Is Michael Jordan the best athlete of all time?

You are the one who is joking. How can you tell me is a soccer players is skilled or has the mental ability of a tennis player? You can't cause they can't even use their hands.

Football players are not skilled. The very most skill they have is to catch a ball, give me a break. Running fast or being an OL isn't a great skill.

Basketball again, are a bunch of tall freaks. The fact that when a sport doesnt' require height isn't dominated by 7 feet or 6'9 players proves that.

And most tennis players were also part of junior soccer teams but eventually have to choose a sport.

And the fact that the US has NO great pros anymore just shows how difficult it is even though the US has millions of players. And you think Football players are skills, get out of here...

distance THIS! wrote:

RichardRider wrote:

My wife blurted out Kaitlyn Jenner for the female athlete. She doesn't give two ? laden turds about sports.

Cracked me up!

oooooohhhhh conservatives....always so good with the jokes.

Aw

pretty today?

Swooshhh wrote:

Best athlete of all time , no question it would be a soccer player , and the best athlete in his prime Ronaldo.

There is a retro TV channel , that had a series call Battle of the AllStars . People from different sports , doing running , strength , agility competitions . The worst was the PGA golfer , the second worst all the NBA players . the B league soccer player ruined the show by winning everything easily . Specially when he beat the NFL running backs at sprints and the half mile run.

You obviously didn't see the multiple times Renaldo "Skeets" Nehemiah crushed the other sports top athletes. That was before they got to the obstacle course.

Which leads to the thought of the future of a guy like Grant Holloway. I watched him for the first time at Arkansas indoor meet a couple years ago and thought he could be the next Carl Lewis. Yeah,he was awesome in the 60HH and LJ but when he cranked out an incredible leg on the 4x4 I thought anything is possible for him. He could hj and 400H at a world class level immediately.

DontFeedTheTroll wrote:

My usual answers to "best athlete of all time" are Jim Thorpe and Babe Didrikson.

You may have better answers, but it's really tough to argue against either one of these.

Can we maybe limit the discussion to people who played in the last sixty or seventy years and there's actual video tape evidence to give us an idea of what they did

Even the last hundred years

DontFeedTheTroll wrote:

My usual answers to "best athlete of all time" are Jim Thorpe and Babe Didrikson.

You may have better answers, but it's really tough to argue against either one of these.

No it's not. The greatest athlete is the greatest runner since running the greatest of all sports. C'mon!

Eaton was awesome, but Mayer took his record pretty quickly after his retirement. If there's a question-mark over being the greatest decathlete, you can't be best athlete across all sports.

Official Speed Force User wrote:

Most people don't mention this but young Jordan was super quick and fast as hell when he came into the NBA. Beatings from the Pistons and other teams forced him to put on more muscle and thus he lost some of that speed and quickness. Anyways i think Jordan could have run a 10.7 in the 100m in his early years. I mean i seen lesser athletes than him run 10.7 in the 100. Also his vertical leap was about 3 and a half feet. The guy was a beast of an athlete and he definitely gets my vote.

The NBA had to make rule changes because of Wilt Chamberlain, none for Jordan. Chamberlain was bigger, strongest ever, had more stamina (mins per game) than any other and that includes Jordan & Shaq. He was the only player who could block Kareem's "unstoppable" sky hook. His vertical jump rivaled Jordan's.

1. Free throw lane was widened from 12 to 16 feet, to stop Chamberlain from getting the rebound every single time.

2. Inbounding over the backboard was no longer allowed. Chamberlain could not be stopped from scoring. NBA banned it.

3. Near the top of the key, during free throws, Chamberlain would throw the ball up toward the basket, take two steps, jump behind the line toward the rim and dunk the ball. He did this in college.

NBA banned it.

Chamberlain was the greatest player/athlete ever. N

Guys all sports are going to have their limitations about what type of athletic ability they favor

Basketballs probably one of the best all-around athletic ability Sports

If you're just a runner that's not being an all around athlete that's just being a good runner although probably if you had tried most Runners could have been at least good at other sports

I think soccer baseball basketball football tennis lacrosse all can have great athletes

Just whatever sport you go into your abilities become kind of homes.for that sport.

