Is Crosby/Ovechkin the best player rivalry in big 4 sports leagues in the 21st century?

[AvroArrow]

Wade has never been close to being the #2 player in the world. Stern gifted him a title because he hated Mark Cuban’s guts and then LeBron delivered him a couple more. Wade was a top ten or so player of his era but never in the same realm as many of the guys he played with and against.

Did you actually watch the NBA ? Lmao, Wade is widely regarded as the 3rd greatest shooting guard of all time, behind only Jordan and Kobe. Kobe was slightly declining when LBJ joined Miami, it was undisputed Lebron/Wade as the 1/2 in the NBA.

Curry wasn't Curry yet, Durant was extremely young and couldn't even ball handle properly at that point in his career (they exposed him in the finals). Who were the other top dogs in the NBA at that point ? Dirk/Duncan were way out of their prime, Melo was 1 dimensional.

Wade was a top 10 player since he entered the league and only went up from there.

 

[AhosDatsyukian]

This is a made up requirement.

Everything when it comes to sports comparisons and analysis is completely made up. It's my personal point of view. Feel free to disagree if you like but I find it absurd to compare QBs or say they have a rivalry against each other when they never actually compete against each other and the teams consist of 53 players.

 

[bambamcam4ever]

Did you actually watch the NBA ? Lmao, Wade is widely regarded as the 3rd greatest shooting guard of all time, behind only Jordan and Kobe. Kobe was slightly declining when LBJ joined Miami, it was undisputed Lebron/Wade as the 1/2 in the NBA.

Curry wasn't Curry yet, Durant was extremely young and couldn't even ball handle properly at that point in his career (they exposed him in the finals). Who were the other top dogs in the NBA at that point ? Dirk/Duncan were way out of their prime, Melo was 1 dimensional.

Wade was a top 10 player since he entered the league and only went up from there.

Dwight Howard was considered the second best player in the NBA at the time, not Wade.

 

[wintersej]

Everything when it comes to sports comparisons and analysis is completely made up. It's my personal point of view. Feel free to disagree if you like but I find it absurd to compare QBs or say they have a rivalry against each other when they never actually compete against each other and the teams consist of 53 players.

Sure, it just seems silly to me that the 15-20 seconds a game Ovi and Crosby are actually competing against each other means much. Maybe if they were both centers and were actually matching up it would have more meaning, but those few times Crosby rotates over to defend Ovi doesn’t hold that much weight to me.

 

[AhosDatsyukian]

Sure, it just seems silly to me that the 15-20 seconds a game Ovi and Crosby are actually competing against each other means much. Maybe if they were both centers and were actually matching up it would have more meaning, but those few times Crosby rotates over to defend Ovi doesn’t hold that much weight to me.

I would not disagree with you there. Team sports have team rivalries. There are some occasional exceptions where players do matchup directly with each other like a WR/CB in football or some NBA players who do basically shadow each other on the court. The less players on a team in a sport the closer you get to individual rivalries, but to me true player to player rivalries to me only really exist in individual sports where success is entirely dependent on the 2 players against each other head to head. Tennis big 3 is definitely the best example of a player rivalry recently. And Alcaraz Sinner now. Further in the past there were of course a ton of epic boxing rivalries.

Again, I know many will disagree but that's just how I see it. An example of why is that in team sports the outcome depends on so many more things than just players who are competing directly against each other. A WR could dominate a CB shadowing him to the tune of 250 yards and his team still loses the game. In tennis, boxing, etc. the outcome is 100% dependent on the players against each other.

 

[AvroArrow]

Dwight Howard was considered the second best player in the NBA at the time, not Wade.

LOL, you forgot the sarcastic emoji right ?

 

[bambamcam4ever]

LOL, you forgot the sarcastic emoji right ?

The original #NBArank top 10: Where are they now?

LeBron James topped the original #NBArank list, as he did again this year, but there have been plenty of changes over the years. We chart the rises and falls of the best players 2011 had to offer.

www.espn.com

Oof, hate it when I'm right. Will accept an apology now or a rain check.

