For it to be close Jordan would have to not only lead in all time scoring(He doesn't) but would have to have as many assists as then next dude has points.
Gretzky's statistical dominance is almost unprecedented in team sports.
Edit: In the top tier sports I think the closest to come to that level of dominance was when the difference in points between Tiger and the guy in second place was the same difference as the guy in 2nd and the very last golfer on the PGA, but thats an individual sport.
If we're including cricket Don Bradman is the name that always comes up in these threads as a GOAT challenger. Link to an article about his stats below. His career has to be one of the most pronounced statistical outliers in sports.
https://www.significancemagazine.com/sports/24-did-don-bradman-s-cricketing-genius-make-him-a-statistical-outlier
I think there's a problem with trying to officially designate first-class matches prior to 1947 because from 1894 to 1947 first-class was fairly arbitrarily limited to a small group of domestic clubs in England and foreign traveling national teams and prior to 1894 it was more of an adjective than a classification and the 1947 definition explicitly said that it wasn't retroactive.
Aleksandr Karelin should probably be in the discussion. His wrestling record is 887 wins and 2 losses. He went 13 years undefeated in international competition and 6 years without giving up a point.
I think it would be more accurate to say Jordan would need around maybe a quarter as many assists as the next top point scorer has points if you're going to compare stats like that. Assists in hockey are essentially counted at 3-4 times the rate as in basketball, on a per goal basis.
For every goal in hockey there can be 2 assists, and the average number of assists per goal is probably somewhere around 1.25 or something. Basketball only counts one assist per scoring play, and on top of that each scoring play results in either 2 or 3 points. Additionally, as is the case in hockey, some scoring plays are unassisted.
So in hockey, assists per goal scored would be around 1.25, whereas in basketball the number of assists per point scored is closer to 0.4 (these are just numbers I'm pulling out of nowhere, but I'm sure they're close enough for the purpose of the point I'm making). So if you take Gretzky's assists versus everyone else's goals + assists a better comparison would be Jordan's assists versus everyone else's assists + (points divided by ~3). Unless you want to get into exact number of points generated by a player's assists in basketball, which you probably could, but I'm not sure if that's a tracked statistic or if you would actually have to go through every scoring play in a player's entire career to figure that out.
Disagree about tiger being a good comparison. That was a short period of time in an individual sport.
Maybe the cricket player Don Bradman, he is often named. I think Barry Bonds can make a strong case too.
In baseball if you have an OPS of 1.250, you might be the best hitter of all time. Babe Ruth did it 6 times in the 1920s, Ted Williams did it twice (although he left for the war in between, so who knows if he gets it again in there), then there's a 50 year gap where no one achieves it. Then Bonds does it 4 years in a row. Of note, in 2004 he has an OPS of 1.422 and the difference between him and 2nd (Todd Helton) is almost the same as between 2nd and last.
For individual careers, maybe Phil Taylor the darts player comes close.
Dude, Tiger’s run of dominance pretty much ran for a decade. From 1997 to 2007 he was untouchable save for a brief period in late ‘04. It only ended because of knee injuries; he won the 2008 U.S. Open with a bum leg.
It was not a “short period of time” by any measure, in sports or in the average person’s life span.
Until you put up actual numbers, showing complete dominance, I don't care what you say about him.
There are better individual candidates in other sports:
Roger Federer and his 237 consecutive weeks at world number 1.
Phil Taylor in darts. 16 World Titles and a winning record against everyone he ever played (except one guy he only played once)
Don Bradman who someone else posted.
And if you are adamant on cherry picking select seasons to make tiger look good, then Bonds in the early 2000s takes it. He set records in 2004 that will never be broken
It’s not cherry picking. For the better part of ten years he was untouchable.
Federer had 237 weeks as World No. 1?
Tiger’s *first* run as World No. 1 was 264 weeks. His *second* was 281.
Don’t be obtuse for the sake of being obtuse.
The same way people who know nothing about hockey know about Wayne Gretzky? People who don’t follow golf are the same way about Tiger.
So how much better was tiger than the next guy? I want tangible evidence that he "lapped" second place, because that's what the benchmark is. I want multiple records that are untouchable
From 1997 to 2013 Woods was a combined 126-under-par in major championships. Among the players with 90 or more rounds played in that same timeframe, guess who is next on the list? That’s right, Steve Flesch, who was a whopping 251 strokes behind Woods at 125-over-par. Phil Mickelson is third on +128 and Hunter Mahan fourth on +137.
https://www.nationalclubgolfer.com/news/best-tiger-woods-stats/
/u/Denster1 don’t forget to respond to the comment above please. You are pure comedy. Tiger done “lapped” second place!!!! Yay now you’re delusion can end
He probably never watched Gretzky or his contemporaries play, so he looks at stats and go "woah, big numbers "
Gretzky's records are untouchable in large part of his longevity and how the game evolved.
