Can greatest players really hold up?

[ForeverRoyalKC]

I have had my own opinion about this all my life and I'd be really curious to see what you all think.
Can you really say a player in any sport was the greatest of all time? I know we have Michael Jordan, Emmitt Smith, Tom Brady, etc.. But I question whether players could've held up outside of their own time period.
Would Tom Brady had held up to the Jack Lambert Steelers? Would Michael Jordan been as good against the Magic Johnson Lakers? Would Emmitt been able to run wild against the Ray Nitschke Packers?

And, as an addition, I never believe a player is the best in one sport of all time. Like some saying Jerry Rice was the greatest football player of all time. He didnt play defense, he didnt quarterback, etc.. You may say best ever at his position, but not football player period. And even then, you go back to would Jerry Rice have taken a shot from from Butkus or Tatum and been the same?

I will agree with players in sports being ONE of the greatest, but not THE greatest.

To be fair, this goes the other way too. Could a Deacon Jones have caught a Patrick Mahomes? Could Larry Bird been able to guard a Lebron James? Could Babe Ruth caught up to a Aroldis Chapman fastball?

[PocketsAintFull]

Agree 100%. There are many players among the greatest, but it seems silly to definitively rank them.

(this is also why I find Halls of Fame to be slightly unnecessary, but that's a different rabbit hole )

[Buster Cherry]

Considering that Michael Jordan's and Magic Johnson's careers overlapped considerably all you have to do is look in the old stat books to get your answer to that question. What you probably meant to say was how would Jordan have done against the Lakers of Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain, and Elgin Baylor or the Celtics of Bill Russell and company.

[CBeisbol]

Originally Posted by Buster Cherry

Considering that Michael Jordan's and Magic Johnson's careers overlapped considerably all you have to do is look in the old stat books to get your answer to that question. What you probably meant to say was how would Jordan have done against the Lakers of Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain, and Elgin Baylor or the Celtics of Bill Russell and company.

LeBron

[ForeverRoyalKC]

You got me there, Buster. Yeah, I should've went farther back in Jordan's case.

[Ragnar]

Originally Posted by ForeverRoyalKC

I have had my own opinion about this all my life and I'd be really curious to see what you all think.
Can you really say a player in any sport was the greatest of all time? I know we have Michael Jordan, Emmitt Smith, Tom Brady, etc.. But I question whether players could've held up outside of their own time period.
Would Tom Brady had held up to the Jack Lambert Steelers? Would Michael Jordan been as good against the Magic Johnson Lakers? Would Emmitt been able to run wild against the Ray Nitschke Packers?

And, as an addition, I never believe a player is the best in one sport of all time. Like some saying Jerry Rice was the greatest football player of all time. He didnt play defense, he didnt quarterback, etc.. You may say best ever at his position, but not football player period. And even then, you go back to would Jerry Rice have taken a shot from from Butkus or Tatum and been the same?

I will agree with players in sports being ONE of the greatest, but not THE greatest.

To be fair, this goes the other way too. Could a Deacon Jones have caught a Patrick Mahomes? Could Larry Bird been able to guard a Lebron James? Could Babe Ruth caught up to a Aroldis Chapman fastball?

I agree with your basic premise. Especially when it comes to football. Not only do you have to separate by position, but by era as well. It's a lot more pronounced in football. A couple of things.

Jerry Rice played against some of the hardest hitters of football. I think he could play in any era. Top 3 WR IMO.

I can tell you how Emmitt Smith would do against the Ray Nitschke Packers. That Cowboys offensive line would push that Packer defense up and down the field all game long. Starr would have no time to throw and the Packers would lose something like 63-0. Back during the 60s the NFL still didn't quite have the best athletes up and down the roster. A decade or two later they started rolling in.

[dkgo]

These discussions are pointless because elite humans are always getting faster, stronger, and more athletic as science advances leaps and bounds.

Give an elite player from the 60s modern equipment and training and they are just as good as someone today.

It's always more relevant to judge someone against their peers.

