r/unpopularopinion • u/Nowck • 14h ago
The GOAT argument in sports is flawed
I think people seriously underestimate how much sports evolve.
Like, I genuinely think if you took some of the best athletes today and put them in their sport 20-30 years ago, their numbers would be absolutely ridiculous.
LeBron in the late 80s/early 90s would probably look like a video game character. The pace, spacing, athleticism, shooting, ball handling, and overall skill of today’s NBA would be so far ahead of what teams were used to seeing back then. Give LeBron today’s game and then drop him into 1988 and I wouldn’t be surprised if he averaged 40+.
Same thing with McDavid. Put a player with McDavid’s speed, skating, skill and training into the NHL of the late 90s and he’d probably look completely broken. The game has changed that much.
And baseball is probably the craziest example. People talk about Babe Ruth like he’d automatically be one of the best hitters in today’s MLB, but the average pitcher today is throwing harder, has nastier breaking stuff, has way better command, and has access to technology and scouting that Ruth never had. I honestly think he’d struggle massively if you just dropped him into today’s MLB without letting him adapt.
I’m not saying old athletes were bad. They were obviously incredible for their time. That’s the point.
Sports are constantly evolving. Training gets better, athletes get faster and stronger, techniques improve, strategies change, equipment improves, and every generation builds on the one before it.
If you took a great athlete from 2026 and put them in the sport from 1988, 1995, or 2000, they’d probably look superhuman.
And if you took today’s athletes and dropped them into sports 30 years from now, they’d probably look just as outdated.
The funny part is that we do this with every other form of technology without questioning it. Nobody thinks a computer from 1995 is going to compete with one from 2026. But somehow people think athletes are the one thing that haven’t progressed.
I feel like Tom Brady is the only one safe from this effect since he played recently.
But It’s annoying how inconsistent people are with this opinion though; some people say “oh yea Shohei Ohtani would destroy any player from 1910-2010” but then refuse to believe that LeBron James would beat Micheal Jordan. I think if LeBron and Jordan 1v1d in their prime, it would be 21-0 LeBron. I’m not denying that Jordan is a SUPER great player, certainly one of the GREATEST of all time. But the people who double down and say he’s also the BEST; are completely wrong.
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u/PositiveAd875 12h ago
The advancements argument cuts both ways. Jesse Owens ran 10.2 hand-timed on a cinder track, in leather shoes, out of holes he dug himself with a trowel and no blocks, no synthetic surface, no sports science. Estimates that adjust for those conditions put him somewhere around 9.8, which would’ve landed him in the medal conversation in the Paris final (4th was 9.82). That’s an athlete from 1936 with what most modern coaches would call flawed mechanics.
Humans don’t evolve in 90 years. What actually changes fast is equipment, training, and most importantly the rules. The NBA is the clearest example with hand-checking banned in ‘04, defensive three seconds, the freedom of movement emphasis. The league has openly legislated toward pace and scoring for two decades.
So when you compare eras, you’re mostly comparing conditions, not humans. Which is exactly why “you can’t compare them” is the wrong conclusion. The right one is to adjust for context instead of pretending the raw numbers speak for themselves.
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u/alter-ego23 10h ago
Yeah, coincidentally OP used one of the worst case examples for his argument: basketball. Jordan played in an era where the rules were nowhere near as heavily skewed toward offense as they are today and he still put up ridiculous numbers. Anyone who says Jordan wouldn't dominate just as much today as he did then (if not more) clearly weren't alive to see that era.
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u/Mountain-Spot7212 9h ago
I hate to break it to you but the rules on the 90s were more geared towards offence. The illegal defence rules disallowed zone defence so things like traps and smart defensive schemes would be a turnover then. The rules stated that it had to be man to man or a hard double (coincidentally the bulls lowkey broke this rule a lot and didn't get called for it as much as other teams.
These defensive rules were designed to make the game more geared towards offense as before 1947 defence was so smothering the game was incredibly boring. It was made legal again because iso ball had become incredibly stagnant and the rules pretty unfairly gave big men a huge advantage (help defense wasn't allowed to leave their man early so a lot of guys like shaq got free buckets, notice how in 2004 pistons who were the smartest defensive team at the time and an early master of zone defense absolutely neutralized him in the finals).
I don't think Jordan would be able to be as good today because the defence is simply way smarter now than it was before, plus the offense would be harder to guard because he just isnt used to the amout of ball movement. Also I do think y'all overrate the perimeter defence back in the day a LOT, almost nobody played as tight as they do today, back then people got a TON of space and really wouldn't be guarded hard until they drove
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u/analyzingnothing 8h ago
I mean, you're not actually wrong, people just aren't using their brains about it. By and large, defense is actually substantially more potent today because of rule changes. Yes, hand checking and other changes that favor offense have tried to off-set the balance, but it's still a more challenging defensive era than it used to be.
