Gretzky vs. Jordan

[micormic79]

What a terribly inaccurate post.

Oh please tell me more about Lechoke is the GOAT player. Modern basketball is even more of a joke then the modern NHL.

 

[Halla]

you can argue that prime for prime mario was better than wayne. Which basketball player was better than jordan? Wilt 'ballhog' chamberlain, i dont think so.

you could. but it would be a silly argument to try to make

Prime WG: 92g/212 pts
Prime ML: 85g/199pts

Gretzky: 13 seasons of 130pts or more. Lemieux: 6 seasons of 130pts or more

 

[Sparksrus3]

Its a hot debate i've been having with my friends and family

who do u think was more dominant at their sport?
Wayne Gretzky or Michael Jordan?

99

 

[canucks4ever]

But most of those playing basketball doesn't even have the height more or less required to make it?

It's Gretzky btw and that's no slight towards Jordan, Gretzky was just that dominant.

Throw away the height requirement and theres still far more people globally playing basketball, its not even remotely close.

Lets not act like the nhl isnt full of guys who are 6'3 or taller. Most scouts favour taller players. The majority of people who play hockey and are below 5'9 wont be considered big enough to play in the nhl.

In basketball, all 5 positions can realistically be the goat. Gretzky on the other hand is only competing against other fowards and a rover like orr. Goalies and Defensemen in general have no chance at being the best ever. In today's era, no one is going to chose a goalie or a traditional defenseman over Mcdavid or Crosby.

Also in basketball, every era allows you to score over 30 ppg. Gretzky's numbers are a by product of his era.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Michael Jordan had 9 All-Defensive honours, tying the NBA record.

Michael Jordan and the Greatest Lockdown, Man-To-Man Defenders in NBA History

 

[SML2]

I have a problem with Lebron being such a "ME" guy. Nobody in the history of sports has been more about putting himself in a position to accept all credit and deflect all blame the way he has. It's sad the stories you hear of players growing up idolizing him and then meeting their hero and he's a total jerk to them. So all that Said, Gretzky dominated his sport in his era to a greater degree, IMO, than Jordan. They were both head and shoulders the best of their sport. Gretzky's records have not even come close to being broken. MJs numbers are at least approachable.

 

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Gretzky was great but not undisputedly the best. He also had players like Messier, Coffey, Kurri, Fuhr on his team. Mario and Orr were also dominant.

 

[MadLuke]

Lets not act like the nhl isnt full of guys who are 6'3 or taller. Most scouts favour taller players. The majority of people who play hockey and are below 5'9 wont be considered big enough to play in the nhl.

I doubt there is many 5-11/6 foot player that could have compete with Gretzky to reduce is relative dominance not making the league too (but there was many Soviet and people from either non hockey playing country or could not make it to the nhl hockey playing country that could have).

Throw away the height requirement and theres still far more people globally playing basketball, its not even remotely close.

I would imagine that would be true, but by how much ?

Looking at this:
Players Bios

In the 2016-2017 there was 250 NBA players with 60 game played or more and 4 point a game or more, 207 of them are 6 foot 4 or taller (83% of the league), 151 of those 207 player are from the USA (60%).

In the US:
Height Percentile Calculator by Gender (United States)

1% of the male population is 6 foot 3.57" or taller in the USA, a really big proportion of relevant NBA player come from the group of 450K Americans Male between 20 and 40 that is 6 foot 3 and a half. I imagine a lot of them play basketball and it would not surprise me if the average gifted by genetic to be above 6'3" is also more gifted at sport than the general population as well, but someone like Shaquille O'Neal needed to be what the best among a group of about 10 people in the US with is physique (maybe even closer to 0 when we consider is natural strength) to be a really important piece of that league, he was arguably the best in is sport while not better at shooting the basketball than some random people, I doubt we could see anything remotely close to that in Soccer.

 

[Voight]

MJ once was the MVP, highest scorer and DPOY all in one season.

Not far off from what Fedorov did in '94.

 

[canucks4ever]

I doubt there is many 5-11/6 foot player that could have compete with Gretzky to reduce is relative dominance not making the league too (but there was many Soviet and people from either non hockey playing country or could not make it to the nhl hockey playing country that could have).



I would imagine that would be true, but by how much ?

Looking at this:
Players Bios

In the 2016-2017 there was 250 NBA players with 60 game played or more and 4 point a game or more, 207 of them are 6 foot 4 or taller (83% of the league), 151 of those 207 player are from the USA (60%).

In the US:
Height Percentile Calculator by Gender (United States)

1% of the male population is 6 foot 3.57" or taller in the USA, a really big proportion of relevant NBA player come from the group of 450K Americans Male between 20 and 40 that is 6 foot 3 and a half. I imagine a lot of them play basketball and it would not surprise me if the average gifted by genetic to be above 6'3" is also more gifted at sport than the general population as well, but someone like Shaquille O'Neal needed to be what the best among a group of about 10 people in the US with is physique (maybe even closer to 0 when we consider is natural strength) to be a really important piece of that league, he was arguably the best in is sport while not better at shooting the basketball than some random people, I doubt we could see anything remotely close to that in Soccer.

You bring up good points, but why not do the same for hockey. All those midgets who play hockey and are 5'8 and under, they are essentially irrelevant. The average forward is 6'1, the average defenseman and goalie is 6'2. A large portion of Canadian youth do not even play hockey. I grew up here in Canada and I would say at best, 20% of men played hockey and maybe like 5% were good enough to make it to Junior. The amount of people who play ice hockey at a competitive level is really small.