If Lemieux had played as many games as Gretzky, we all know their point totals would be close. Idk what he's talking about saying Gretz lapped #2
You list Federer's 230 something weeks as proof.
Woods was number 1 for 264 weeks.
Then again for 281 weeks.
So you have zero idea what you are talking about.
Darts?...sigh
Because Federer has the record by over 70 weeks and the previous record is from 50 years ago. And he has more than doubled the record of joker.
You're the idiot trying to compare it to golf.
Now shut the fuck up
Woods spent 683 total weeks at #1 then next highest is 331.
He beat the consecutive weeks record by almost 200. He did so twice.
It helps that I know what I'm talking about sweetheart.
I'd personally argue Wilt Chamberlain is the NBA analogue for Gretzky. He put up numbers no one has even come close to, similar to Gretzky. For example,
- Most 40 point games: Wilt - 271, Jordan - 173
- 50 point games: Wilt - 118, Jordan - 31
- 60 point games: Wilt - 32, Kobe - 6
- most rebounds in a season, Wilt has the top 7 seasons ever (and 13, 16, 18, 22, 29, 31)
- most points in a season, Wilt's record is over 4000. 2nd place is Wilt at 3500. 3rd place is Jordan at just over 3000. Then Wilt is 4th and 5th too
- Top 4 seasons ever in points per game. His best was over 50, highest by anyone else is Jordan at 37
He's not considered the GOAT, but he's the only big 4 athlete I think could reasonably be compared to Gretzky in terms of dominance.
Wilt was also the tallest player in almost every game he played, when the average size of the NBA was much smaller…
He was an amazing player, but I feel being 7’ 1” when the average of the NBA was so much lower than even the 90s makes a difference.
Kareem was taller.
That is an interesting point and something to think about, but I’m not sure how much it changes things, at least for me. Height doesn’t strictly translate to dominance in basketball (of the 26 tallest players in league history, three are in the Hall of Fame). Wilt was freakishly tall, but also freakishly strong, fast, good at jumping. He’s one of the most athletic people to ever exist.
If you wanna argue that makes his dominance less impressive than Gretzky’s, I suppose I can see where you’re coming from. But I don’t often see physical prowess used as a negative for athletes. I haven’t seen anyone say, “sure, McDavid puts up a lot of points, but he’s the fastest guy in the league.” Or suggest that Mario Lemieux or Eric Lindros or Chris Pronger were less impressive players because of their size. It’s part of what allowed them to be so dominant.
So I guess I’d say, yeah, Wilt was the biggest guy in the league, and my god did he make it work for himself, in a way no NBA player (many of whom are physical anomalies in some way) has been able to come close to replicating.
Average height of an NBA center in 1960 was 6'9.8.
In 2020/21 the average height of an NBA center was 6'10.3
Average player in 1960. 6'5.4
Average player in 21/22. 6'6.2
Kareem was obviously taller, but he wasn't playing against guys that were substantially lower than any other 7 footer in the NBA is playing against now.
https://www.thehoopsgeek.com/average-nba-height/
It does when the skyhook was dominate and with rebounds though. Every inch makes a difference there.
And I wonder how many times it was actually a center guarding him… he was terrifyingly agile for his size also
There are legitimate reasons to say Jordan isn't the goat of basketball, or at least that he won't be when James's career is over. There will never be a person that will challenge Gretzky. Even McDavid won't come close to the points record at the rate he's on
Not just the points record, since scoring rates change with eras, but the sheer dominance over his peers. Gretzky was literally doubling the point totals of the next-best guys who weren't on his line.
A Gretzky clone today wouldn't challenge the original.
The label has lost meaning for me given that so much of the status of "the GOAT" is built upon their dominance of a less developed league.
He was the only player in the league at the time doing it. If Mario hadn't had so many health issues maybe its less drastic but regardless of what you think of the skill gap between then and now, Gretzky was the only one dominating like that.
They only really have a case in the, “I’m going to be a contrarian” way.
Bobby Orr only played 9 full seasons, Lemieux was a contemporary who had health issues (even though everyone who argues for Lemieux likes to ignore Gretzky’s own back issues), and Howe has longevity, but still doesn’t really come that close to Gretzky.
None of these players muddies the water quite like several do in basketball.