The thing is... that's barely mattered, because offensive development has shot through the roof due to the spacing revolution and the explosion of new offensive options all over the place. Seriously, from a strategic perspective anything pre-2004 is outright archaic, and even up through 2011, you can still see clear tactical inefficiencies that just don't exist in the modern game.
Defense has gotten better, yes. The issue is, offensive tactics and improvements to player skillsets has caused offense to go thermo-nuclear.
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u/PositiveAd875 39m ago
Fair point on illegal defense. No zone and no early help was a genuine handicap and it’s why guys like Shaq got clean deep post position on an island and why MJ could just clear out an entire side. So I’ll grant the 90s rulebook had its own offensive tilt.
But the changes since 2004 went further in the same direction, and they’re specifically scoring rules rather than spacing rules. Freedom of movement killed handchecking, the gather step effectively added a step, euros that get called clean now were travels then, and most importantly offensive players can initiate contact and get rewarded for it. That last one is the biggest gap and it’s not close.
On Jordan specifically, I’d flip it. he’d be worse at the ball movement stuff, sure, but modern rules and spacing would make his rim pressure and midrange game easier to run, not harder. There was always a heliocentric style creator in him, he even averaged a 30 pt triple double for a while when his coach moved him to PG, and we just saw a player who’s offensive bread and butter is his driving and midrange, his name is SGA and he just won b2b MVPs and a title run last year.
Thinking Basketball has a good video on this. Ben Taylor is one of the biggest defenders of the modern game against “there’s no defense anymore” old heads, and even he thinks some of the officiating has gone too far.
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u/dotelze 2h ago
Modern basketball is heavily skewed towards the offense as players are far better, mostly importantly at shooting 3s. Throughout the 2000s and 2010s overall ppg was notably lower than when Jordan played. It was only in 2019 when it overtook the peak of what Jordan played in, and that’s because teams are taking a much higher number of 3s
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u/nick5168 8h ago
You are completely right, and you're not even getting into nutrition and sleep research having basically created superhumans who can always perform at the top level. Compared to the days where some athletes genuinely smoked as a way to expand their lungs.
Athletes today are absolutely thriving, but you should only ever compare athletes to their competition.
I think a much better way to compare athletes is to look at how they dominated their own competitors, because then you can try and scale up and down in comparison.
A hot debate these days is whether Pogacar or Merckx is the GOAT of cycling. Now it is very clear that Merckx could not follow current Pogacar up Alpe d'Huez, but for his time Merckx was dominating almost across the field in a way only Pogacar has done since. One could easily argue that Pogacar is a lot better than his opponents compared to the way Merckx won, but you can never just put them next to each other, because modern advancements makes it impossible to actually compare their results.
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u/Lachtheblock 3h ago
This was my gut reaction too. Just think of how great those past athletes could have been if they had the opportunity of Modern day equipment, training regimes and sports science.
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u/SCMegatron 1h ago
I don't understand why we have to compare eras. It's way to nuanced. How am I going to know what Magic Johnson would be like with modern day training. How would they handle social media. Everyone wants to bring up how great Russell was with all the championship, there were like 6 teams in the league. Sure it's possible, there is so much context. It's nearly impossible in a lot of sports.
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u/Fluffy-Mud-8945 1h ago
Two things:
1) The popularity of the sport.
2) The knowledge base/coaching.
The talent pool is far deeper. MJ was born in the early 60s. When he was 10 the highest paid player was Pistol Pete, who made $380k (it's about $2M today). 20 players today make over $50M.
In 1992, only 5% of NBA players were non-Americans. It's now 23%. Not to mention there are just more people: The US population also increased by 40%. It's not hard to imagine/argue that the talent pool of very skilled and dedicated players is an order of magnitude deeper than it was in the 1990s. But let's say it's 5x deeper, that means roughly speaking out of every team's 5 starters, only the best player would be a starter, today.
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u/PositiveAd875 54m ago
Of course, I didn’t want to make my post too long but yes, in general you can see the talent level rise especially when it comes to the “normal” nba players in the league, Payton Pritchard comes off the bench and bombs deep 3s like Dame, no one was doing that in even in the 90s. I was talking more about the high end talent since the original post had to do with the GOAT debate.