[Antonin]

I agree that it's best to judge a player against his or her peers. Maybe the best we can say is that so-and-so was the greatest in their time.

But "greatest" discussions are fun to have. Not because they can ever prove anything, but because they make us examine the careers of great players we may never have seen, but should not forget about.

[rudel.dietrich]

We have these arguments all the time in the office. There are two different ways of going about it.
The 'time machine' method and the 'if they were born in year x' method.

If you took Jordan from say 1988 and put him into today's NBA he would be damn good. Probably an all-star.
But not as dominant simply because of how the game has changed.
Watching the Last Dance and lots of old games during quarantine showed just how much basketball has changed.
The pace was super slow in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s. Like frozen syrup slow.
And the amount of contested mid range jumpers was insane. Jordan became the master at jumping, hanging in the air like he was levitating and had probably the best body control of any basketball player ever.
But he shot so many contested jumpers because of the pace, his team and the triangle offense.
That would never fly today. Unless a mid range jumper is at the end of the shot clock or wide open there is never a reason to take one.
So if you choose the time machine method then he would be a great player today but not as dominant.
But that is just a single season. If you let him have an off season then his ultra competitive nature would make him hire a shooting coach and lock himself in the gym from 18 hours a day from late May until early October and he would emerge as a much better 3 point shooter able to play the modern game.

In the reverse, lets take an average big man from today and put him back in the mid 1950s.
Lets take say...Derrick Favors and put him in 1955.
He would average a 45/30 season and be put on trial for being a witch.

But other things might also happen. If you took Stephen Curry and put him into the 1981 draft then his effortless pull ups from 34 feet would have been beaten out of him by age 11 and he would either be a 3-pt specialist taking 90 attempts per season or shooting endless mid range jumpers.
And with his early career ankle problems he might of flamed out of the league in 3 years and we never heard of him.
He would of been a cool footnote on Basketball Reference as a player who led the league in 3 pt % from 1981-1984 on 1.3 attempts per game and that is it.

But lets say that Jordan was born in the year 2000 and would be entering this upcoming draft.
Given how insanely competitive he was, he would already be a fantastic slashing two guard with a good 3 point shot.
He would realize that a mid range game would not be how modern teams won games and would have cut that out of his game.
He would either slash to the basket or stay behind the line.
The paint is now less clogged than in his time due to on any given team you had between 3-5 great shooters out on the floor.
In his time you had like 1.25 and that one great shooter stood in the corner and shot about two 3 pointers a game.

That would open up a lot of space for him to drive and he would thrive.

His cigar and gambling habits and staying out until 7 am would be all over social media but I don't think he is the type of person to give a damn.
If Lebron spends 1 million dollars a year on his body then Jordan would spend 1.1 million a year out of spite.
His personality would serve him well in any era.

I can't speak much to football but that sport has changed too. Now someone like Smith or Jim Brown would be expected to be happy with 20 carries a game and come out of the backfield to catch 8-12 passes a game.
Jerry Rice I think would be fine in this era. He was never the most athletic receiver but had fantastic hands and was a great route runner.
In today's game he would still excel given the sheer number of passes and the importance or good route running to beat the complex defenses.


Another player I think about is Wayne Gretsky. Hockey in the 1980s was faster paced with points per game much higher.
Players today getting 100 points seasons are more rare. Much less 200 point seasons.
Defenses have gotten better and more complex and goal tenders are much better both in skill and are bigger and with bigger equipment.
I would have to find it, but back at the beginning of this year I found a graph of the square centimetres covered by goalies and it has gone way up since 1980.
Also the butterfly style of golatending for whatever fell out of favour in the 1980s.
Roger Crozier and Tony Esposito used it and was effective but then it went unused for over 15 years.
Dominik Hasek brought it back and is one of the greatest goaltenders of all time.

[Leo_The_Lip]

Originally Posted by Ragnar

I can tell you how Emmitt Smith would do against the Ray Nitschke Packers. That Cowboys offensive line would push that Packer defense up and down the field all game long. Starr would have no time to throw and the Packers would lose something like 63-0. Back during the 60s the NFL still didn't quite have the best athletes up and down the roster. A decade or two later they started rolling in.

