Bradman, the greatest sportsperson ever?

[Hurricane]

Mario was nearly as good as Wayne just didn't sustain it for the same length of time.

Here is the list of points per game leaders and Mario is close

NHL & WHA Career Leaders and Records for Points Per Game | Hockey-Reference.com

I am saying here Wayne has less of a claim than Don.

 

[fredfertang]

Damn you, people, you are going to make me accept something untoward on a cricket forum. Bradman the best sportsperson of all time? Not even close. Because whether we like it or not, the best sportsperson will come from sports like Tennis, Swimming, Boxing, Cycling etc. The competition between a bowler-batsman (as much as I love the game), pitcher-batter etc is not as much of a thing.

Michael Phelps comes close, so does Muhammad Ali, so does Roger Federer, so does Diego Maradona.

Phelps and Federer are fair calls – As for Ali I think he was justifiably dubbed “The Greatest”, but he lost too often to be considered the best sportsmen ever – As for Maradona what a little **** – he has no place in this discussion – if a soccer player is to be included it should be Pele

 

[Furball]

I'll put it this way for you; do you think if Dennis Lillee (debuted in early 1970s) were to be transported to the present (with a chance for only minimal adaptation), he would average roughly similar (say <30) to what he did in his day? The answer for me is, yes. And that is simply because the game had reached a level of professionalism by then which has by and large plateaued - i.e. it was a fully professional era back then, just as it is now. Now, if you ask the same question with regards to say, Clarrie Grimmett, considered one of the finer spin bowlers of his day, it would be an unequivocal no for me. I think he would he get destroyed. And that is not largely because his game was 'designed' for the conditions of his day, it is because he simply wasn't as professional - I think it's analogous with asking would a club cricketer if transferred instantaneously to test cricket average the same? No, they wouldn't. And before some annoying person pipes in, I am not saying Clarrie Grimmett couldn't be as good if he was raised in the modern era and had the same opportunities to adapt to the modern game. All I'm saying is it's impossible to have any idea of just how good he would be, when we are comparing eras where the standards where qualitatively different.

You're ****ing kidding yourself if you think standards of professionalism haven't improved since Warne's debut never mind Lillee's.

 

[GIMH]

You ****s that argue that Bradman is the greatest of all time against the same people who say he's not are the true idiots. Why do you do it to yourself? Crazy stuff. And there are threads popping up everytime when this is occurring.

Approaching Warne vs. Murali status, and has definitely surpassed the Lara vs. Tendulkar stuff from years gone by.

Edit: This doesn't take into account the Ruckus debate, which is different.

Yeah it's just not worth arguing anymore. I swear the reason you overtook me as CW's 3rd most prolific poster was because I stopped engaging in discussions like these.

And as hb says, I called it

Seeing posts like this makes me feel GIMH was spot on in his earlier post in this thread.. *Awaits the inevitable SRT reference now*

 

[the big bambino]

Are you crazy? Viv batted against Imran, Wasim, Abdul Qadir, Hadleigh, Lille, Thomson, Willis, Botham, Kapil etc so whilst he may not have faced the best fast bowling unit of his time-he still came accross plenty of class bowlers (some of which are also ATGs). The fact that he still faced so many premier bowlers despite having the best of the lot in his own team is indicative of how competitive Viv's era was relative to Bradman's.

If you want people to respect your point it would be a good start not to change the context of my comments. I responded to a post saying that DGB didn't face any competitive teams. Teams: Understand? Well that's not true. However, and ironically it was true of Richards. As there was no one side as good as his West Indies. I trust you understand the difference.

Btw Qadir And mind you the bowling averages of Thommo, Kapil were high. Willis and Baotham averaged mid 30s against the WI.

 

[the big bambino]

It also enters circular logic territory where being that good devalues the achievements of those you did it against. Larwood and Verity, as far as I'm concerned, would be ranked far higher as bowlers if it was not for Bradman being as good as he was. The bowlers weren't park standard trundlers, Bradman just made them look like they were (and they had very little other opposition to play regularly to improve their stats).

Arguably, if one uses that logic, Richards is inferior for not making all those bowlers look like plodders (I do not subscribe to this for the circular nature of the logic, and the important distinction that the great 70s and 80s bowlers had other teams to show their worth against. Although I can't say I've heard of this Hadleigh character)

You're on fire.

 

[the big bambino]

1970 is pretty much equidistant between the debut of Bradman and now. That's a long time, featuring a lot of dramatic changes, to consider mostly homogenous.