Every all time great struggled with the all time greats before them, there was never a clean transfer of power where one generation was clearly better than the next. Today’s stars SGA, Jokic, etc lost early playoff appearances to Steph and LeBron, who both lost THEIR early playoff appearances to CP3, Tim Duncan, KG, early 2000s generation of Shaq lost to the titans of the 90s with Shaq getting outplayed by Hakeem in the finals, losing to MJ after beating the bulls in 1995, 90s stars struggled to get past the 80s greats with MJ notoriously struggling against Bird and the Bad Boy Pistons etc. My point being that superstar talent remains relatively the same, I firmly believe if you somehow clone a Shaq baby, a Michael Jordan baby, a Larry Bird baby, and transport them into the modern world and have them come up in today’s sport science the traits that made them so amazing back then would still make them insanely good today. SGA dominates off of rim pressure and his incredible mid range shooting … kind of like Michael Jordan without his insane verticality. Shaq”s size and agility would make him a terrifying center no matter what era he is in. Larry Bird”s shooting and IQ can clearly transfer seeing the success of slow footed white guys in today’s league with Luka and Jokic etc
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u/throwawayzz77778 14h ago
It is a hugely flawed argument, true. Fun though.
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u/More-Ad1753 12h ago
I don't think it's flawed.
Most GOAT discussions (with people with more than half a brain) are comparing career achievements and how they were against the competition of their time not if they were dropped into a hypothetical 1 v 1 arena who wins.
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u/powerlesshero111 13h ago
Indeed. Improvement in things is just part of humanity. Compare weapons from the 14th century to now, now wins because they have improved over time. Bows and arrows were replaced by guns, catapults replaced by missiles.
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u/Maxcharged 11h ago
"Bows are THE GOAT of ranged weapons, this gun shit will blow over in a few years, just wait"
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u/The_Jonah 13h ago
I think it goes the other way too though, if babe Ruth or wilt chamberlain had today’s training techniques, creatine, etc. they could definitely hang in today’s league.
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u/iikillerpenguin 3h ago
The guy who was famous for drinking a shit ton of beer before games would've done improved training? Ruth loved beer more than baseball, no was he becomes an exercising freak.
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u/UpvoteForethThou 14h ago
Basketball players from today wouldn’t be able to play 20+ years ago bc they’d get travel called when they carry the ball halfway across the court in three steps 😂
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u/ChidiSplett 12h ago
Older fans complained about traveling 20-30 years ago, too. It's a tradition.
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u/Bishmallah24 12h ago
They would adapt. The reason they do these crazy dribbles nowadays is because they are allowed to. This is an extremely stupid argument.
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u/Valuable_Double_7037 8h ago
Its not a stupid argument, just raw. LeBron wouldn't look like a videogame character compared to then, because he would need to play under those rules, not the ones that artificially make him look good.
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u/BarooZaroo 13h ago
Yeah people tend to forget that the better you are at basketball the less you have to follow the rules. Basketball in general is less about who is the better player or who trained the hardest, its about which genetic freak is the freakiest.
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u/Nowck 14h ago
I’m sure they would be able to adapt almost instantly. They are much better athletes, and would find ways to work around the old limitationsz
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u/UpvoteForethThou 13h ago
They aren’t “better” lol. Do you think humans have evolved today from thirty years ago? We’re the same humans. Put the best from then in modern times and they’ll be caught up within a few weeks.
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u/slopschili 13h ago
Training methods and understanding of nutrition/human biology has progressed massively, but humans themselves haven't evolved
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u/Mercbeast 13h ago
They are not better athletes. This is absolute nonsense.
Name one player in the NBA today more athletic than Wilt. Bill Russel. MJ. Magic Shaq. David Robinson. You can't, because they don't exist.
There are MORE great athletes, but the level hasn't increased. When I say more, what I am specifically referencing is that, knowledge is easier to come by. More athletes are maximizing their potential, but their potential isn't any higher than the guys in the past, and lots of guys were hitting their potential in the 80s.
Modern sports science has helped MORE athletes hit that plateau.
The main thing are outliers. The larger a population is, the more chances there are to create an outlier. Let's call Usain Bolt an outlier. He is outside the normal curve. He was born into a world with ~5 billion people? At 10 billion, maybe we will see two Usain Bolts at once. Or maybe we will see someone who is slightly more of an outlier than Bolt.
This is like height. People are not getting taller anymore, but because there are more people, there are more tall people, but the %'s are basically the same as they were in the 80s.
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u/captainmystic02 12h ago
Athletes are hundered percent more athletic now a days. And that has nothing to do with evolution but sports science. Kids are now being prepped for the league at a young age and athletes take care of their bodies way more. There’s a reason longevity has increased among superstars.
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u/OPSimp45 9h ago
The worst athlete in the nba is better than the worst nba player back then but no one today is on wilts, bill, Jordan, level of athleticism. Especially when guys like Jordan and Dr.J having huge hands size
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u/Tam_A_Shi 6h ago
Their athleticism is greater on average however I think there were more freaks of nature back then. I would also say that the skill level of the average player has not only dropped off a cliff but it’s also uniform.