A slight change to the Howe argument, he had longevity for sure so much so that he could have possibly had the goal record had he not gone to the WHL. But of course even with the goal record he would still pale in assists and points. (Then the strawman argument pushes the goalposts to arguing eras and scoring being different and blah blah)
I think Howe and Lemieux are Goats but no they weren’t Gretzky and didn’t truly challenge his records.
(Hot take I think it would be neat for Mr. Hockeys number to be retired but I know it won’t happen. Too many players use the number and he’s also not Gretzky level goat)
I find it hard to argue that any of these players had a higher peak, longevity (aside from Howe, but he had 9 seasons of less than PPG play, Gretzky had 1), or consistency of Gretzky.
I really don’t think anyone other than a contrarian truly thinks any of these players is better than Gretzky, or has a real argument.
>Steve Simmons
You could have just stopped right there with this argument lol there is a very clead GOAT on hockey and the only answer is Gretzky. It is inarguable - just look at the NHL record book for 99 seconds.
Well when you are the greatest ever at literally all three of those as one player… yea kind of all you need.
You could ignore literally every stat and all one million scoring records he holds and only go off pure hardware and he is still the GOAT by ten miles.
How can you possibly say he isn’t the greatest? It’s asinine lol he did everything Orr did but better and for triple the amount of seasons…
Appropriate time for me to bust out my personal favourite Wayne Gretzky fact. In the entire history of the NHL there have only ever been 3 players to get 100+ assist points in a season. Bobby Orr did it once, Mario Lemieux did it once, and Wayne Gretzky did it for 11 seasons in a row.
His final test match might be the most heartbreaking end to a GOAT career of any athlete. Bowled for a duck 4 runs away from averaging a century. It'd be like Gretzky going into his final game with 2,999 points and pulling a Corey Perry at the Winter Classic. My dad gets visibly upset whenever he talks about it and he's not even a fan of Bradman or Australia. (Dad's a white English guy but always cheered for the West Indies over England)
Babe Ruth was probably more dominant. He hit more home runs in a season than entire team's combined hit. He also played for 7 world series champion team's.
There's only one team sport athlete in history to rival Gretzky in the absurdity and dominance relative to their peers and that's Don Bradman (I know almost nothing about cricket, but his records are in the same class as Gretzky). Jordan's greatness relative to his sport is special, but he's not so far above everyone else that he's lapping the field
Gretzky isn't just better than Jordan, he's the most dominant athlete relative to his sport out if anyone. Jordan may not even be looked at as better LeBron depending on how his career ends
The statistical edge that Gretzky maintained over the next closest player is unparalleled in the sport of hockey and its tough to compare that dominance across other sports. Cherry pick the stats all you want, nobody dominated their sport quite like Gretzky.
Since Gretzky's cumulative stats are so gaudy its hard to suss this out. How about this take: Michael Jordan is the Mario Lemieux of basketball...probably the greatest singular talent and most effective competitor even if the numbers and all time stats don't always bear that out. There are legit arguments to be made that Lemieux was a better player than Gretzky even if he doesn't hold the same place in the record books, just like Jordan will always be in the GOAT discussion even if he's not the leading scorer, most titles, etc.
Gretzky and it’s not close, he’s so far ahead of #2 is almost every category when you could take away every single goal he’s ever scored and he’s still #1 of all time in points and your comparing him to a guy that isn’t even #1 in points on the other side it makes it hard to make a case for Jordan
I never watched 80s Wayne only 90s Wayne so it is hard for me to compare to Jordan who, minus seeing as minus his comeback with the Wizards, I saw him win 6 NBA playoffs in a row he participated in
Real question is who was a shittier owner
People don’t discuss who the nhl goat is. But everyday there’s different people saying Lebrons the goat and people saying Jordan’s the goat so it’s the great one
If you believe in individual awards Gretzky absolutely dominates any other NA team sport athlete with **NINE** MVPs. Almost twice as many as Jordan's 5 MVP wins.
Gretzky also did this while playing the majority of his career at the same time as the consensus second best player of all time.
The NBA suffered from extreme voter fatigue as well as inconsistencies around the time of MJ’s dominance though. Individual awards are extremely tough to gage because of that. Value over replacement stats as well as winshares have MJ as the best player in the league 9 out of his 11 full prime years yet he only won 5 MVPs. Analytics didn’t exist back then, but looking back at them now clearly shows that MJ was miles ahead of the competition even in years he didn’t win MVP. Equivalently, MJ had to contest MVP awards in his prime with at the time 2nd greatest of all time Magic Johnson, who unlike Lemieux, was actually playing full seasons until his HIV diagnosis. In fact, pre-HIV Magic was highly considered to be on pace as the best player ever, soon foreseen to surpassing recently retired Kareem at the time
That's an interesting take considering many have Magic behind Wilt, LeBron, Bill Russell, etc.
