Voight
#winning
Crosbys is skewed by partial seasons.
I have Ovy/Sid as a 1A/1B. Same tier. Ovy possibly higher.
Is Mcdavid the greatest Athlete in the big 4 Sports since Lebron James?
- Thread starter hamzarocks
- Start date
Crosbys is skewed by partial seasons.
I have Ovy/Sid as a 1A/1B. Same tier. Ovy possibly higher.
Every single source I see states that there are roughly 450million "basketball players"(ie people who sometimes go on the court and throw a few). Anyway they are no more aspiring basketball players than I am as a runner and I do run on occasion.
The talent pool for, professional, basketball is pretty much freakishly tall americans of certain complexion. The average height is around 2 meters, that's just riciulous I don't even know a single person that tall.
Several years ago a panel attempted to answer which sport was most difficult. "The panel included sports scientists on the Olympic Committee, researchers who study human muscle and movement, an athlete who competed successfully at both baseball and football (Brian Jordan), and sports journalists who spend their lives documenting the rise and fall of the best athletes."
Qualities looked at were endurance, strength, power, speed, agility, flexibility, nerve, durability, hand-eye, and analytic aptitude.
Top 5 were:
1. Boxing
2. Ice hockey
3. American football
4. Basketball
5. Wrestling
doesn't answer OPs question but thought it was interesting
Qualities looked at were endurance, strength, power, speed, agility, flexibility, nerve, durability, hand-eye, and analytic aptitude.
Top 5 were:
1. Boxing
2. Ice hockey
3. American football
4. Basketball
5. Wrestling
doesn't answer OPs question but thought it was interesting
North Cole
♧ Lem
- Jan 22, 2017
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Talent wise it's possible but the issue with the "greatest" is that optically LBJ is closer to MJ than McDavid is or probably ever will be to Gretzky. Gretzky has a decent argument for being the GOAT of GOATs. While that might mean McDavid is greater despite being further from his respective GOAT because his GOAT was better, I can see why some might say that the other player is greater because they rose higher in their respective sport.
In terms of talent, yes, assuming you are talking basketball, American football, hockey, and baseball.
Grate n Colorful Oz
The Hutson Hawk
Maybe you should leave america and visit Asian countries. It's played across the americas, most common wealth nations and very popular in asian countries.
Future GOAT
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Yep, out of the team sports Hockey was shown to be the most difficult to be good at by a significant enough margin.
Maybe you should stop being both fact resistant and totally unrealistic. Also I am not, thank the gods, American.
Anyway as I said there are 6 Chinese NBA players that speaks for itself really the sport is just not an inclusive sport so the talent pool, regardless of how many fantasillions of asians that play it, is per default small when it comes to professional basketball.
How many % Americans of color above say 6'8 plays professional basketball at one point or another in their lives? I suspect the % is laughably high.
Grate n Colorful Oz
The Hutson Hawk
Hope this will end the debate. Maybe inform yourself next time.
Basketball in China - Wikipedia
Since you know you're completely wrong, you've moved the goalposts to the player pool, whivh is just ridiculous.
How can basketball not be one of the most practiced sports in the wolrd if it's the favorite sport of the most populous country in the world?
MessierII
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The NBA Eastern Conference was a joke for most of those years.
It would be like McDavid making the Finals with like Nashville as the next best team in the division while also superteaming to have like Pastranak or Josi join him and Draisaitl so he has the best team in the conference by a mile.
Take the current Western Conference and move out Colorado, Vegas, Dallas, and maybe even Winnipeg and sub in Philly, Columbus, Washington, and Ottawa and thats probably still stronger than some of the Eastern Conference opposition LeBron had ie: the Raptors without Kawhi etc.
If LeBron played in the West earlier in his career he maybe makes the Finals like 3 times.
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I don't know shit about basketball so I can't say. As for baseball he hasn't surpassed Mike Trout. He likely hasn't surpassed Clayton Kershaw for prime/career achievements yet, and his peaks don't match 2021 or 2022 Shohei Ohtani either. With that being said, I do think you could make the argument that he's closer to Gretzky than Kershaw/Ohtani are to the all-time greats of baseball though (Ohtani's last two seasons are all-time great achievements but if he can't maintain his two-way play he won't end up in the inner circle).