If you can't remember these things, there's no shame in just sitting out the conversation.

 

[Ratbath]

Did you actually watch the NBA ? Lmao, Wade is widely regarded as the 3rd greatest shooting guard of all time, behind only Jordan and Kobe. Kobe was slightly declining when LBJ joined Miami, it was undisputed Lebron/Wade as the 1/2 in the NBA.

Curry wasn't Curry yet, Durant was extremely young and couldn't even ball handle properly at that point in his career (they exposed him in the finals). Who were the other top dogs in the NBA at that point ? Dirk/Duncan were way out of their prime, Melo was 1 dimensional.

Wade was a top 10 player since he entered the league and only went up from there.

Anybody calling Wade a top 3 sg all time is an unserious person. You’re taking him over Iverson and Reggie miller? Gervin and Clyde? Yeah I don’t see it at all.

LeBron obviously was better. Apparently even a “way out of his prime” Dirk could beat LeBron and Wade with Jason Terry as his second best player so yes him obviously. Duncan unquestionably still better than Wade until his final season or two. Durant was already better in college than Wade ever became. Dwight definitely was more dominant for a while before he tapered off. Steve Nash put together a couple
MVP seasons while Wade was in his prime. Kevin Garnett existed as well. This is far from a comprehensive list.

 

[Signupnow]

Both played on superteams. Messi elevated his teammates. Cristiano made them worse. How is it hard to understand my point?


Muh referee is the reason Messi beat Cristiano the majority of times. CR7 fans (whom I believe are likely closeted) have the dumbest arguments entirely devoid of logic.


Somehow that didn't extend beyond the UCL though right since Cristiano was unable to beat the top La Liga teams often enough to secure even close to the amount of league titles and Spanish cups to Messi. It also didn't extend to international play since Cristiano has never in his entire career scored a single knockout WC goal LOL and he has played 5 World Cups. He has also scored 0 WC knockout assists in his entire life.

His Euro knockout record is also beyond horrendous. Most of his goals and assists took place in the groups and it took him 252 minutes of knockout time to to get any goal contribution. In his only international trophy he got injured ten minutes into the game and his team won without him.


It's in fact much easier to stat pad in Europe. Copa America is genlocked to South America where every nation plays football well. In Europe you're playing against teams like Andorra, Lichtenstein or Faroe Islands lmao. There are 20 countries in Europe with the population of under 5 million. Messi at an old age scored 5 goals against Estonia like two years ago. Impossible to do that in South America.

What is true however is that winning the EUROs is harder due to many more top competitors.

We are all entitled to our opinions. I also believe messi is better but my original post was about him being in a different tier as a footballer which is false imo even if you feel he's more well rounded because 10 ronaldinho vs 10 Messis for example plus goalies I believe ronaldinho would make a fool out of messi's team 100% he just got a lot more tools and skills (in his prime) but does that make him better in a team of individuals? No because being able to score like Messi and Ronaldo is a very valuable trait.

 

[AvroArrow]

The original #NBArank top 10: Where are they now?

LeBron James topped the original #NBArank list, as he did again this year, but there have been plenty of changes over the years. We chart the rises and falls of the best players 2011 had to offer.

www.espn.com

Oof, hate it when I'm right. Will accept an apology now or a rain check.

If you can't remember these things, there's no shame in just sitting out the conversation.

If you think Dwight at any point in his career was the 2nd best player in the NBA, just LOL

ESPN ? Checks out

 

[AvroArrow]

Anybody calling Wade a top 3 sg all time is an unserious person. You’re taking him over Iverson and Reggie miller? Gervin and Clyde? Yeah I don’t see it at all.

LeBron obviously was better. Apparently even a “way out of his prime” Dirk could beat LeBron and Wade with Jason Terry as his second best player so yes him obviously. Duncan unquestionably still better than Wade until his final season or two. Durant was already better in college than Wade ever became. Dwight definitely was more dominant for a while before he tapered off. Steve Nash put together a couple
MVP seasons while Wade was in his prime. Kevin Garnett existed as well. This is far from a comprehensive list.

