G.O.A.T.: pick your greatest athlete of all time

[Prison Bitch]

With Tiger’s Masters win today, Twatter is asking if he’s the greatest athlete ever. This poll asks: name you greatest athlete you’ve seen. (So Jim Brown, Babe Ruth, Jesse Owens etc all off the table)

Use whatever criteria you wish. Can only pick one.

[WhiteWhale]

Originally Posted by KC_Connection

Old enough to have watched both of them play at their peaks. It isn't diminishing MJ to say that LeBron has had the better career. He simply has and that's only going to become even more obvious as he goes on to shatter his records due to his sheer longevity.

No, but pretending he was better in every way is a joke. It's just easily debunked and shows you're incredibly biased.

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by WhiteWhale

No, but pretending he was better in every way is a joke. It's just easily debunked and shows you're incredibly biased.

More efficient scorer, better passer, better rebounder, better defender. I may be biased, but I'm not saying anything the stats aren't already.

[WhiteWhale]

Originally Posted by KC_Connection

More efficient scorer, better passer, better rebounder, better defender. I may be biased, but I'm not saying anything the stats aren't already.

With all due respect DBPM is a trash stat.

FFS, Kevin Love had a top 5 BPM season, and DBPM is far less reliable than BPM.

[Direckshun]

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait a minute.

The Chiefs drafted Wilt Chamberlain to play TE?!?

[PAChiefsGuy]

Originally Posted by WhiteWhale

I'd like to point out that Wilt and Russell played each other head to head in several championship series'.

Russell won more games and Wilt dominated the stat sheet. I mean head to head Wilt held Russell under 40% and outrebounded him.

Does anyone REALLY think the Celtics would have been a worse team with Wilt? Really?

Plenty of people think that all you have to do is do a Google 'Wilt vs Russell' search. Wilt was all about stats and a horrible teammate. He feuded with teammates and coaches. Russell was a true leader. Kept his team focused on winning. There is no guarantee if Wilt was with the Celtics they win 11- champiiships.

Wilt has all those stats yet he only won 2-championships and had 4 MVPs to Russell's 5. Lol!

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by HolyHandgernade

To me this is just bias. You've decided, without much proof, that Wilt was just a "stat padder", whatever the hell that means. You seem to imply Russell could have put up the same numbers as Wilt, but just chose not to. That has to be the biggest pile of horseshit I've ever heard. You compare Wilt to Westbrook, a player who has never won a Championship, to Wilt who won two and had the misfortune of playing against one of the great dynasties of all time.

What basis is it that Wilt held his team back? Its conjecture on your part because you can't reasonably assail the stats in any other meaningful way. I mean, this was a charge levied at him while he played. He responded that he did what the team needed him to do. If they needed him to pass the ball, he would have done that, but that is not what was asked of him. When he got challenged, he led the League in assists to show the fact he could do that too. When team's played Wilt's team, the team defended to limit Wilt. You couldn't do that to the Celtic teams. Then he gets criticized for "not showing up" instead of the other team successfully challenging the rest of the team to beat them.

But, somehow its Wilt's fault? He was selfish and just "padding stats" because there's never been another "stat padder" in history. Anybody could have streaks of 40, 50 and 60 point nights, they just don't out of deference to the team? I don't even understand how the makes sense to people. If we had lots of tape on Chamberlain and you could really go through it and showcase his "selfishness", then it might have some teeth. But we don't have that, so that write it off to "stat padding".

"He really only should have got 92 that night, that last 8 points was stat padding."

How does that not sound ridiculous? Like the 92 is something other players who stat pad do regularly as well.

That assumes that a player doesn't make his coaches better or does not make his teammates better. We've seen that Lebron makes things a living hell for his coaches. We've seen high usage dominant guys like harden and Melo be very hard to share a court with. Wilt was an extremely high usage guy. Obviously he's an all time great player. Being a ballhog doesn't mean he was selfish. But it can mean his style of play didn't make it easy to be a teammate. That being said, he didn't have a terrible reputation as a teammate or for his attitude, but it wasn't great either. I don't know that Russell could have dominated with wilts team. I also don't think it's even close to a guarantee that he dominates with Russell's team. A high usage player on a well oiled machine team... That's like asking if Melo could have thrived in popovichs system.