For football I think you could make the argument. Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes each have very strong cases, but I don't think either is quite in the discussion right now for a top 10 player of all time the way McDavid is.
For football I think you could make the argument. Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes each have very strong cases, but I don't think either is quite in the discussion right now for a top 10 player of all time the way McDavid is.
This doesnt really mean much given hockey's absurdly small talent pool.
It's like saying a division 6 (enrollment 350) high school hockey team has better athletes than a div 1 (enrollment 2,000) basketball team.
Hope this will end the debate. Maybe inform yourself next time.
Basketball in China - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
Hope this will end the debate. Maybe inform yourself next time.
Basketball in China - Wikipedia
Hope this will end the debate. Maybe inform yourself next time.
Basketball in China - Wikipedia
Since you know you're completely wrong, you've moved the goalposts to the player pool, whivh is just ridiculous.
How can basketball not be one of the most practiced sports in the wolrd if it's the favorite sport of the most populous country in the world?
To begin with I claimed that the talentpool for professional basketball is small(which it is, I may add that it's probably the smallest talentpool of any teamsport) and you gave me some shit about how 1 billion people play basketball, which is both false and irrelevant(not to mention a ridiculous claim). Is walking the worlds most popular/competive sport in your eyes?
Perhaps "1 billion" people at one point or another wen't to a cage(or was forced to do it in school for 30 min a week or something) and threw a couple of shots at some point in their life but that doesn't make them aspiring basketball players.
I am pretty sure that basketball "statistics" include me since our teacher forced us to play that shit in school on occasion.
There are 6 Chinese basketball players in the NBA all time that tells me all I need to know about it's popularity, it's probably pretty popular but no more . The vast majority of all Chinese are so short that it's impossible for them to make it in basketball anyway.
"The NBA has aprox 1.4 million followers on Tencent app", okay that proves there are 500 million, or whatever, basketball players in China. Again use your brain do you honestly believe that the majority of Chinese people, including elderly, women and toddlers play basketball on a regular basis and hope to become NBA stars?
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I think there are tons and kids who dream of being the next Jordan, Kobe, LeBron etc.
And tons who do play in Asia (pretty sure the NBA is the no.1 North American league in China for popularity and also the most popular sport in the Philiphines, a country of 111 million).
The marketing reach of the NBA and Nike along with other sponsors is just enormous.
You can probably find thousands of legit kids in China that can play at a fairly high level (ie: make an amateur or beginner player look stupid 1 on 1).
The problem is yes … unless you are like 6 foot 3 minimum your odds if making the NBA are slim. Which makes NBA players more like magical athletic unicorns, they are both amazing athletes but also physical freaks of nature.
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Future GOAT
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That's not at all what that study was saying, but if you want to be insecure about it, you do you.
karhukissa
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Hockey is a difficult sport to get good at because its almost like two sports in one … you have to be good at hockey itself but also be a world class ice skater, which is not a natural thing humans do unlike say running.
I know exactly what the study says, and I agree; it takes an immense level of all-around athletism to play our game relative to other sports.
But to deduce that hockey players are better athletes than others is nonsense. Nothing more, nothing less.
The talent pool likely fluctuates based on the position. It's obviously quite small for forwards.
For guards, however, it's probably huge. The typical NBA guard is 6-0 to 6-3.
I would say that Hockey is the most difficult sport to play out of football, soccer, basketball and baseball. The other sports you are planted with your feet on a flat surface. You have more time to react in the other sports and speed of the game is much faster in hockey. There is no comparison.
There is no other athlete who gets the attention that he draws from defenders than McDavid and that includes Lebron and Messi. You can't argue that point.
There is no other athlete who gets the attention that he draws from defenders than McDavid and that includes Lebron and Messi. You can't argue that point.
deckercky
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Well said. McDavid is obviously great, but has no argument for being GOAT. LBJ has an arguable case for being GOAT (weak, but its there).
JPeeper
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I call malarky on this.
You can start playing basketball and football in Jr. High/High School and make it in the NFL or NBA, there's no way you start baseball that late and have even a hope in hell in even playing AAA. The same goes for hockey, if you aren't skating when you're a little kid you'll never play in the NHL.
Since OP said N. American Big 4 (which would elimate Messi even though it's him) I'll go with Ohtani. He is an elite pitcher and an elite hitter. He should be making elite starting pitcher money + elite hitting money aka like $75 mil a year.
