Is Michael Jordan the best athlete of all time?

shootpost wrote:

Three myths:

No track athlete will ever be considered the best athlete in the world. So few pursue the sport to the highest level we get a small talent pool. Eaton is amazing, but if you took every football, basketball, soccer player worldwide and trained them in decathlon from a young age that WR would be shattered.

No athlete before the 1970s will ever be considered the best athlete in the world. The science and competition just wasnt there. Babe Ruths competition was maybe equivalent to single A ball players today, and that is generous.

Lebron James is a better athlete than Jordan. So no for michael jordan.

You are aware that Eaton's record was already torched by Mayer, right?

Simple question of math and sample size.

The answer is NO.

Basketball players are NOT world class athletes.

Period.

The greatest athletes are going to be in the sports with the largest population of potential world class competitors.

Sprinting is probably the most competitive sport. Soccer is probably the most competitive team sport.

Basketball is a primarily American competition of height - that favors athleticism and skill.

The subset of super tall Americans is just not that large.

Michael Jordan, LeBron James etc. -were simply the best amongst 50,000-100,000 tall Americans (with a small number of tall foreigners mixed in).

Usain Bolt was the fast out of 6 Billion people.

Did you know that Michael Jordan, Sergey Bubka, and Garry Kasparov were all born in 1963? Also, all three men were 6 time world champions, and are still arguably the GOAT of their game/sport. Kasparov had the most impressive post-playing career though.

Velocibuddha wrote:

Simple question of math and sample size.

The answer is NO.

Basketball players are NOT world class athletes.

Period.

The greatest athletes are going to be in the sports with the largest population of potential world class competitors.

Sprinting is probably the most competitive sport. Soccer is probably the most competitive team sport.

Basketball is a primarily American competition of height - that favors athleticism and skill.

The subset of super tall Americans is just not that large.

Michael Jordan, LeBron James etc. -were simply the best amongst 50,000-100,000 tall Americans (with a small number of tall foreigners mixed in).

Usain Bolt was the fast out of 6 Billion people.

If Bolt is such a great athlete, why did he never play in the NBA? He's pretty much the same size as MJ! Maybe Muggsy Bogues is the GOAT athlete!

Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell were both extraordinary T&F athletes along with being REALLY tall so the guy who made that silly comment about tall people is wacky.

Jim Brown and Bo Jackson obviously should be high on anyone's list.

Extraordinary? Please do tell us what they were able to achieve in t &f.

Yes. Gordie Howe and Wayne Gretzky should be high on any list.

Bio Dome wrote:

Velocibuddha wrote:

Simple question of math and sample size.

The answer is NO.

Basketball players are NOT world class athletes.

Period.

The greatest athletes are going to be in the sports with the largest population of potential world class competitors.

Sprinting is probably the most competitive sport. Soccer is probably the most competitive team sport.

Basketball is a primarily American competition of height - that favors athleticism and skill.

The subset of super tall Americans is just not that large.

Michael Jordan, LeBron James etc. -were simply the best amongst 50,000-100,000 tall Americans (with a small number of tall foreigners mixed in).

Usain Bolt was the fast out of 6 Billion people.

If Bolt is such a great athlete, why did he never play in the NBA? He's pretty much the same size as MJ! Maybe Muggsy Bogues is the GOAT athlete!

1) Bolt is Jamaican, so basketball was not a legitimate choice.

2) False- Jordan is statistically much taller than Bolt. (The percentage of people shorter than Jordan is much, much, much larger than the percentage shorter than Bolt).

3) Who the f# is Muggsy Bogues?

95% of the world knows who Bolt is.

Only Basketball Nerds (0.005% of the world knows who Muggsy Bogues is).

4) If Michael Jordan were such a great athlete why didn't he do sprinting or soccer.

He would have been much more famous.

(#4 is a dumb argument but you used it first).

Bio Dome wrote:

Did you know that Michael Jordan, Sergey Bubka, and Garry Kasparov were all born in 1963? Also, all three men were 6 time world champions, and are still arguably the GOAT of their game/sport. Kasparov had the most impressive post-playing career though.

Magnus Carlson is far superior than Kasparov. Carlson has the highest rating in history. Carlson is only 30 and has the 2nd most amount of time as #1 in history (only behind Kasparov). Carlson's competition is much tougher, as computer engines have changed the game.

You have to consider athletes who were so good they changed the rules of the game to level the playing field. Michael Jordan doesn't fit into that very select groups of athletes. So I'm taking Wilt Chamberlain who influenced the expansion of the "the key" that we all take for granted today. Or Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson who were so dominant MLB lowered the mound. I think Jack Nicklaus hit the ball so long and accurate that they adjusted fairways. accordingly.

Also, if you are talking about greatest athletes in the U.S. throughout the 20th century. It kind of has to be a baseball player. The fact is, baseball was the dominant sport that most American kids wanted to play for many decades up through the 1970s. Many basketball hall of famers are only there because as kids they they weren't good enough to be allowed to play baseball as little kids so they took up basketball.

Just things to keep in perspective.

That said, as a combination of sheer athleticism and competitive drive. I have no problem with Michael Jordan being at least in the top 5,

Ricky Carmichael. Motocross

Or John Daly

To that, in the US baseball is certainly a sport that drew a lot of talented athletes. Hard to argue that Babe Ruth was the greatest ball player and likely the greatest American athlete in sports. Ever.

He doesn't get as much respect nowadays and it seems its because he doesn't look like your typical drug enhanced gym rat ball player of today. But it doesn't matter as he truly was someone that made a massive impact to the sport and his arrival marked the end of the dead ball era. And imagine...he was a game changing massively talented hitter and power hitter, but was also a great pitcher!