[Prison Bitch]

Originally Posted by KC_Connection

More efficient scorer, better passer, better rebounder, better defender. I may be biased, but I'm not saying anything the stats aren't already.

Lies^

[BigCatDaddy]

Originally Posted by Prison Bitch

Lies^

Don't let him side track the thread with his stupid shit.
Only 1 in 10 guys that play the sport for a living agree with him so it's not really even a debate.

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by BWillie

No golfer can ever get it. I played golf in college. Golf is barely a sport. It doesn't require much athleticism to be good at, despite what you guys are going to try to tell me.

Golf is NOT a sport. Not in my book. It's a game.

You have to have standards. Is darts a "sport"? It's not. Golf is like darts but instead of throwing you swing a club, and you have to walk -- but as slow as you ****ing want. Yeah, not a sport.

[Amnorix]

Of course, you can be hella athletic and not be playing a sport. In my book, Olympic gymnastics is also a competition, but not a sport. But that doesn't mean the gymnasts aren't ridiculously athletic. They obviously are. They just aren't playing a sport.

So Tiger is eligible, despite playing something I don't call a sport.

But all that said, no golfer is ever going to win the prize in my book either. Golf demands ultra-precision at a specific and narrow ability -- aiming a ball with a stick. Yay?


To me, "athletic" means good at a wide range of athletic activities and, more specifically -- if I were to come up with 10 or 100 different "athletic" activities and put them out there, someone who is more athletic would do better at them than someone who was less athletic.

For that reason, no golfer is going to be on the list. If I ran prime-Tiger against prime-Wilt in, say, the Olympic decathalon events, Wilt will wipe the floor with him. Wilt had legendary strength.

Someone above mentioned Wilt vs. Russell. Unfortunately, in my book, "leadership" isn't factored into "athletic". Nor is teamwork (except to the extent vision is involved, I suppose).

So Tom Brady and Larry Bird -- both of whom were utterly elite at the team sports that they played in -- are out. Neither was terribly "athletic" as I understand that term.

[oldman]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

To me, "athletic" means good at a wide range of athletic activities and, more specifically -- if I were to come up with 10 or 100 different "athletic" activities and put them out there, someone who is more athletic would do better at them than someone who was less athletic.

I agree. A one-sport dominance doesn't mean you're a better athlete, it means you're good in one sport. This is why I think guys like Wilt and Jackson should be at the top of the list.

[Great Expectations]

I remember Jordan being the best defensive player in the league. His defense is as much of a reason for all his championships as his offense. If LeBron could shut down somebody defensively as well as Jordan he would have more rings.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by oldman

I agree. A one-sport dominance doesn't mean you're a better athlete, it means you're good in one sport. This is why I think guys like Wilt and Jackson should be at the top of the list.

One of the challenges is that over time that's been harder and harder to do. Not because players aren't capable. More that the demands even starting in junior high have made it really really difficult. Lebron probably would have been a football star. Russell Wilson could have been a great ballplayer. It's hard to judge that between different eras. I don't know that we'll see a legit two sport athlete who's legitimately great at two sports in a long while.

[HolyHandgernade]

Originally Posted by PAChiefsGuy

Plenty of people think that all you have to do is do a Google 'Wilt vs Russell' search. Wilt was all about stats and a horrible teammate. He feuded with teammates and coaches. Russell was a true leader. Kept his team focused on winning. There is no guarantee if Wilt was with the Celtics they win 11- champiiships.

Wilt has all those stats yet he only won 2-championships and had 4 MVPs to Russell's 5. Lol!

This is obviously a personal thing with you. You decide to focus on seasons where there was discontent and try and paint that as the overall picture. I don't even know how that is "athleticism" but you've decided to include it because you can't make a cogent argument about it any other way. You dwell on the small sample of dubious reasoning and ignore the larger body of evidence.

[Sorry]

Originally Posted by KC_Connection

More efficient scorer, better passer, better rebounder, better defender. I may be biased, but I'm not saying anything the stats aren't already.

Holy shit lmao..
He had a losing csreer record I. The finals but he has a better career than arguably the biggest athekte if all time? What in the **** lmao no he's not even in the same stratosphere of a defender Jordan was. Paul George was giving James fits when he was in miami and that was prime james