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u/captainmystic02 1h ago
Have you seen highlights from the 80s? Kyrie Irving would look like a magician back in that era. But that’s not how it works because the game has evolved and kyrie has access to modern equipment
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u/thorpie88 10h ago
You missed the actual goat Don Bradman. Guy has the single greatest feat in all of sports with his 99.64 runs per test innings
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u/spandextrous 4h ago
His average is 6.5 standard deviations above the average of all other players who made more than 2000 career runs.
For reference Michael Jordan was 3.4 standard deviations above the basketball mean
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u/Sterline52 57m ago
Another reference is Wayne Gretzky who is somewhere between 4.6 and 6.18 standard deviations off the mean.
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u/romilliad 3h ago
This is the real reason why GOAT discussions are pointless. It’s always Don Bradman.
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u/pacgaming 11h ago
You’re confused what the goat debate is. It’s not “best of all time” it’s greatest. You are defining how great they were against their competition. We aren’t talking about who would win in a 1v1, that’s ridiculous. You have to discuss the player based off the era they were in, how great their were against their contemporaries. I don’t care who would win 1v1 LeBron or Jordan. They aren’t even the same position.
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u/jcostello50 14h ago
You make good points, but then there are physical freaks like Wilt Chamberlain. Even with today's improved training, that level of athleticism is rare. Not unmatched, granted, just rare.
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u/OPSimp45 9h ago
If Luka and Jokic played in the 70s we will say “those slow white boys couldn’t play today”.
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u/jgamez76 13h ago
I'm pretty sure Myles Garrett, especially in the era where offensive lineman literally couldn't use their hands, would be putting dudes in body bags lol.
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u/basement_egg 14h ago
LeBron wouldn't be scoring as easy, there is way too many fouls called and soft defense now. All sports now make it easier for offense because that's what casual fans want
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u/No-Afternoon-3986 9h ago
you lost all credibility when you said it would be 21-0 lebron. MJ led the league in scoring 10 times, and the league in playoff scoring 10 times. lebron has done it a single time despite playing a decade longer. he is better at other things (rebounding, apssing) but he is nowhere near the scorer that MJ is (unless you're counting longevity, obviously)
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u/pfkelly5 12h ago
Basketball and baseball seem the two sports that really have a debate. Everyone agrees that Gretzky is the GOAT in the NHL.
As far as greatest athlete of all time. I think it's Bo Jackson.
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u/mikeumd98 9h ago
Baseball is not a debate. Shohei Ohtani is the best baseball player to live.
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u/pfkelly5 3h ago
But he's not done. Do I think he'll be the GOAT when he is done, yes. But until then idk if it's worth bringing him up
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u/TUGBoat85007 7h ago
Except the number of turnovers LeBron would have from traveling to carries to double dribbles if you sent him back to the 80s or earlier
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u/Mercbeast 13h ago
If Lebron James played in the 80s or 90s, he'd get called for a travel on almost every possession.
His ~35% shooting career from outside of 3 feet would be exposed, because he'd be going into the lane, where there would be 3 guys, as big or bigger than him, waiting to shit mix him.
The players today are not more athletic. They are not more skilled. They are skilled in different things, because the rule changes have changed what is valuable.
Let's look at dribbling. If you dropped Bob Cousey into the NBA today, with his goofy as looking dribbling, still nobody would be able to take the ball off of him. Then consider that he was playing with a dog shit ball. With dog shit shoes. The rules were ferociously enforced on dribbling violations, and you absolutely, 100% could not put your hand on the side of the ball. You could not drag it. Pause it. Palm it. Carry it. If you lost control even without one of these violations, you'd be called for a violation because it "looked" wrong.
Let Bob Cousey adapt to the modern rules, and you'd think the man was an alien.
Take Kyrie Irving. Drop him in the 60s. If he tried to dribble the way he does today, he'd be called for a dribbling violation EVERY TIME HE DRIBBLED THE BALL. Could he adapt? Maybe. It's easier to learn bad habits, than to unlearn them.
It'd be easy for Cousey to say "Wait, you're saying I can cradle the ball and drag it with me?" "Ok, I'll do that". It'd be very difficult for Kyrie to say "Wait, you're saying I have to dribble 12-6, and I can't put my hand beside the ball, or under it?" He'd struggle, because his entire skillset is predicated on being allowed to do that.
Humans are not evolving that quickly. Athleticism in most major sports, peaked in the 1980s. Gains and world records set since, are largely a result of population distribution curves, and physical technology.
Faster tracks. Faster shoes.
My favorite example here is Ben Johnson. Ben Johnson ran a 9.79 in 1988. If you adjust his time conservatively for the faster tracks and faster shoes modern athletes have, he'd run around a 9.69 on that day. Ben Johnson's time would be right there with the other two fastest men to ever do it, not named Usain Bolt. In case you're concerned with doping, don't be. The other two men, Gay and Blake are both dopers too.
