You still haven't answered point #1: Gretzky lacked physical presence in a physical and often violent game.
2. Hockey players must play in both the offensive and defensive ends of the ice. Whether or not they excel is another story. Gretzky excelled offensively only. Orr excelled offensively as well as defensively. While Gretzky would have a slight advantage over Orr offensively, defensively Orr dominates Gretzky. Hence Orr is the better player.
3. Maybe I missed one of your posts, but I think you were unable to refute the point that if we make two equal teams, add Orr to one, Gretzky to the other, the Orr team is going to win. (Really just another way of looking at 5 Orrs vs. 5 Gretzkys) That is why Orr is the better player.
1. It's true gretzky lacked a physical presence in a phyiscal and often violent game but that's not really his fault. The guy was a God-given 6'0 and 185 lbs. No amount of work weight room/ fitness work is going to change that by much. He was a twig plain and simple. So Gretzky did what he could with what he had, namely being smarter (and better) than everyone else on the ice to make up for what he lacked.
One could also look at it that Gretzky knew he didn't have or need to have a physical game, so he didn't, whereas Orr had a desire (and to a point a need to as a defenseman) to have a physical component to his game and that is probably what hurt him and shortened his career. At that point is comes down to a personal opinion of how much each individual person weighing in on the debate values the longevity of a career.
2. Why do you say hockey players are supposed to play at both ends of the ice? If that was the case, why are there distinctions between forwards and defensemen? Shouldn't the coach just send five guys out and tell them to line-up wherever and do what ever they want? Forwards are supposed to play offense, defensemen are supposed to play defense. If each can bring the other part to their game, great. But I don't think they're expected to.
Gretzky did play defense and I think his skill at it is undervalued by most because its overshadowed by the stats. He killed penalties even playing with the Rangers and you don't do that if your not good defensively. He probably just went about it a different way than say Carbonneau, Gretzky again used his smarts for it.
I think Gretzky's offensive advantage over Orr is more than slight, and Orr's defense over Gretzky was not quite dominant. But Orr better be remarkably better than a forward defensively, otherwise he's just a 4th forward.
3. And thank God the 5 Orr's vs. 5 Gretzky's debate seems to have been replaced with the more reasonable one of each guy on two otherwise equal teams but it wouldn't be otherwise equal teams because it is after all a team game. In simplistic terms I think in a perfect world a line-up would be 2 purely offensive guys, 2 purely defensive guys and one 50/50 split. So the Orr team would be 2 purely offensive forwards, 1 purely defensive forward and d-man and Orr. The Gretzky team would be 1 purely offensive forward, 1 50/50 split forward 2 defensive defensemen and Gretzky. You wouldn't be planting Gretzky and Orr into the two teams, the teams would be built around them.
While I've thoroughly enjoyed reading and occasionally participating in the thread,(and don't want this comment to bring it to a halt) it really does seem like everyone is going round and round and no one's mind will be changed because everyone has already come with their pre-conceived notion of what makes someone great.
If you value an amazing, injury-shortened career that brought something entirely new from the blueline coupled with a strong all-around game, Orr's your man. If you value a long, dominant career, with stats that re-wrote the book and may never be broken, a career that changed the game by forcing coaches to emphasize defensive play in order to stop a player, Gretzky's your man.
Sorry about the length, but I'll be away for the weekend and wanted to add a few things. Look forward to seeing other opinions on Monday.