3rd umpire, covered pitches, helmets, ODI cricket, T20 cricket, DRS, bigger bats, smaller boundaries - all changes implemented at least in part after 1970.

IMO it's bull**** to say cricket evolved up until an arbitrary point and then just stopped; it smacks of a desperation to find some justification, no matter how specious. It's almost "colour pix or it didn't happen"

Yep: On fire.

 

[the big bambino]

You're ****ing kidding yourself if you think standards of professionalism haven't improved since Warne's debut never mind Lillee's.

Boundary! Good hit.

If you are going to run the professionalism argument to make a comparative point about standards across eras you'd better logically end up saying that all the best players are playing right now. .

What you'll find is that the same people who propose that argument will run into a contradiction. They try and exempt an era from the consequence of their point. So for some reason the game has plateaued from 1970 making players of that era just as good as today's.

Well that's a little too convenient isn't it? There aren't many records set in the 70s still alive today. Every sport has improved mightily since then so its only logical to think cricket has too. Maybe Lillee and the Chappells would be club std cricketers today if you believe that improved stds obsolete the achievements of past cricketers. So if you don't believe that about them then you can't sustain the argument.

I also agree with posters who make the point that DGB was so good it causes some to doubt his efforts. They try to explain them away with fallacies abt his opposition or the conditions he played in. I've dealt with a lot of these fallacies in my only thread started here. But it is interesting to note that those who doubt DGB's achievements don't actually have a point to justify their doubts. They just have incredulity that anyone could be that good. Well incredulity, though understandable, isn't actually a fact or a point. Whereas all the facts and stats prove Bradman's superiority. Especially the one that says he's twice as good as Richards. People's incredulity is based on Richards in his glory days. In those days he was Bradmanesque. But he couldn't maintain it. DGB could. Hence that is why his average proves he was twice the player IVA was.

 

[Top_Cat]

Cricket's a bit unique in that the opinions of former players hold a lot more water in the minds of the public than those in other sports. Reckon that's why the idea that the professionalism of players 40 years ago = today still gets a run. It's the only rational explanation for why anyone still listens to anything said by I or GChapp, Neil Harvey, etc. Former players as commentators are strictly for reminiscing in American sports.

 

[Ruckus]

You're ****ing kidding yourself if you think standards of professionalism haven't improved since Warne's debut never mind Lillee's.

ok then, so would early Warne transported to the present do roughly as well as he did when he debuted?

 

[Spark]

Cricket's a bit unique in that the opinions of former players hold a lot more water in the minds of the public than those in other sports. Reckon that's why the idea that the professionalism of players 40 years ago = today still gets a run. It's the only rational explanation for why anyone still listens to anything said by I or GChapp, Neil Harvey, etc. Former players as commentators are strictly for reminiscing in American sports.

so basically this is all c9's fault

 

[karan316]

If you want people to respect your point it would be a good start not to change the context of my comments. I responded to a post saying that DGB didn't face any competitive teams. Teams: Understand? Well that's not true. However, and ironically it was true of Richards. As there was no one side as good as his West Indies. I trust you understand the difference.

Btw Qadir And mind you the bowling averages of Thommo, Kapil were high. Willis and Baotham averaged mid 30s against the WI.

Ok, so did Bradman face bowlers who were even half as good as compared to what Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards faced? Or even 25% of the quality bowlers Viv faced??

 

[Jono]

Why have you got Bradman in your avatar now?

 

[the big bambino]

Ok, so did Bradman face bowlers who were even half as good as compared to what Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards faced? Or even 25% of the quality bowlers Viv faced??

Yep. Even better.

 

[NUFAN]

Just because standards of professionalism have improved doesn't mean the ability to make runs while not getting out has improved.

 

[Ruckus]

That's only because better standards also means better competition - i.e. bowlers getting better along with batsmen.

 

[the big bambino]

You're right. Ishant Sharma being much better than Lillee for example.

 

[NUFAN]

No it doesn't Ruckus. Just to clarify I'm not referring the difference between 1930 where I haven't seen and 2013, I'm more talking about when Warne started his career which I actually saw all his career.

Batsman definitely have a wider range of shots these days and fielders dive more, but the ability to bat in Test match Cricket has not improved in that time frame. A sport like Cricket where being faster, higher, stronger is not a benefit so its less obvious that the level has improved compared to say a sprinter like Bolt.

 

[karan316]

Yep. Even better.

But the video footages of that time tell a completely different story.

 

[Ruckus]

yep because ishant sharma is a great of his time like Lillee was.