 

[Rebels57]

If you just look at raw numbers, Gretzky dominated his sport more than Jordan did by quite a large margin. Production wise, Wilt Chamberlain is a better comparable to Gretzky.

 

[MadLuke]

You bring up good points, but why not do the same for hockey. All those midgets who play hockey and are 5'8 and under, they are essentially irrelevant. The average forward is 6'1, the average defenseman and goalie is 6'2. A large portion of Canadian youth do not even play hockey. I grew up here in Canada and I would say at best, 20% of men played hockey and maybe like 5% were good enough to make it to Junior. The amount of people who play ice hockey at a competitive level is really small.

I thought about goaltender that probably became a position with a particularly shallow talent pool (almost only very tall making the league, expensive position, etc...)

The same would go for hockey obviously the under 5'8" are probably irrelevant but that what less than 40% of the male population , but with Patrick Kane, Gretzky, Sakic, Crosby, Yzerman career, at least for a forward being in the most common size of about 5'10-5'11 do not seem to be a big issue.

 

[MadLuke]

If you just look at raw numbers, Gretzky dominated his sport more than Jordan did by quite a large margin. Production wise, Wilt Chamberlain is a better comparable to Gretzky.

If we consider both 7 season prime say Jordan 86-87 until 92-93 with Wayne prime of 80-81 to 86-87.

During that time frame the NBA top 50 player with at least 250 games averaged (if we remove Jordan) 19,98 pts a game and that group had a standard deviation of 2.87 point per games.

Jordan 33.2 was 4.6 standard deviation above that average and 1.811 std dev above is closest competition (Wilkins 28.0).

During that time frame in the NHL the top 50 players with at least 250 games averaged (if we remove Greztky) 1.124 pts a game with a standard deviation of 0.14

Gretzky 2.5 pts a game was a ridiculous 9.8 std deviation above the average and 6.71 above is closest competition (Bossy 1.56)

Jordan brought a lot more outside direct point scoring than Gretzky did obviously, but Gretzky separation of the pack was huge.

 

[cupcrazyman]

I once saw an article online with stats etc which stated how better Gretzky was vs the greatest players in the other major sports.

It stated how many more goals,runs,pts etc it would take for the other players to be as great as Gretzky in their respective sport.

Jordan
Mantle or Ruth (not sure which one)
Can't remember the football player

 

[Passchendaele]

I'm not knowledgeable enough about baseball to have any context, but are Ruth's accomplishments as amazing as they look?

I mean look at Ty Cobb. Indubitably one of the greatest of all-time.. despite that, Cobb had a grand total of.. 117 homeruns in 24 seasons, far, far behind Ruth. Never had more than twelve in a season either.

The question is this: were homeruns less prevalent in those years because teams didn't feel it was the right way to approach the game?

 

[MadLuke]

Ruth some season had more homerun than some team I think, it was some crazy separation for the homrun (they were not a popular option for a long time, Hitters were discouraged from trying to hit home runs, with the conventional wisdom being that if they tried to do so they would simply fly out. This was a serious concern in the 19th century, because in baseball's early days a ball caught after one bounce was still an out. The emphasis was on place-hitting and what is now called "manufacturing runs" or "small ball".).

For example 1920 season (despite 50% more bases on balls than anyone else):


Home Runs

1.	Ruth • NYY	54
2.	Sisler • SLB	19
3.	Walker • PHA	17
4.	Felsch • CHW	14
5.	Smith • CLE	12
	Jackson • CHW	12
7.	Ward • NYY	11
	Pipp • NYY	11
	Meusel • NYY	11
	Veach • DET	1

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

 

[57special]

Totally agree that Gretzky had more in common with Chamberlain than Jordan stats wise.

 

[The Panther]

Totally agree that Gretzky had more in common with Chamberlain than Jordan stats wise.

Stats-wise, yes, but "playing style" (transposed between sports), Gretzky probably has little in common with those two. They strike me as more individual achievers, who used teammates as necessary, but otherwise did it themselves. Gretzky is more of a pass-first player, who made every teammate on the ice dangerous -- more like Earvin Johnson.

 

[Colezuki]

This debate has been going on since 2008?

 

[DannyGallivan]

It's so difficult to compare players from different eras who played in the same league, how do we compare athletes from different sports?

By any metric you look at, Gretzky dominated the NHL to a greater degree than Jordan dominated the NBA. And Gretzky isn't even the best hockey player who ever played (that honour belongs to a defenseman from Parry Sound).

 

[Bluesguru]

Gretzky and it's not even close. Only Babe Ruth dominated his sport like Gretz did with hockey. The numbers they posted compared to their peers is staggering.

 

[Neutrinos]

Gretzky and it's not even close. Only Babe Ruth dominated his sport like Gretz did with hockey. The numbers they posted compared to their peers is staggering.

Wilt Chamberlain once averaged 50.4 points per game. 2nd place averaged 31.6

 

[Bluesguru]

Wilt Chamberlain once averaged 50.4 points per game. 2nd place averaged 31.6

Forgot about Wilt - ha

Yeah, he belongs with those 2.

Good call!

 

[Neutrinos]

Gretzky and it's not even close. Only Babe Ruth dominated his sport like Gretz did with hockey. The numbers they posted compared to their peers is staggering.

Doesn't Barry Bonds deserve consideration as well?

One season he got on base 60% of the time and had an OPS of 1.422

Runner-up in those categories were 47% and 1.088

 

[Tkachuk Norris]

Gretz