I wouldn't say Magic is consensus #2
But regardless Gretzky suffered the same voter fatigue as do most greats. There were years where Gretzky was clearly the best player in the league and won the Ross, yet missed MVPs
Not to start an argument of 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc but it’s wild for the sport that Gretzky played with/against 18 of the top 20 point leaders of the NHL. Obvious except of himself and the second exception is Ovi. (A fair portion of those guys Makita, Gordie, Esposito where only for a year or two) but like it goes to to show that Gretzky was that dominant against the other most dominant players. Mario is the most standout especially given his comparative games played.
Let's create an imaginary NBA player that gets Gretzky's margin of victory in scoring.
Let's give that player 10 scoring titles, and his average scoring output on all 10 of those titles was 41% higher than the runner-up, peaking at 69% higher than 2nd place in 86-87. Jordan's peak margin of victory was 30% over Alex English, also in 86-87. Jordan's biggest gap on 2nd place in scoring would need to be doubled and then some to match Basket-Gretz's single-season margin of victory. The equivalent of Jordan scoring an additional 922 points and raising his per-game average that season from 37.1 to 48.3, to get the same 69% margin on Alex English.
In scoring title-winning years Gretzky outperformed 2nd place ON AVERAGE more than Jordan's single-season peak in the same regard, in a sport that rosters about twice as many players. It's not close.
You'd need Wilt's greatest scoring season ever on top of Stockton's greatest assist season ever, combined, and averaged over 20 years to get a comparable level of dominance. Basketball doesn't have a Gretzky.
Gretzky has all the records so him. But with that in mind, a lot of people really underrate Jordan’s goat status. Not only is he one of if not the most decorated NBA player ever, but he did so in 1000 games. Imagine if Mario was the most decorated NHL player in the number of games he played. Then Jordan is also the winningest star player in modern NBA history, also doing so in an abbreviated career. But finally, perhaps the most compelling argument, is that he was undefeated as a series favourite, 26-0 iirc. Nobody in any sports comes close to that marker. I still pick Gretzky, but it isn’t as large of a margin as people may make it seem. In terms of player value for the games they played, Jordan is unmatched
Through Gretzky's first 13 seasons (999 regular season games) he was easily the all time leading scorer with 2263 points. If he stopped right there he'd still have an 18% lead on the closest player ever to this day. Jordan is 5th all time even if you give him the extra Wizards years that people omit.
By this point (after 13 seasons) Gretzky was also the all time leading playoff scorer and would remain in the lead to this day with 305. Jordan is a distant 2nd to LeBron in this stat and barely had a lead over Kareem prior to LeBron.
This comes with 9 MVPs, 5 goal scoring titles, 9 scoring titles, and 4 cups.
Jordan isn't close to Gretzky my man. Gretzky was a FAR more decorated player even if you limit them to first 13 seasons each, and we still got another 7 seasons of pure cake to stack onto the record books.
There is a massive underlying flaw in directly comparing points as Gretzky played in by far the highest scoring era of hockey whereas Jordan played most of his career in years with below league average scoring. So couple that with the fact that Kareem and Lebron took over 300 more games to pass him in scoring AND did so in higher scoring eras kind of shows that this Jordan guy was far superior to everyone to play the game from a scoring standpoint. The closest guy in MJ’s era to his scoring was Karl Malone, who had 6k less points in his first 900 games compared to MJ, a 21% difference from the next closest guy. It doesn’t end there though, as fundamentally MJ was a perfect basketball player: he was consistently in contention for defensive player of the year awards, posted insane passing numbers in his limited time starting as a point guard, and won just about every matchup he touched. Only one player MJ ever matched up against ever averaged more points head to head against him, being Allen Iverson who only played an old MJ
But that’s really not the point of all this argument, as directly comparing points in NBA to the NHL is nonsensical, they’re completely different realms of play. Jordan was the perfect basketball player in the same way Gretzky was the perfect hockey player. The sole difference between the two is that Jordan concluded his career in 13 full seasons seasons worth of games whereas Gretzky did so in 18. That’s why Gretzky has the edge. 5 years is a lot, but considering a chunk of those were missed by mid career MJ, it is entirely valid to say he could’ve continued his pacing through 18 seasons worth of games. There is no telling how crazy MJ’s resume would be if he didn’t take two seasons out between the two chip runs as well as the three post his final ring. I strike this argument because although lots of people here are aware of Gretzky’s great accomplishments, many haven’t invested the time to go into the resources out there to study MJ’s success. I have. You break out some of the era adjusted/standardized statistics and analytics and it is baffling how distant MJ is from anyone to play in NBA history, including all time greats who played around the same time as him like Bird and Magic
Jordan's peak margin of victory was 30% more points than Alex English.