Michael Jordan's definitely up there with the best. Fact that he's a little taller than average might limited him slightly in some abilities. But obviously it's all about who you're competing against and what abilities the sport dictates

Baseball has had a lot of great athletes from Willie Mays to Eric Davis, Bo Jackson, Rickey Henderson, Tim Raines

Obviously the same for football basketball tennis.

If you just want to look at overall coordination, agility, speed, strength, reaction time, cardiovascular conditioning then probably someone who is a little more compact will have an advantage. So clearly Jordan being 6 6 was great for basketball but if you just testing pure physical abilities then being tall and slender wouldn't serve you as well but it obviously made for the perfect build for basketball

One other item about Chamberlain, in the 1961-62 he AVERAGED over 48 mins per game for the entire season, that's proof of his incredible endurance. He would laugh at today's players with their "load management.."

Lol at the Chamberlain pick. As if getting rebounds and scoring in the NBA makes you a great athlete. It's just using height with the right positioning and developing some basketball shooting skill.

None of them are very impressive athletes, including Chamberlain. None have done anything impressive that's measureable. At least some football players have gotten down to around 10 flat for 100m. Put Chamberlain in a one on one objective sport like boxing and he gets knocked out of ring by Fury. Make leBron do a high jump and he won't go higher than a Russian teenage girl. Have Jordan wrestle Karelin and would get crushed like a peanut. Have shak throw a shot put and there will be women throwing farther. All the basketball player love is extremely subjective. Basically fantasies that only these people believe. Just like the clowns that think wwe wrestlers are superhuman.

The best male athlete is definitely up for debate. I think it's fair to have it as Bo Jackson vs. Michael Jordan at this point. LeBron James is NOT in this discussion.

On the women's side though, Babe Didrikson is not even close to the top. Today's modern female athlete would destroy her at anything she attempted if she were alive today in her prime. She was dominant in a time when there were very few competitors. As an analogy, she was the best of Division III compared to today. Most dominant ever in any era for a female athlete, but not even close to the best athlete.

Best female athlete of all time is Simone Biles.

No. Eliud Kipchoge is.

I've gotta toss Jim Brown into the discussion (if not already mentioned).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Brown#College_sports_career

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Brown#Professional_football_career

You forget he did what he did over 60 years ago, which as pointed you was far beyond just basketball. Very different times and training methods from today.

If strength, endurance and agility are the guidelines I would put elite world-class gymnasts over basketball players.

Just because basketball players can jump and double dribble well doesn't make them great.

Who are you top 15 or so then? You got 100+ so 15 should be easy off the top of your head. Doesn't have to be exact or in any particular order.

Absolutely certain soccer players, tennis players, and boxers are in the top tier of athletes (federer, ronaldo, messi, tyson), not even sure where you're going with that lol. Hockey is a tough one because individual athelticism is harder to gauge IMO. I definifely think theres a few guys who deserve a nod here but I'm Canadian so probably biased towards hockey.

Do the Jordan/basketball haters in this thread even watch sports though lol? The guy was insane. There's other athletes in the mix and I respect some of your guys suggestions but some of the other stuff being said is just plain dumb.

Jordan was pretty good at throwing a ball through a hoop. That's it. His most famous dunk was bettered by a no-name white boy named Brent Barry...who was still wearing his warm up jacket:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiXVIFuQnQM

Mike Conley Sr. was a triple jump olympic gold medalist - he dunked with his off hand from WAY further back than Jordan. Clearly he is a superior athlete than Jordan too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZz6qJvbrgY

This is definitely a joke! Too funny!

After reading some of the picks in this thread, I really have to take opinions of Letsrun very lightly. Some people having a decathlon as a pick? Some totally disqualifying basketball players? What a joke.

I gotta say Jordan and I agree with some saying Bo Jackson being up there.