it's not a level playing field, but that's real life.
That's exactly why comparing athletes of different eras is ultimately quite pointless.
Wayne Gretzky scored 200 points in a season four times. Nobody else other than peak Lemieux at his best has ever even come within 50 points of 200.
So. Him.
So. Him.
Go back in time like 10 years and win a few of the Finals series he lost.
If we're discussing insane stats, there have been 5 quadruple doubles in NBA history. Hakeem Olajuwon has two of them.
Dont forget about changes in rules and rule interpretations as times go by. Sports science and analytics have to account for those too. Traveling in particular, keeping your hand on top of the ball was a big deal during Russell's time so your iso-crossovers and perimeter isolation moves in general, are just not being trained during their time.
Plus, those shoot 3 to make 2 penalty free throws. Gives you less incentive to practice your FT with those kind of rules.
Plus, those shoot 3 to make 2 penalty free throws. Gives you less incentive to practice your FT with those kind of rules.
Hakeem never gets the respect he really deserves, you'll find no argument from me. The Dream Shake was legit unguardable. Not his fault they only had the two rings.
Didn't he do that in an era where the NHL didn't have goalies, or something.
Like scoring (and by proxy, assisting) was a joke back then compared to now? I heard somewhere.
Had they stuck with Moses Malone during Hakeem's early years, he could have conceivably had more rings.
Problem was, outside of a very small window, Hakeem usually played with way lesser talent.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-butterfly-effect/
they had goalies, they just suck compared to today.
It won't happen unless James rattles off 2+ titles in a row, which will be tough with his current team and with him getting closer to the inevitable drop off. Jordan has more titles and more buzzer beaters so people are going to hold that against James whether he deserves it or not.
I mean, kinda? But then at the same time he still has every record by a huge margin..
LeBron also has two losses in the finals, where Jordan was 6 for 6.
What that means in practicals terms is nebulous but 'not losing when it counts' is a thing.
Offense was up in that era yes, but nobody else from his era was even within 70 points in their best years other than Lemieux.
People that go with Jordan (myself included) point to the man's clutch gene. There was just nobody better with the game on the line or with the spotlight on him. A lot of younger people want to say LeBron but remember the knock on him until about 2013/2014 at least was that he never wanted the ball in the big moment - I remember how passive he was in the first Heatles finals against the Mavericks.
He actually has five losses in the finals and three wins. The one loss I absolutely hold against him is the series against Dallas. There were at least three times where LeBron had the weaker team. When he first faced the Spurs and was still a kid, and three of the times he faced Golden State (though he still won one of those). You could argue the Spurs team in 2013 or whatever year it was was better too but I'm sure most won't see it that way. Jordan lost several times in the playoffs before the 90s but people don't hold it against him because it wasn't in the finals for some weird reason.
No. Gretzky was. There will never be another NHL player as good as he was. There isn't even a close second. At least with MJ a compelling argument could be made for Lebron, Bird, Magic, Kareem, Wilt and Russell.
You should, I mean Arthur Dayne also won all the time, except the one time it really mattered.
So few mentions of Babe Ruth.
7-2 in the World Series
HoF talent as a pitcher
HoF player as a batter
Completely changed the sport
7-2 in the World Series
HoF talent as a pitcher
HoF player as a batter
Completely changed the sport
Actually it is. The big names don't do shit in long races (Tour, Giro, Vuelta) unless they have a whole team supporting them.
Nothing really. Mj story in the playoffs, some of his absurd playoff stats, his 6/6, his comeback, his ending bulls-career shot, its all too perfect. He's fighting against a legacy, a story too perfect. LBJ is probably as good as MJ, they are very different players but MJ has that aura following him forever.
I can't dispute Bradman as the outstanding individual contributor to a single team sport. But there's more we can play with.
For all-round contribution, a shout out to C.B.Fry - cricket for Sussex, Hampshire and England; soccer for Corinthinans, Southampton and England; Rugby for Blackheath and the Barbarians.
For team contributions, you'd probably be looking at longevity and influence on the team as a whole, which favours the less glamorous positions: maybe Peter Schmeichel, Muttiah Muralitharan, Sean Fitzpatrick.
For all-round contribution, a shout out to C.B.Fry - cricket for Sussex, Hampshire and England; soccer for Corinthinans, Southampton and England; Rugby for Blackheath and the Barbarians.
For team contributions, you'd probably be looking at longevity and influence on the team as a whole, which favours the less glamorous positions: maybe Peter Schmeichel, Muttiah Muralitharan, Sean Fitzpatrick.
If you win individually rather than as a team it's not a team sport. Cross-country skiers also help each other out, but it's still an individual sport.
So you've decided to double-down on being wrong, instead of admitting you spoke without knowing anything about cycling as a sport. Good for you.
It doesn't work like that in ciclysm. You see, the team as a whole is putting all their effort to make one specific member win, but if you look at the top 20, half of them are from the same team. For one guy to win the Tour you need a team of people working together for 20 days dominating the race while your leader does his thing on the big days. Without the team effort the leader does jackshit, and that's fact. In some instances the leader is not even the best ciclyst but he still wins, that's why it's a team sport. It's like motor sports, yeah, Hamilton is the shit, but without the team behind he is nothing. And it's not like in Tennis for example where of course there's a coach, a doctor and whatnot but in ciclysm and motor sports the relationship between the team and the leader is way more deep than in tennis, golf or fencing no name a few.
On the other side, nominating people like Messi or Cristiano is more or less the same concept. They are nothing without the team even if they are the most visible ones. At least that's how I see them: the visible heads of amazing teams.
