Overrated athletes?

Raymond Harris4 said:Jason Fisher78 seems like a sharp guy based on his posts (I've caught him weighing in on politics, too).

I noticed the same thing about him.

I honestly don't understand how you all haven't grown bored yet with this endless, circular bickering that leads absolutely nowhere.🤷

dustypanther6 said:I mean, what kind of logic was he even using there?? He basically tried to claim that because Scottie Pippen’s shooting percentage was maybe 0.2% better in the seasons without Michael Jordan than when they played together, that somehow proves a point. Like, seriously, what kind of weak-ass argument is that??

Even if we're talking about a measly -0.2%, I guess you could argue that it technically refutes the idea that Jordan actually improved the players around him. Especially once you start looking at the rest of the roster and digging into the actual stats.

The_End said:So, in your opinion, who left a bigger impression on you, Senna or Prost?
😉

I guess I’m just sitting here overthinking it and I can't really give you a straight answer because whenever I think about them, Senna is the one stuck in my head. Maybe it's just because there's been so much more written about him over, say, the last 15 years, so his name just kind of echoes in my mind. Back then, I was watching the NBA way more than Formula 1. I mean, I was a total NBA fanatic in the eighties, but Formula 1 wasn't really my thing.

The thing with Senna is that he died while he was still at the absolute top of his game, which just leaves so much room for all those "what if" scenarios. How am I even supposed to compare him to Prost? He has fewer titles, sure, but he also had two fewer seasons. I don't know. They're pretty much equal 🤷.

Raymond Harris4 said:Jason Fisher78 seems pretty sharp based on his posts (I've seen your takes on politics too).

Anyway, you follow soccer much closer? Maybe we could chat about it sometime. 😁

Thanks for the compliment. If only you were a girl...😁.

Maybe we could. Especially on this thread, particularly when it comes to Dražen Boksic...😁

Carl Garcia22 said:I truly have to give credit where credit is due to Jason Fisher78. He presented such a wealth of arguments backed by indisputable facts, whereas the opposition failed to provide even a single coherent point to counter him. And yet, I see some people using laughing emojis and trying to mock the situation.

It’s the truth. As I mentioned before, he’s already won me over.🙂

Raymond Harris4 said:Jason Fisher78 seems like quite an intelligent individual based on his posts; I’ve certainly noticed your insights regarding politics as well.

By the way, do you follow soccer more closely? Perhaps we could engage in a discussion regarding the sport. 😁

🙏🙏

Come on, Raymond Harris4, does your knowledge of basketball rival what you know about soccer, dribbling, Pelé, or Maradona?................
I read almost everything you write; you truly are a walking encyclopedia.

How would you rate Ryan Giggs? Would you consider him among the greatest wingers of all time? Hahaha, I am not even joking.

Ayrton Senna was basically the king of "me against the world" scenarios—whether he was battling a defender on the track or just fighting through absolute garbage weather conditions. Alain Prost, on the other hand, was much more consistent when you look at how they stacked up against each other as teammates. Maybe Senna eventually paid the price for being so incredibly aggressive, which I guess was just that classic South American flair. Looking back at the '88 and '89 seasons when they were on the same team, Senna had a massive 26-4 edge over Prost in qualifying, but once you actually look at the race wins, it narrows down to something like 14-11. And interestingly enough, both guys managed to snag a title during those two years. It’s a tough call, honestly, but I’ve been pulling for Senna since maybe '91 or '92 when I first started casually following Formula 1 as a kid, so I’d probably lean toward him—though if we’re being real, it’s pretty much a 50/50 split. From a purely sporting perspective, the tragedy isn't that he died young, it's wondering how many more championships he would've grabbed... I'd say maybe two more at most.

So, while I was away, we actually reached a consensus that both Michael Jordan and Dennis Rodman deserve equal credit for that Bulls dynasty. Honestly, brilliant.

Carl Mendoza4 said:so, basically while I was gone, we’ve reached the point where people think Michael Jordan and Dennis Rodman deserve equal credit for that Bulls dynasty. brilliant.

I mean, what kind of conclusion are you supposed to draw from the fact that the Bulls couldn't grab a title until they finally got a decent center to step in for Horace Grant, like when they brought in Rodman?
Before Grant was there, they didn't win anything. Once Grant showed up, they snagged three titles. Then he leaves, and suddenly they aren't winning a thing again until Rodman arrives. Then, boom, another three titles, and Michael Jordan was playing for them pretty much the whole time.