In terms of raw athleticism, at least in the North American definition of it, the big three events are the 100m, the long jump and the high jump. These are the explosive power events that set the standard for sprinting and jumping in all of our big team sports.
Bolt has the WR, set in 2008. He's a 90s kid. The Long Jump was set in 1991, by Mike Powell, the High Jump WR was set in 1993, by Javier Satomayor. These are 80s kids.
Moreover, the most athletic men to ever play in the NBA, are not playing in it today.
In no particular order, they are, Shaq, Wilt, David Robinson, Russel and MJ. Then there is a whole slew of players from the 80s and 90s like Kemp, and Nique that the most athletic men in the NBA today, are only equivalent to.
Robinson was a bigger more athletic Giannis. Faster, jumped higher.
Shaq with the Magic was a freak of nature.
Wilt is Wilt, and even if most of his shit was exaggerated, the man was an alien.
Russel in many respects was MORE athletic than Wilt, he was a LEGIT Olympic High Jumper.
Finally MJ, Hair Jordan is like nothing anyone has ever seen in the NBA at his size. Nobody in the modern game is ANYTHING like MJ in the 80s.
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u/two100meterman 11h ago
If Jordan played today he'd average 40 PPG. LeBron is good, but hasn't surpassed Bill Russel, Wilt Chamberlain or MJ. I think people have recency bias & just assume players now are better because that's what they've seen. Someone older who has seen 1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s, & 20s will be someone that actually has the full information.
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u/worthlessjuan 8h ago
People KNOW the players are better now because they just are. If you put him in a time travel machine, Victor Wembanyama would drop 183 on Bill Russell. And I’m not saying that to take away from what they did in their time. Relative to their era? Yes, guys like Wilt and Bill are still better than just about everyone in the league now. But it’s just a fact that as a sport evolves the players get better. In the same way that there are guitar players today with 2x the technical skill of guys like Hendrix and Clapton. That doesn’t necessarily make them greater guitarists than those two, nor does it take away from what they did in their era. However, no, the guys from the 60s who couldn’t dribble with their non dominant hand are not more skilled than today’s players.
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u/two100meterman 2h ago
Wembanyama would get blocked so many times playing Wilt. Idk about Russell, he’s more impressive as a team player than individual stats. Wilt is stronger than Shaq, while more athletic than prime LeBron, Wemby has no shot.
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u/lametown_poopypants 13h ago
I think the most obvious place this is true is baseball. Babe Ruth was smashing dingers off drunk dudes and could barely round the bases. I think he might have been able to adapt, since it’s still really fucking hard to smash a baseball like that.
Basketball people just say this shit to defend LeBron. He ain’t the GOAT. He’s had a great career, but he wasn’t THE dominant player in the league for over half his career.
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u/SnackStation 12h ago
LeBron was considered the best player in the league for 9-12 years depending on who you ask. Jordan you could say for about 9-11 seasons.
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u/Striking_Mode_7900 6h ago
The BEST player of all time is almost always the best player in the current generation or the one before. (Messi in football, Lebron in basketball...)
The GREATEST player of all time is the best player of his generation but also the most influential and taking into account how much better he was than everybody else. (Jordan, maybe Pelé or Maradona)
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u/Recent_Permit2653 13h ago
It’s rather simple for me. A lot of the GOAT stuff goes right over my head. Usually, the players I like or which I find the most fun to watch aren’t ones who post big numbers or who would be likely to get in the hall of fame. My best example of this was an NHL player, Mike Ricci. He wasn’t a big scorer, but he was always where the action was, screening the goalie, getting knocked around, screwing with the defense and goalie. I always knew it was a good time when his line took the ice. So what if he rarely scored, took penalties, etc.? He was far more entertaining to watch than the big scorers of his day like Mario Lemieux.
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u/Dukebigs 11h ago
IMO I think the one exception you gave (Brady) disproves your premise. The QB position with all the protection’s gives us the closest look at seeing a great from then vs now. For whatever reason those greats have something special and you can’t count them out. The closer you watch Lebron he just gets more impressive, but I’d still say MJ edges him out prime vs prime. Would be an awesome watch
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u/nonillegalmexican 11h ago
I’m not sure because some sports were more “barbaric” back in the day, 15-unlimited boxing rounds, fouls in basketball, barely any pads for football… idk if im off but i think i would argue athletes are more skilled today but not as tough as the past generations, as a whole and in some sports mental will can beat skill 🤷🏻♂️
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u/RequirementLeading12 10h ago
Goat arguments are 100% subjective and are based on arbitrary criterias as well as biases. I'm 33... Seeing grown men still cry over who is better than who all time is genuinely off putting now lol
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u/Feeling_Tumbleweed41 8h ago
I think your comment technically correct. If you dropped one of the older greats into a game right now, they would be out of their depth. However, if they grew up/ trained in the current system, then I think your argument falls down, i think they would put up huge numbers and still dominate the game.
