Old-Time Sports

I can't make a legitimate argument v. what you say about baseball as it is much less dependent on teamwork than football, basketball, hockey or that other "football".

It seems as if you're somewhat ignoring the team success aspect when you're evaluating these guys. In other words, I think there's better parameters to be had by both you and RSM in this debate. It's not all team success any more than it's all individual stats. Back to Russell v. Wilt, if they were playing one on one, my money would be on Wilt. But assuming I valued winning championships over individual stats, it's Russell. In fact, I'd argue that Wilt become more "valuable" when he became less of a scorer.

You might also drop Barry Sanders down a bit with his running style. Yes, he was maybe the most dynamic runner EVER. But he also had a very large amount of negative runs looking for the home run on every play. Net result was not a lot of wins. Clearly, he'd be in a much different conversation if he and Emmitt Smith swapped teams. Sanders was far more talented, but maybe Smith was the better player?

This is a very cool subject by the way. Got me thinking more about it.

Great question. Depends on the sport.

In baseball, I'll always prioritize the best individually talented player.

In the other sports, I'm going for the best talented "team" player. Like him or not, Belichick is the modern day proof of how I'd define a great player. Brady is clearly not be the most physically talented signal caller, nor is he the highest ranked statistically. But he'll go down as the GOAT primarily because of his teams' success.

If your goal was to win championships and you chose Chamberlain or Sanders, you missed your goal.  How do we know this?  History.

Your examples are completely omitting the fact Russell & Altuve made their teams great, not just through their skills, but in the way they played the game and the leadership they brought to it.  I omit Smith because I'm not sure if he was the one that led the team, I think that may have come more from Michael Irvin or Troy Aikman.

Last year, Trout had as teammates Pujols (a great player in his prime, maybe no longer great, but not suckville), Ohtani, Simmons, Upton to name a few.  Those are some talented players, yet the team still hung around the .500 mark all year.  If Mike Trout is going to indeed be a great player, why does he need to load up all stars at every position in order to just make the playoffs, much less win some titles?

The only argument that I feel is legitimate where a great player is still great without any titles is if the team is held back by really bad or mediocre coaches/managers.  Now more than ever you can see the effect a great coach has on a team as opposed to a good coach, and how you don't have to be the most talented to win or be great.  I am surprised you didn't mention that, but if you had, then you would have to admit that Rollo is a pretty poor coach, seeing how he has a loaded team every year and only wins titles every decade or so.

I'll say this, you MD & Servite guys can be pretty entertaining how you go after each other. Should we start a thread so you guys can have at?

Funny you mention Gretzky. He'd be on top of the heap for the GOAT in hockey in my book. Championships, stats, and I think you could make the argument the players around him did better WITH him than without. From there you work down the list.

Maybe that's how to approach this debate...start at the very top in each sport.

I know that many today will say that these guys played largely or entirely in a segregated era and so on, but I'll still take the judgment below to the bank.

I think that guy was joking. Sightlines were terrible for football back then at that stadium