I'm not saying they would've won a ring without Michael Jordan. Probably wouldn't have, maybe except for '94. But it seems pretty obvious to me that they just couldn't be champions with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen if they didn't have a high-quality center backing them up.

Jason Fisher78, what do you think—was Michael Jordan actually harder on Scottie Pippen back in the day, or is what we’re seeing now with Kobe Bryant and Lamara a similar kind of thing?😁

Paul Lopez6 said:Jason Fisher78, what do you think—was Michael Jordan ever harder on Scottie Pippen back in the day, or is Kobe Bryant being worse to Lamara now? 😁

I don't really know how Kobe is treating Lamara lately. I guess I haven't been following the NBA all that closely. But man, that Odom guy was driving me absolutely insane during the last World Cup in Turkey, at least until I read about him tragically losing his son. After that, I just felt for him, so I'm not gonna hold any grudges against him.

I’ve gotta say, I think we’re currently looking at the biggest hype job in the NBA... Dwight Howard. Honestly, I could go off on him and Superman too.

Jason Fisher78 just threw out some raw stats.

And he thinks using numbers alone proves who’s actually elite—like trying to claim Michael Jordan is just on par with Scottie Pippen or something. Honestly, I don't even bother digging through those spreadsheets. I don't need them. I had the privilege of watching Jordan play for years, and in my book, he's the greatest to ever step on a court. It's like how Ivo Balic is the greatest handball player ever, at least to me.
Now, why don't you try pulling up Karabatkov's stats for me? 😵

Why is Jordan the GOAT? Because whether it was the first shot or the last shot of the game, he executed it with the exact same precision. You won't find that kind of grit in any statistical database. To actually grasp something like that, you need a baseline understanding of the game—maybe you've even played a bit yourself, even if it was just amateur league stuff. You have to realize that athletes aren't robots or computers; hardware and software metrics don't tell the whole story.

I can already see people having this exact same debate about Lionel Messi ten or fifteen years from now. Honestly, though, the football world is already losing its mind over it.

Is he actually the greatest to ever play the game, or did he just have Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta carrying him? (Basically, was it like having Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, and Dennis Rodman behind you...)

😬

David Martin71 said:I can already see us having this exact same debate about Lionel Messi ten or even fifteen years from now, though the football world is already losing its mind over it.

Is he truly the greatest player to ever step onto a pitch, or is his legacy merely inflated because he had Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta backing him up? (In this specific context, you could just say he had Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, and Dennis Rodman...)

😬

Personally, I think the real debate that will endure is going to be about Luka Modrić.☕ 😬

frozentiger6 said:Jason Fisher78 just threw out some raw numbers.

And through those stats, he’s trying to prove who actually knows their stuff—suggesting Michael Jordan belongs somewhere in the tier of Scottie Pippen, or something along those lines; I don't know, I rarely bother with those data sets myself. I don't need them. I had the privilege of watching Michael Jordan for years, and to me, he remains the greatest to ever play the game. Just as Ivo Balic was the greatest handball player ever, in my eyes.
Now, why doesn't anyone ever bring up Karabatkov’s statistics? 😵

Why is Michael Jordan the greatest? It's because whether it was the first minute or the last, his execution remained identical. You won't find that in any spreadsheet. To truly grasp something like that, you need a certain level of "prior knowledge" about sports—perhaps having actually played at an amateur level. It helps you realize that athletes aren't just hardware or software modules whose quality can be fully captured by a computer readout.

Honestly, this post should probably serve as the final word on this entire saga...🙏 😁

That final paragraph reminded me of something. It was back during the Chicago Bulls-Utah Jazz finals, during that season when Scottie Pippen was struggling with those back issues... and the guy just had an off night. The morning after the game, I’m standing at the subway station, and there’s this guy next to me, chatting away with a buddy, just relentlessly trashing Scottie Pippen. He was hurling all sorts of insults, calling him an invalid, acting like he knew better than anyone how poorly he’d played. So, I look at this guy, and he’s clearly someone who looks like they struggle to even walk straight, hunched over like an eighty-seven-year-old woman, spine bent at a ninety-degree angle. And I thought to myself, you absolute moron, take a look in a mirror and see what you actually look like. How could you even manage a basic two-step, let alone judge someone who had a bad game for perfectly obvious physical reasons? Who are you to feel entitled to talk trash when you're less functional than a single-celled amoeba?