From Britannica:

"Well, here’s a no-brainer if there ever was one. Yes, he played among an artificially limited talent pool before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947 and decades before advanced training regimens produced athletes who looked like, well, athletes, but Ruth was such a historic talent that he transcends these qualifiers. In fact, his arrival in the major leagues was so seismic that it marked the end of the dead-ball era. When he joined the majors in 1914, the all-time record for home runs in a season was 27. Within seven years he had more than doubled it with 59, and he eventually produced a personal-high 60 dingers in 1927. All told, he led the AL in home runs 12 times. He was such a prodigious power hitter that his astounding .690 career slugging percentage remains the best of all time, and the gap between his mark and second place is larger than the one between second place and ninth. Oh, and he also was a great pitcher during his early years, leading the AL with a 1.75 ERA in 1921 and pitching 29 and two-thirds consecutive scoreless innings across two World Series—because when you dominate the game as much as the Babe did, you may as well do so in all facets, right? Moreover, the charismatic Ruth was the first transcendent American sports superstar, routinely garnering headlines across the country for both his on-field exploits and his off-field celebrity. His play with the storied New York Yankees teams of the 1920s catapulted baseball to the prominence in the national consciousness that it still enjoys today. Not only was Ruth the greatest baseball player of all time, but he was the most important one too."

https://www.britannica.com/list/10-greatest-baseball-players-of-all-time

Well, for me I have two different sets of greatest athlete. One is for players of games which I call greatest athlete (greatest fame, stats, etc)and the other is the actual greatest athletes which is much less subjective as far as actual ultimate physical capability.

For my top actual greatest athletes I could start here with my top 25:

Men

Rank Score Athlete Date Venue Ref

1 9,126 Kevin Mayer (FRA) September 15–16, 2018 Talence [24]

2 9,045 Ashton Eaton (USA) August 28–29, 2015 Beijing

3 9,026 Roman Šebrle (CZE) May 26–27, 2001 Götzis

4 8,994 Tomáš Dvořák (CZE) July 3–4, 1999 Prague

5 8,891 Dan O'Brien (USA) September 4–5, 1992 Talence

6 8,847 Daley Thompson (GBR) August 8–9, 1984 Los Angeles

7 8,832 Jürgen Hingsen (FRG) June 8–9, 1984 Mannheim

Bryan Clay (USA) June 29–30, 2008 Eugene

9 8,815 Erki Nool (EST) August 6–7, 2001 Edmonton

10 8,795 Damian Warner (CAN) May 26–27, 2018 Götzis [25]

11 8,792 Uwe Freimuth (GDR) July 20–21, 1984 Potsdam

12 8,790 Trey Hardee (USA) August 19–20, 2009 Berlin

13 8,784 Tom Pappas (USA) June 21–22, 2003 Palo Alto

14 8,762 Siegfried Wentz (FRG) June 4–5, 1983 Filderstadt-Bernhausen

15 8,735 Eduard Hämäläinen (BLR) May 28–29, 1994 Götzis

16 8,727 Dave Johnson (USA) April 23–24, 1992 Azusa

17 8,725 Dmitriy Karpov (KAZ) August 23–24, 2004 Athens

18 8,709 Aleksandr Apaychev (URS) June 2–3, 1984 Neubrandenburg

19 8,706 Frank Busemann (GER) July 31 – August 1, 1996 Atlanta

20 8,698 Grigoriy Degtyaryev (URS) June 21–22, 1984 Kiev

21 8,694 Chris Huffins (USA) June 19–20, 1998 New Orleans

22 8,691 Niklas Kaul (GER) October 2–3, 2019 Doha [26]

23 8,680 Torsten Voss (GDR) September 3–4, 1987 Rome

24 8,670 Michael Schrader (GER) August 10–11, 2013 Moscow

25 8,667 Guido Kratschmer (FRG) June 13–14, 1980 Filderstadt-Bernhausen

Velocibuddha wrote:

. . .

2) False- Jordan is statistically much taller than Bolt. (The percentage of people shorter than Jordan is much, much, much larger than the percentage shorter than Bolt).

. . .

INCORRECT!

The percentage of people who are shorter than Jordan (6' 6") is 99.7%. The percentage of people who are shorter than Bolt (6' 5") is 99.4%.

99.7% is NOT "much, much, much larger" than 99.4%

So your statement is INCORRECT!

Congrats on the dumbest post in the history of LRC!

Dunno. You seem to have beat me by far. Congrats.

Omg hahaha. Lets just agree to disagree I can't even bring myself to debate this

Get this decathlon garbage out of here. How many people have ever competed in a decathlon? The talent pool is incredibly shallow.

It really does boil down to who is the best athlete in one of the large participation sports. I have to exclude runners because, while this is probably the most universal sport that everyone does in their life at some point, I think the definition of best athlete has to include skill & coordination. Can't be just running in a straight line. That person can win the award for fastest, best fitness, whatever but not best athlete.

Most of the world plays soccer. The US plays football, basketball, and baseball.

So here is your choice: put the best international soccer player up against the US representative from their ball sports. If that's the case then yes, Michael Jordan can be in the finals.

Lol I just checked populations by country.

Top 5

1. China 1,394,015,977

2. India 1,326,093,247

3. United States 329,877,505

4. Indonesia 267,026,366

5. Pakistan 233,500,636

China & India have soooo many people. I suppose there has to be a chance that cricket (India's most popular sport) and table tennis (China's most popular sport) have the all-time greatest athlete.

But given the western bias on this site I guess we'll ignore those sports for now.