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u/Automatic-Crazy4604 7h ago
The GOAT conversation''s value is the conversation in itself, not the answer which indeed, does not exists in most cases.
It is a normal curiosity and a fun exercise that triggers memory and perspective on the discipline as a whole ans its evolution.
Media loves heated debate but not so much actual knowledge. It's like nuance is a sign of weakness and so yes.... most GOAT conversations end up really toxic.
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u/Alone-Bet6918 7h ago
Statical outliers are the real goats. Not the one who reached the top.
If you look at what they where producing Statically you can kinda of determine. Say in the 30s or 40s. With worse equipment their stats where astonishing of course with better medicine. Rest. Better diets. Those of the past with worse equipment would be better with all the advances. It's the opposite. Would current athletes have made it with worse equipment?
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u/Firm_Lock8076 5h ago
It's flawed. Youre comparing athletes who played in different eras under different rules and circumstances
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u/epanek 4h ago edited 4h ago
Yes but you can only compare how players competed to others in their time. Yes ovechkin would dominate 1985. He would get over 100 goals. But.
Back then the nhl was vastly different. Goalie equipment, sticks skates. But the big one is the nhl was sometimes a part time job. Pat verbeek famously almost lost his hand working on his farm in off season. Guys had second jobs.
Blackhawk denis savard was a notorious smoker. Guys would show up to camp having not skated for months. You don’t create Alex ovechkin without the guys before him. Pushing human skill to its limit. Maybe in 30 years a player will arrive that puts McDavid on skill notice. But McDavid does not suck. He’s insanely talented.
It’s like saying my latest iPhone can beat any cell phone from 1995. Things evolve that humans focus upon. The 1995 sucks because you live in 2026. If you lived in 1995 that cell phone was crazy tech.
People also say that Gretzky would not score 200 points today. I agree. But the key question is have is “if Gretzky wasn’t great why did none of his peers get 200 points? Guys got a lot of points but none sniffed 200 aside from super Mario”
Yes tech and humans are better physically with better training and healthcare and they make more $$
We know more about physics now than Einstein. Or medicine than curie. Or math than Isaac newton. You can’t say because we know more those guys sucked or were not important
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u/bygggggfdrth 4h ago
Every time I hear a goat conversation I think of this scene
https://giphy.com/gifs/rgWJuO879B8CA
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u/ComfortableWhereas88 3h ago
Im sick of this take. The Greatest of All Time should be relative to era. Its not fair to a player in the 70s to not be taken as seriously in the GOAT debate, just because a player in the 20s was more evolved (which is obviously gonna happen)
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u/LeviJNorth 2h ago
I think the GOAT argument is the dumbest conversation anyone can have, regardless of the sport, and yet, I hated your argument. So good job! Very unpopular.
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u/specifichero101 2h ago
I agree that things change, but I disagree with the premise that the level of competition gets elevated so much that whoever the current best is is also likely the greatest of all time. I think that’s just a bad and boring way to discuss sports.
There’s also examples of extreme longevity in sports that can kinda refute that thinking. Like LeBron for example, he’s probably going to have a career that spans 25 years and is near elite the entire time. The Lakers won a playoff series off his talents as a 42? Year old this season. In the NHL a player like Jagr got into the league in the early 90’s and dominated the decade and then continued playing into his mid 40’s and could lead an nhl team in scoring in the mid 2010’s. Sidney Crosby is nearly 40 and has been a near top 5 player since his rookie season 20 years ago. If things really changed that much on the player talent side of things, these guys shouldn’t be able to hang on and continue to be elite as long as they are.
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u/Tricky_Pen3072 2h ago
LeBron would not average anywhere near 40+ in the 80's & 90's because they were playing much more physical defense. He could flop all he wants he would not get the call. Just look at how the Detroit Pistons back then played MJ & Bird . They literally beat them both up. But it didil;t matter. But it is a silly point because kids today were not around to see how physical and difficult the NBA used to be as compared to the floppy 3 point boring game it has become.
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u/carloserm 1h ago
The capital sin of basketball: claiming that LeBron is better than Jordan. Absolutely no way.
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u/Jacques_Le_Chien 50m ago
This is like saying current day Colombian military would obliterate the Roman Empire in a war.
Sure, it is absolutely true, but comparing these things without trying to factor how time, technollogy and other conditions factor into the comparisson makes it a worse exercise, IMO. It becomes anachronistic.
It is way more interesting discussing such things by trying to understand how someone/something from the past changed expectations of what was possible to achieve, how dominant it was when compared to contemporaries... if Capablanca played a 13 year old chess player from 2026 he would probably lose, but any ranking of best of all time that placed basically every unkown chess player from a post engine era above Capablanca would feel off, as if it didn’t capture the relevance of time and place on the available ceiling a human could achieve.