It’s always the idiots who have never played a real sport in their lives—aside from maybe some mindless hack—who jump on the bandwagon. They’ve only ever seen a real game on TV, but they make sure to find a way to mock someone, calling them pathetic or limited or whatever else comes to mind...

That’s just how it goes, nothing surprising there. One minute Duvnjak is playing in the World Cup less than a month after surgery and misses a single fast break, and suddenly he's being branded a total moron and the most overrated player in the history of the universe.

The media turned Michael Jordan into this massive icon, which is just the classic American way of doing things—they take some random guy who happens to be good at predicting the weather (which is all anyone talks about lately) and turn him into a media superstar. But let's be real: Jordan actually *was* a star. He’s objectively one of the greatest basketball players to ever live, and subjectively? He’s the GOAT. He isn't my personal favorite, though; I’ve always preferred Magic Johnson because I have a soft spot for athletes with actual flair and wit. When players show even a shred of above-average intelligence—because honestly, there's nothing worse than seeing pure brute force in sports; if you want to hit things with a hammer, go do that and leave the ball alone—Magic's ability to run those lightning-fast transitions and fast breaks was just pure art to watch.
Anyway, I see that Michael Jordan-Magic Johnson dynamic as being pretty similar to the Drazen Petrovic-Drazen Kukoc situation, and in that debate, I'm leaning toward Drazen😁 maybe for reasons that have nothing to do with basketball, so whatever... what I mean is, on one side you have the flashy playmaker and the versatile, elegant team player who can cover four or five positions without breaking a sweat (Magic and Kukoc), and on the other, you have the cold-blooded finisher and pure scoring machine (Jordan and Drazen).

Jason Fisher78 said:They could. Especially on this thread, and specifically regarding Andrija Boksic...

From time to time, in brief intervals, I used to follow Formula 1—though I wouldn't claim to be an expert by any stretch. One such period was the late '80s, when Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna were absolutely tearing it up. After Senna passed away, I stopped watching F1, only to "return" a few years later. The first thing that hit me (and it hit me hard) was this overwhelming sense of mediocrity. You had Michael Schumacher... and a bunch of decent drivers, sure, but nobody truly stood out from the pack, which is why I quickly lost interest again.

Another glaring issue was the obvious lack of courage among the drivers. In Senna's era, drivers actually tried to overtake one another in the truest sense of the word; they took massive risks. Later on, everything shifted toward relying heavily on team strategy. Overtaking in Formula 1 used to be like scoring goals in soccer, but unfortunately, those overtakes have become increasingly rare over the years. What’s your take on that?

Then again, it’s not something you should be frustrated about, because we're talking about people's lives here. You can't blame them if they decide to play it safe. Something similar happened in soccer, but in that case, players aren't putting their actual lives on the line when they decide to take a risk to create a scoring chance. Slowly, with very few exceptions, soccer is turning into a cowardly sport filled with cowardly, timid coaches who play cautious, defensive ball. They use a bunch of robotic players bound by incredibly strict tactical responsibilities, refusing to let even the most talented players roam free or improvise when their talent calls for it. Instead, they use these chains called "ironclad tactical discipline," which the media constantly praises as "brilliant tactics." Heaven forbid you call it anything else.

As for Andrija Boksic... I always say you have to be careful with the word "overrated." That word means nothing in a vacuum. It only exists in relation to something else. If I say, for example, that Boksic was better than Baggi back in the day, then I've overrated Alen. But if I start seriously comparing him to Jay-Jay Okocha, then I'm underselling him.

Chris Ortiz said:Come on, Raymond Harris4, how much do you actually know about basketball compared to what you claim to know about soccer, dribbling, Pelé, or Maradona?................
I read almost everything you post; you really are a walking encyclopedia.

How good is Giggs? Is he even among the greatest wing players of all time? Hahaha, no, I’m not joking.

No, I'm sorry.

Soccer has always been my primary sport—for training, for playing, and for watching. I've been playing since I was ten, and I can still hold my own on the pitch. I follow other sports much less frequently. I never really cared for basketball.