One more category left unchecked:
STEEMIT GOAT FOR SUBLIMINAL WITTY HUMOR:
If paper defeats rock, and rock defeats everything else, rock may well be best overall but losing to paper isn't a good look.
haha, this got me laughing hard, man. Damn. You so good at that. haha.
I was just wondering, hey it's a been a while since I saw any full-measure post, so I go to your feed and see this and I thought, how the hell could I have missed this! Now everybody done say all I gotta to say, haha.
Federer, Tiger, Brady, Floyd, yup. You pretty much got this. Except I read the comments and saw you're going to go for Lebron!?
Don't do it, bro! Don't do it!
The finals losses haunts! haha. Can't wait to see that post, though. Maybe I'll come early this time.
Oh and I might have to go with Bolts for olympics--only because I think if he had as much events as swimming afforded the GOAT phelps, then he might have hurled as much, if not more, blings.
Ahaha, was wondering where you were. You and @thunderbirdcomic both make the GOAT comments and this is right up your alley and CRICKETS from the both of you until now
Ok ok now I feel inspired to make that post (it was sort of written from before but I wanted to go deeper).
It's more about being skeptical of MJ than fully endorsing LeBron. LeBron had suuuuuch worse teams. And 3 of his finals losses he essentially had no chance (first one in cleveland, the one where kyrie and love were injured, and against the DurantWarriors). So it's kind of an odd thing where the weakness of the East plus LeBron's dominance is gonna end up in some finals losses where it was basically a situation of his team not having any chance.
He had two legit losses with Miami.. unlike MJ tho he didn't have the advantage of playing with his superteam for years before they got to the finals tho.. so they were still sorting it out during their first loss
If you put LeBron with Pippen I just think he wins so much.
Interesting case for Bolt. I'll crunch the numbers a little and see if Phelps' crown is under threat.
Ok, ok, I feel the arguments, He balled like crazy in that final against GSW even tho Kyrie was out, and later proved he could have won it by coming back from 3- 1 the next year, so okay, okay, I get that. Plus MJ had more conference finals loses, so...can't wait to read that post.
Oh and don't dethrone Phelps on my account. I'd legit feel bad about that.
Ya it isn't like he didn't show up in his losses.. a couple of them he balled as good as you could ask for.. he def did have at least one finals dud tho (the first one with the Heat), and maybe two (kinda forget their second loss).
So either way it def isn't "Jordan" level in the finals, he wasn't pristine. But, I also don't think other people necessarily need to be held to that standard. It's cool and a cool part of Jordan's legacy, that he did that, but often there's a tendency to automatically lower people when they have a finals loss, like it rules them out from being better than Jordan. But there are different kinds of legacies and I don't think "unblemished in the finals" necessarily needs to be a huge deal, especially because like you say he just had the losses in the conference finals instead.
I gotta go Michael. I'll disclose my biases. I grew up and live in Illinois. I watched every Bulls game back then. Michael had Scottie Pippen. One of the best defensive players of all time. The overshadowed Pippen was probably better than anyone LeBron ever played with. Be that as it may, Jordan is 6-0 in championships.
Had Michael not been suspended for gambling for 2 years (the fake retirement angle), the Bulls would have 8-peated.
I'll grant you that Michael had better teams around him, but he had to overcome better teams to win the championships. He had to overcome the Pistons, to get there led by Isiah Thomas and co.. He beat he Magic led lakers, Barkley led Suns, Drexler led Trailblazers, Ewing led Knicks (in the playoffs several times).
For 6 years of Michael's prime, no one could knock him off the throne.
I gotta be honest, it's tough to evaluate sports teams that I watched as a child because they felt larger than life at the time, in a way teams can't really feel to me now. But I do believe the NBA was in a Golden Era when he had to do it.
Reasonable.
And I know exactly what you mean regarding players back then seeming larger than life. I don't know how much of it is BECAUSE of being a kid and how much is just that era.
A friend of mine who analyzes sports says that his data reflected the 80s and 90s were the best players. And he wasn't sure why, since in general you expect people to be bigger and better as time goes on. He said it finally occurred to him that the way the US demographics work, baby boomers or whatever, that there were more people in their athletic prime back then. (I think.. in any case, he says stats do seem to suggest this was the golden era for basketball.)
I'm probably threading the needle really tight to take Brady over Manning (and other obviously very good players who didn't win as much) but then not take Jordan, hehe.
I love Scottie Pippen and that's a part of why I lower Jordan.
My main argument -- whenever I finally make this post (at this point I've basically said all my arguments lol) -- is that Pippen is a great "compliment". He doesn't have negative overlap in the way you usually have when you pair stars together (because they both want the ball). So I believe Pippen was uniquely team-oriented for someone of his ability, and basically like the dream piece that would help make a team a GOAT dynasty type of team.
That's interesting about the boomers. I could see that being true about the higher population meaning more great players. Scottie Pippen was 6 foot 7 and even played a lot of point guard. You could slide him in at 1 - 4 on a moment's notice. I think Brady over Manning is an easy pick. Manning vs Favre would be a better debate then Manning vs Brady. Both great regular season players that were, for the most part, not at all clutch in the playoffs.