EASILY, also Iverson plays the point.

IMO anyone arguing that D Wade isn't the 3rd best SG of all time behind Jordan/Kobe is unserious who probably watched very little basketball.

That Mavs team was a properly built team, it wasn't just Dirk. Tyson Chandler coming off the bench was massive, Jason Kidd was still a solid player. They were a complete unit, like the Billups/Wallace Pistons, it was a complete team.

KD was my favorite player at the time but that is just straight up false. He couldn't dribble, Miami full court pressed him and forced him to put the ball on the court every time, that's how they won the series. It was only after that finals he worked on his ball handling skills. KD in college was not better than prime D wade, stop it. Prime Durant, yes.

Steve Nash was great, but not close at that point. Dwight was good but played a totally different position, he was obviously going to get more blocks/rebounds cause of that.

KG was great as well, but he was entering a decline when Lebron joined Miami. It was that transition period, where stars like Kobe/Duncan/Nash/KG/Pierce/Tmac(injuries) etc were passing the torch to the next generation. We are talking 2010.

 

[Offtheboard412]

Anybody calling Wade a top 3 sg all time is an unserious person. You’re taking him over Iverson and Reggie miller? Gervin and Clyde? Yeah I don’t see it at all.

LeBron obviously was better. Apparently even a “way out of his prime” Dirk could beat LeBron and Wade with Jason Terry as his second best player so yes him obviously. Duncan unquestionably still better than Wade until his final season or two. Durant was already better in college than Wade ever became. Dwight definitely was more dominant for a while before he tapered off. Steve Nash put together a couple
MVP seasons while Wade was in his prime. Kevin Garnett existed as well. This is far from a comprehensive list.

Reggie Miller better than Wade? Lol absolutely ridiculous take. Iverson split time between both pg and sg, but played the pg more often. The other two you can at least make a (weak) argument for but Reggie Miller is nowhere near Wade. It's the type of claim an "unserious" person makes.

 

[SirKillalot]

– Ronaldo holds the record for most international goals, with 123 goals in 201 appearances, surpassing Ali Daei in September 2021.

This record means absolutely nothing. A solid bunch of those goals came against Andorra, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Faroe Islands and so on. The definition of stat padding when looking at the qualifier groups that Portugal has been in over the years. This is like playing teams on 3 division lower than you and claiming to be the king of all kings.

– Following his brace against Liechtenstein in a Euro qualifier, Ronaldo became the first-ever player to score 100 competitive international goals.

As mentioned Liechtenstein...
Here is the hype with Ronaldo. He will celebrate like a 5 year old Pejorative Slur with his celebration after tapping in a goal, when all the build up and assist etc. came for good to very good involvements and he'll claim all the glory.

Whoever believes he is in the same spectre as Messi has no business claiming they know anything about football / futbol / soccer.

Now it doesn't mean he isn't a good player because he is and he is a very good goal scorer. But there is a quite clear separation.
You know why he went to Saudi-Arabia?
1. Because of the money and that he is getting older, thus he didn't do so well in the Euro's.
2. Because he was so terrified of missing having the most goals of all time record, so he went there so he could still have a chance and statpad playing inferior teams and teams where players have said they got instructions to let Ronaldo score a goal every game...he was never been a true team player, only when it has a big chance of benefitting himself. Honestly its a bit sat that he hasn't grown up and celebrate like a 5 year old, but maybe has to do with his father being a bum and died when he was a young adult so he didn't have a male figure to keep him somewhat humble.


To the thread question, I think overall the Crosby/Ovechkin rivalry is the best one the last 20 years in NA. Maybe Curry/Lebron is the second, but idk not being American I don't have the feel that they were truly seen as head to head competitors because of how different they are as players. The fact that its a question if they are, it just cements that Jordan is the best of all time in basketball.