I've always found baseless assertions such as this to be vaguely racist--think about it some. Saying players from the 1960's wouldn't be smart enough to realize the benefits of modern training methods or modern offensive and defensive schemes is very much the same arguments used to keep black players out of MLB or the excuse why blacks could not play quarterback. In short, this argument is distinctly 'racist' in a modern way.

As to the size of players, no one can doubt modern training methods produce bigger players. But at what cost to the players' lives? There are lots of articles by large linemen talking about the wear and tear on their bodies and the need they found to drop 50-100 pounds or more at retirement, simply to retain their health.

[ForeverRoyalKC]

There is absolutely NOTHING racist about this WHATsoever! This is strictly athlete vs. athlete.

[Scipio Africanus]

Originally Posted by Leo_The_Lip

I've always found baseless assertions such as this to be vaguely racist-

Yeah, what isn't these days.

[CBeisbol]

Originally Posted by Scipio Africanus

Yeah, what isn't these days.

Stuff has been racist in the US for 500+ years

Talking about it isn't what makes it racist

[Scipio Africanus]

And calling everything "racist" makes the word meaningless.

[CBeisbol]

Originally Posted by Scipio Africanus

And calling everything "racist" makes the word meaningless.

Ignoring racial inequalities perpetuates them

[cephasjames]

Originally Posted by CBeisbol

Stuff has been racist in the US for 500+ years

Talking about it isn't what makes it racist

The United States hasn't been around for 500+ years.

[Scipio Africanus]

Originally Posted by CBeisbol

Ignoring racial inequalities perpetuates them

How about if I just ignore you.

[CBeisbol]

Originally Posted by cephasjames

The United States hasn't been around for 500+ years.

The roots of modern day racism in the US date back at least 500 years

Originally Posted by Scipio Africanus

How about if I just ignore you.

That also wont mean that I won't exist

Some people develop object permanence sooner than others

I wonder if there is any correlation between delayed childhood development and people who hear "systemic racism impacts" something and interpret it as "that's racist!!!"

[cephasjames]

Originally Posted by CBeisbol

The roots of modern day racism in the US date back at least 500 years

Emphasis on "at least." I would argue that racism has been around as long as people discovered others were different than themselves and that that already existing racism made its way across the sea with the colonists and mixed with the racism that already existed here before they showed up. Racism may not be an original sin, but it sure has a long-standing history. One far longer than the US has even been a thought.

EDIT: Anyway, on topic... because of the varying eras all sports go through, I don't think it's possible to definitively determine "the greatest player" in each sport. But is sure is fun to try.

[CBeisbol]

Originally Posted by cephasjames

Emphasis on "at least." I would argue that racism has been around as long as people discovered others were different than themselves and that that already existing racism made its way across the sea with the colonists and mixed with the racism that already existed here before they showed up. Racism may not be an original sin, but it sure has a long-standing history. One far longer than the US has even been a thought.

EDIT: Anyway, on topic... because of the varying eras all sports go through, I don't think it's possible to definitively determine "the greatest player" in each sport. But is sure is fun to try.

Agreed

Racism has shaped the world into what we have today. One would have to be pretty ignorant to not see that. The history of the US specifically is intertwined with racism.

And ignorant and unintelligent people will see that statement and say "they think the entire history of the US is racist!"




People do seem to think it's fun to argue over who was the greatest. And people think different things are fun. Some people think yelling their opinion loudly while hurling insults is fun. Others think doing deep research and using statistiacal methods is fun. So like to search out some information that confirms their preconceived notion. And some of us like to do little bit of all of that

Reminds me of a thing I've heard a few times regarding the "saber vs traditional" debate. People have said things ,like "sabers want to take all the fun out of these debates because they'll just point to a number and say, 'see, this player was better'". Anyone who thinks that way has never really understood anything abkut how "saber" works.