What sport hosts the best athletes?

Height is an advantage but it plays a far more critical role in basketball whereas it’s not nearly as important in other sports. These athletes are extremely talent and athletic but there are a lot more individuals who are faster, quicker, stronger, better skillsets but lack the prerequisite of being a giant. Consider shaq, he was a truly dominate force in the nba but watch his foul shot, watch him run down the court, watch some youtube videos of him boxing and tell me he is a athletic freak well suited for any domain.

There’s no question that hockey takes more athletisism than basketball! Basketball is an absolute joke - every physically enabled person can run, do basic dribbling, shoot a ball, etc. not everyone can skate, let alone carrying a puck down the ice, or take a slapshot.

I don’t think anyone has argued that Lebron would beat Jon Jones in a fight or even be competitive. Is Jon Jones a special athlete? Yes. What sport has the largest collection of guys with speed, quickness, hand eye coordination, intelligence (for their particular game), and endurance? I say the NBA.

But they can’t do it for more than 3 minutes at a time, and I love hockey.

Disagree, basketball players are designed to be good at basketball. The height of a basketball hoop requires height in elite players, which eliminates a large portion of an athletic talent pool. The best warriors in the world, arguably, are SEALS and they tend towards average or slightly below average height. If you are talking oldy time warriors, then it should be clear that those would be in fighting sports like MMA.

Actually it’s more like 45-60 second shifts. Despite the shorter time on the playing surface, you would burn more calories, on average, during a 60 minute hockey game than you would playing basketball for the same period of time.

There are 350 lanky softies in the NBA, there are 475 athletic beasts in the ufc.

Disagree here.

Anybody in the world can play hockey, just like anybody in the world can play basketball, or football, or diving, or tennis, or golf, or rugby, or do calculus. The question isn’t whether they CAN do it, it’s HOW WELL they do it.

I can play tennis, by the mere fact that I can walk and hold a racket. I cannot beat Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal. (or a junior high girl, for that matter)

To be fair, it probably depends on the junior high girl.

And you’d burn more calories running as fast as possible for 60 minutes than you would playing hockey. Calorie expenditure is missing the point. So is focusing on skills, like a slapshot. Few people can pitch in the big leagues, does that mean baseball has the most athletic players? No, because pitching, like shooting in hockey, is a skill that is learned and that is sport specific. I would argue that no component of how we judge an athlete can be sport specific, it has to be transferrable.

I see what you mean. Height isn’t as important in baseball or hockey, but I bet it helps. You could take a player from any sport and point out how they’re not fit for another sport. I could take Manny Pacquiao and make him play football, baseball or basketball and he would completely and utterly fail. If you put Shaq in a ring he would lose most likely, but people would be afraid he might land “that one good shot.” If you put Manny Pacquiao in those other sports people would gobble him up. This does not mean he is not truly gifted at what he does! I respect martial artists and boxers.

I think you’re right. Weightlifters are generally stronger, track stars are generally faster, but basketball hosts players that combine all these abilities. The reason this sport has dominate athletes is because it won’t reward someone who neglects any aspect of the game too much. If you have strength, but no speed they’ll dribble around you. If you have speed, but no strength they’ll post you up (or dunk on you LOL). Aside from the obvious outliers (Shaq, Yao Ming), the sport does not reward heavily weighting any individual attribute. Which brings me back to King James who is possibly the best living athlete. He is well rounded when it comes to finesse, speed, strength, endurance, intelligence, etc. The fact he is tall isn’t why he’s dominate, but it gives him another tool to use.

Undeniable truth–to be a great athlete, you must be black. The great philosopher Chris Rock said so.

“Black people dominate sports in the United States. We’re 10% of the population, we’re 90% of the Final Four.”

“Black people dominate this shit! Basketball, baseball, football, boxing, track! Even golf and tennis! And as soon they make a heated hockey rink, we’re gonna take that sht too. Motherfck Wayne Gretzky. Wait 'till you see LeBron on some skates. You ain’t seen nothing yet! He just gonna have one skate, chilling. He won’t even have a stick, he’ll just smack the puck in with his dck. Pow! Slapshot, btch!”

If you want a 10 incher, circumcised or not, u must also be black.

Comparing sports is comparing apples and oranges.

Great athletes double shift when needed and I didn’t want to leave out defensemen.

I was talking about oldy times. Smith and Wesson made all men equal. I can’t argue that a sport where you’re trained to fight would lose in a fight, but you really can’t argue the light heavy weight boxers would lose to the feather weights. It’s just a fact of life that all else equal height is an advantage.

Not that I would put him up there as one of the greatest athletes of all time, but people need to watch some footage of Shaq at LSU and in his early NBA days. The Shaq most of you watched play was a shadow of young Shaq. FWIW though, I put centers in a different category from the rest of the NBA. If you’re 7 feet tall and reasonably athletic, you can be an NBA center, but it takes real skill and athleticism to play any other position in the NBA.

Yep, and all else being equal strength is an advantage. But all else isn’t equal. At the extremes you give something up. I could say, all else equal, strength is an advantage and reference some NFL lineman or pro strongman. I don’t actually have any idea how strong Lebron is. None whatsoever. Basketball does not test pure strength in any obvious way. Same goes for raw speed (not agility or “quickness”). No idea what his 400 meter time would look like. Only thing I know from watching Lebron is that he is perfectly adapted to basketball.

Anyway, that is why generally I think it makes sense to gravitate towards sports that are simpler and are individual (not team). Teamwork is great and essential to being productive in a team sport, and I mostly play team sports but I don’t think being able to function as part of a team is part of athleticism. Track and field, gymnastics and other traditional olympic sports and fighting sports make more sense for this discussion.

^Kinda like offensive lineman.

If you’re 325 lbs and can squat 800 lbs, you can be a lineman as long as you have decent footwork.

There’s a reason why boxing and MMA have weight classes. While the occasional freak could beat a mediocre fighter a couple of weight classes above him, generally speaking a bigger guy is going to win. There’s a reason Roy Jones, Jr. didn’t want to defend his heavy weight championship belt.

So who would win? Mike Tyson or Floyd Mayweather?

(I don’t even think this would be fun to watch.)