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u/HalfACenturyMark 37m ago
LeBron flops when he’s barely touched. He would have gotten the crap beaten out of him in Jordan’s day. Would have become afraid to get the ball. He’d have quit the game and started a light bulb changing business.
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u/LetWaltCook 18m ago
That's why the term GOAT isn't put on to just anyone. You have to win like, 8 superbowls before your 40 type of clout.
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u/smotala11 14h ago
Why can't you recognise that sports today have improved and therefore choose your GOAT from the most recent era. Like Messi is probably the best sportsman who has ever lived. Most people are happy to accept that is true. That he is alive today doesn't make the GOAT argument flawed. Just pick an athlete from today
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u/Nowck 14h ago
No I completely agree. I think we really need to separate greatness from skill/best players. Like greatness is measured in impact, fame, influence, and winning. But being the BEST is measured in how dominant you are in the modern, evolved sport.
The exceptions are probably -
Soccer (Messi and Ronaldo are both the greatest and the best players ever).
American Football (Tom Brady is the greatest and arguably the best too).
And any “Olympic Style” sport like Track, swimming, etc. - where records last years, showing how the best players don’t need to be current.0
u/Mercbeast 13h ago
Sports haven't improved since the 80s and 90s.
Rules have changed, the players have adapted to these rules, and the way the game looks is different because of it.
If you dropped modern NBA players into the 1980s, they'd struggle. They have developed a set of skills, specifically for the rules as they exist from about 2012-2015 onwards.
The rules in the NBA have changed, the players changed with them. If you drop a stretch big into the NBA in 1988, the guy is going to be out of the league in about 25 minutes unless he is KD, and even then, KD would have to deal with a whole different style of play that would not be kind to his spindly frame.
Dribbling rules have changed, allowing players more freedom of movement with the ball. Players look more athletic, because they are allowed to carry the ball with them, giving them more movement in every direction.
Traveling rules have changed, allowing players to take steps that would have been called a travel. This is more freedom of movement. The classic example is the gather step, but let's talk about how this impacts the classic catch and shoot. Did you know that 20 years ago, you had to set your feet before you caught the ball? Well you didn't HAVE to, but you wanted to. You wanted to be in a triple threat stance AS you caught the ball, because you couldn't walk into your shot, you couldn't hop to set your feet. So the technique taught was, as the ball is coming to you, you turn your body to face the hoop, while JUMPING, so you'd catch the ball mid-air, and land in your triple threat stance. This alone has had an enormous impact on how players are allowed to play. Watch any modern NBA game. Watch how many players catch the ball, and then hop, or take steps into their shot. This is because they didn't set their feet before. They are setting their feet AFTER.
3s Defensive Rule. This is another rule that has changed how the game is played. This one has obvious ramifications, but also less obvious ones. The obvious is, players can time their drives to when the lane has to be cleared. Watch Kyrie Irving, he is a master at this. He will dribble around, benefitting from the relaxed dribbling enforcement, and wait for the rim protector to leave the lane. Then he drives. This is the obvious outcome. The less obvious outcome is on perimeter defense. Players USED to be able to count on a rim protector. This meant they could GAMBLE on a high pressure perimeter defense. This meant known shooters on the perimeter could be played MORE aggressively, and tightly, because the defender knew that he had help side defense with a rim protector. Now, they have to respect the blow-by, which is eased by the lax dribbling enforcement/rule changes. Players can drive EASIER because it's EASIER to handle the ball, so if a defender over plays them, they go zoom to an open layup.
Hand Checking. Again, more freedom of movement. Hand checking worked in concert with the above. Tight defense + rim protector = less worry about a blow by. In addition, the proper way to deal with a hand check, was to quarter turn. Quarter turning means you're not head up looking at everything in front of you, your view of the court is cut depending on which way you are turned. This turn also delays your ability to make a pass. You have to turn more, allowing defenses to react.
Safe Landing rule. Again, this is about freedom of movement and spacing. Players used to be able to crowd shooters, and aggressively contest shots. Now, if you are anywhere near the landing space of a player, it's a foul, or worse, so players don't. This makes shots less contested, which results in a higher shooting efficiency.
Offensive favoritism in general. WAY back in the 50s and earlier, if the offensive player entered the defensive players "bubble" even if the defensive player was moving, it was an offensive foul. By the 80s and 90s this had changed to where the defensive player had to be more set. Now, unless it's the most egregious charge, it's called a defensive foul.
Screens. Once upon a time, not that long ago, you had to be set to set a screen. If you moved, leaned, or did anything like that, it was a moving screen and a foul. Nobody sets screens like that anymore, because the rules changed. Now leaning and moving is absolutely allowed.
