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Anyone seen Rocky Balboa, the (hopefully) final movie in the classic Rocky story played by Sylvester Stallone?It’s the one where the current generation boxing champion is pitted in a virtual match against longtime retired Rocky Balboa using a sophisticated program designed by ESPN (got to be Hollinger) to determine who is the best of all time. Well such a program is fictional but the idea is certainly not. Sports fans across the world evaluate players from different generations on a regular basis. Borg or Federrer? Wilt or Shaq? Cruyf or Zidane? The list is endless, and the amount of friendly chatter this creates amongst fans is perhaps unparalleled anywhere else. One common tendency is for the older generation to prefer the older players, while the current batch of youngsters naturally side with the stars they grew up watching. Who is essentially right we will never know, and that is the actual beauty of the debate, but that doesn’t mean we can’t analyze this issue deeper to get some answers.

Innovator vs Adopter

One major mistake we make when debating the ‘greatest of all time’, is we take irrelevant factors into account. Take the area of phones. When it was first invented in the late 19th century, it was a breakthrough for the ages. In fact, it still stands today as one of the most remarkable inventions of all time. The ‘telephone’ that Alexander Bell had invented could enable two people in two remote locations to communicate. In the 19th centure this was a huge deal! However, if we talk about phones today the phone created by Apple and Steve Jobs (the iPhone - for those who just got out of a comma)  is far superior to the phone that Bell had created. So if you were to compare which is the better of the two phones, you would no doubt have to give the edge to the iPhone over whatever kind of device Bell could put together. This doesn’t mean that Jobs is a greater man than Bell, God no, but it does serve to be a good point in our sports debate.

So when you strictly want to debate who is the best of all time, make sure the debate doesn’t shift to non-relevant items like being an innovator or being a pioneer etc. If you ask someone the best phone of all time, I’m sure they wont tell you it is the phonograph that Bell used! Of course, if your debating about things such as who is the most ‘dominant’ or ‘brilliant’ player/scientist of all time then the debate changes. It all depends whether you try to make it a relative debate, or a comprehensive one. The fact that Dr. J was the first player to use high-flying moves doesn’t in fact make him a better player than the current player who learned through him and copied his style.

Evolution through Competition

Sports, like any other ‘industry’ in the world is an ever changing landscape where competition, money, and time force everyone involved in the industry to constantly evolve and try to improve. Even in the most ancient of industries where companies have been forever trying to dominate is seeing forward progress on a regular changes. Did you think people couple of centuries ago could envision toilets that you can sit on, automatically cleans itself, and can even massage your butt? Today you think toilets are a done deal but let me assure you, 100 years from now people will look back at us the same way we look at prehistoric caveman that ‘did their stuff’ in the woods like animals.

So for something very modern such as Sports, there is bound to be alot of changes and progress over time! Forget for a second the more recent sports, and consider a ’sport’ that has been around since the beginning of time. Running. Below is the 100m world record progression over the last century or so in which records have been kept.

Yes even in such a basic sport that humans have been trying to perfect since days of animal hunting homo sapiens, there has been notable consistent progress. So if we take a more complex and new sport such as basketball, then naturally we can expect much changes and progress over time. Not only are players/coaches/trainers becoming more experienced by learning from everything in the past, but the technological aspects, the tactics and strategies, the physical evolution are all progressing at rapid speeds. Of course, lets not forget that sports has gone from the hobby of the rich to a billions of dollar per year industry. With every young kid practicing and training to be the next rich athlete, there is bound to be a general level of progress in top proffesional leagues around the world (this old article I wrote, explains this further). 

50 years ago there wasn’t a single player with the physical gifts that someone such as LeBron James possessed when he came out of highschool! So while Bob Cousy remains a legendary basketball guard, and will continue to be looked up to by people throughout the ages - no one should argue that he is better than a current player today such as Stephon Marbury. The strength, speed, explosiveness, dribbling skills, moves, shooting range - all these are largely in favour of Stephon Marbury (current day laughingstock) over the clear cut basketball legend that is Bob Cousy. What this proves is that comparing players across time is simply unfair. What you do with what you got and what is around you is what SHOULD be the comparison we make. However, most often the debate is who is the best of all time and in such a debate, you need to take out the subjects from their respective environments and pit them straight up against each other.

The Past isn’t Forgotten

With all of that said, it doesn’t mean the greats of past times will inevitably be replaced by greater people in the near future. Look at Einstein, Da Vinci, Mozart, Ali, Shakespeare…these are all people that have stood the test of time and continue to not only be relevant but still stand as leaders in their respective fields - they came, they saw, they conquered. Perhaps they deserve even more credit for this achievement because if they accomplished all that they did in past times, imagine what they could do now with all the progress and better conditions that are available. Even if  past greats are ‘beaten’, they should and definitely do hold a special place in people’s minds. Everyone recognizes the fact that their respective colleagues before them are the reason why they are the way they are today. So perhaps one interesting dynamic that can be brought into the ‘best of all time’ debates that helps past players stand taller against the test of time, is that they should be given credit for the reason why the current player is better than him. So while Kobe is better than Dr. J today, it is only because Dr. J existed that Kobe is in fact better…. This is a rather counter-intuitive concept, yet it definitely can hold ground for you old timers out there who are resilient on giving up on the past. Whoever the winner of old versus young, past versus present - it is all of us who win in the end because everything is constantly changing (whether for better or for worse) and this makes life so much more interesting. Oh yea, and us young folks get to have something to chat about with our grandfathers!   

  

  

Tags:athletes, comparing, generations