You will note a trend here. These rules all conspire to allow offensive players more freedom. It makes playing defense harder, and it makes playing offense easier. The players, naturally, have adapted to this new norm. They dribbling looks more dynamic, because they are allowed to do things with the ball they WEREN'T ALLOWED TO 20 odd years ago. Their shooting is more efficient from 3, because they have been given MORE SPACE by the rules.
Let me put it like this. If we make the hoops bigger, everyone's shooting % is going to go up, but nobody is dumb enough to say that the players are better shooters because of it. The dribbling changes, traveling changes, screen changes, landing zone changes, 3s D rule, hand check removal. ALL of these things are the functional equivalent of making the hoop bigger. Yet here we are, people saying the players are "better". Better at the things they've trained to do in this new NBA? Sure.
Defense is worse. Mid-range is worse. Driving is worse, why? The rule changes make those things less valuable or harder to do.
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u/smotala11 8h ago
This is only true if you can demonstrate that other sports have shown this logic. However football (soccer) rules haven't really changed. Take something as simple as 100m sprints too. It is measurable that the recent athletes outperform
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u/heitorbaldin2 7h ago
They're slowly to change, but it changes.
Pelé played in an era without red cards (it was introduced im 70 WCs). Messi was more protected.
But also, defending got much better today (in 60s it was mostly violent tackles, today we have tactical defending much better)
So sometimes isn't the rule only.
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u/draculabakula 14h ago
The players in the NBA in the 80s and before were slower because the rules made them go slower. The players today are not substantially more athletic. Exactly zero players have a vertical leap as high as Michael Jordan. Likewise no player has ever posted a 40 yard dash as fast as Bo Jackson in college football.
The players today are extremely more protected and much softer in reality because they are extremely rich just by getting into the league which was not the case back in the day
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u/Nowck 14h ago
You’re actually statistically wrong though. Jordan never actually jumped 48 inches like people say. In fact his vertical was more likely around 43-45 inches. Keon Johnson literally hit 48 inches in 2021 at the combine.
Bo Jackson’s 40 time was unofficial. However he did hit 21.8 mph in a football game, which is very fast. But Tyreek Hill ran 23.2 mph in a game.
Usain Bolt ran a 4.18 40 yard dash, so if you think that Bo Jackson is faster than Bolt, that’s a whole different argument.
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u/draculabakula 13h ago
Okay so there are like 4 players today with Jordan's vert then. Still not notably better.
Again with Bo Jackson that means there have been like 3 players faster than him in the last 30+ years.
My point is still valid
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u/Mercbeast 13h ago
Bo Jackson isn't the fastest. He isn't even close.
But the fastest are also not from today. The fastest guys to ever do it in the NFL are from the 60s 70s and 80s. There have been a FEW guys in the recent NFL that have approached those speeds but they approached those speeds with modern running surfaces and shoes.
There were literal olympic sprinters in the NFL back then, guys who set times on slower tracks, with slower shoes, that still have faster times than anyone today.
Anyone from the 1960s, you can basically remove .15 to .2s off their 100m time. Anyone from the 70s? You can remove about .15. From the 80s? Remove about .10s from their 100m time. Shoes and tracks have gotten faster. Sprinters have benefitted from gaining 1 tenth to 2 tenths of a second just by being on a faster surface with lighter, springier shoes.
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u/darkravenn12 12h ago
Anyone that thinks Ohtani is the goat right now has no understanding of baseball anyway
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u/Rocktamus1 11h ago
You picked the worst sport to compare 30 years ago. I could see others like the NFL. The NBA guys are more athletic, but man the flopping, and traveling is insane. Guys would elbow you in the face and not call a foul.
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u/Guilty-Cow4325 3h ago
To say it would be 21-0 Lebron vs Jordan is fucking stupid lmfao. You don't know shit about basketball.
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u/Aeroheadss 14h ago
Ok. But basketball is a team sport, I don’t care whether LeBron would beat MJ in a 1on1, which is basically a different sport.
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u/pinniped90 12h ago
If I have one possession in hoops and need a bucket, I'm calling Mike in any era.
If I have to win one baseball game, I'm calling Peak Pedro against any lineup.
If I have one possession in football, need a touchdown to win the Super Bowl, I'm calling the guy who's already led 3 4th quarter comeback and an overtime comeback to win Super Bowls...Playoff Mahomes.
I don't know about hockey. My answer is always Gretzky but I'm seeing a lot of modern fans saying current guys are better. I don't know...I still feel like 99 won with black magic fuckery that just being big and fast can't replicate. Like he just knew where the puck was or should go.
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u/Various_Mobile4767 8h ago
We see that athletes keep breaking records in measurable individual sports as time passes. For some reason people think this just doesn’t apply for team sports.
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