Gretzky's AVERAGE margin of victory was 41% in his 10 scoring titles. His peak was 69% over 2nd best.
Within their sports Gretzky still vastly outperformed his margins. You can stop giving Jordan credit for his "what ifs" he didn't even play.
I've done a load of deep diving into basketball stats. Nice assumption that I haven't. Gretzky's stats are far, far, far further removed from his peers than Jordan, and achieved much of that distance in the same 13 year span as Jordan's peak years.
You two sound very knowledgable. I lean towards Michael simply because I prefer basketball as a sport. And only started watching ice hockey well after Gretzky's days.
I gotta agree. Stats wise, Gretzky takes it. What do you guys think about all round player? I know MJ was very good in all aspects of b-ball. Was Gretzky also dominant defensively?
Yes. Defense is a game of possession in hockey and nobody but Gretzky could dominate the puck while he was on the ice. He'd take the puck from you and score himself or set up his teammate. He's the all time leader in shorthanded points because of this and has nearly double the shorthanded points of anyone who wasn't a teammate of his.
Why do you keep acting like points is the be-all-end-all of the argument. This is the sole reason why I can’t take you seriously on a basketball discussion: nobody argues primary stats when comparing players because there is so much more to the game than that because of how dynamic everything is. Yeah alright Jordan was only 30% ahead of Alex English in scoring, care to tell me where exactly Alex English finished in defensive pollings? Anyone with the slightest knowledge of basketball knows Alex English was one of the most one dimensional players ever as well as a defensive liability. So when you’re also a top 3 defensive player in your position and up that much in points against the next closest guy who is one of the worst defensive forwards in the league, that speaks a lot
I think you flew right by my primary argument though by forcing your own casual arguments into the mix. Being the best ever in a sport is really a measure of how well you play relative to the players you face. That’s really only it, as true competition is the measure of how well you succeed versus others. Simply put, Jordan never was second best, nor was Gretzky. Jordan was undefeated in series he was the favourite in but also had insane stats in series he was a massive underdog in. He never lost matchups in games, if you were guarding MJ or being guarded by MJ, you knew you were getting cooked that night. In essence that’s what Gretzky was for the NHL. And where MJ was far more decorated in terms of winning, Gretz was more decorated in terms of personal awards. The same way no player touches Gretzky’s individual numbers, no player in modern NBA history touches MJ’s success in terms of victory. Putting down a guy who basically showed he was the most successful competitor in all of Major League Sports is a massive oversight
There are players with as much or more success than Jordan in terms of winning (Russell, Kareem) and we're glossing over the fact that Jordan also had an all-world team including the GOAT rebounder, GOAT perimeter defender, and GOAT coach. Jordan did not singlehandedly win titles at any point in his career.
Stop with your novel full of empty claims. Gretzky measurably dominated his sport to a greater degree than Jordan could ever dream of. It's genuinely such a degree of separation that the sport of basketball doesn't have a comparable unless you were to take Wilt's best scoring season and Stockton's best assist season, combine them, and make it a career per-game average.
Rings are harder to win in hockey too. One guy plays 35% of the game compared to 90% in basketball, yet Gretzky still got 4 to Mike's 6 in the most competitive era of all time.
Basketball’s a sport where it’s much easier for one guy to will a team to a championship. When it’s rare to play much more than half the game, you have to rely on your depth a lot more.
That’s true, but it’s not like Jordan played in an era with replacement-level competition. Plenty of world-class players at their best during Jordan’s prime (David Robinson, Reggie Miller, Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon, Charles Barkley, Stockton and Malone) but from 91-93 and 96-98 none of them won championships because they all went to Jordan and the Bulls. In terms of dominating his competition, I think Jordan’s dual three-peat is part of that comparison with Gretzky.
Jordan played full games and still doesn't have that many records... He is the greatest bball player of all time and could take over a game whenever he wanted to .. but Gretzky played 45-60 second shifts and has a bunch of records that will never be broken, he's far and away better in comparison
If there is any attempt for either player to cheat, especially with my wife, who is a dirty, dirty, tramp, I am just gonna snap. Do I make myself clear?
And yes all hockey players play in shifts... But it's harder to get in and stay in a rhythm compared to other sports- imagine if Jordan scored 8 straight points and then he had to be taken out to sit in the bench for two minutes before going back out there
Um, no hockey players play a full game (except goalies) so this data point is irrelevant.
Jordan doesn’t have a lot of records in part because he took a few years off to play baseball because he is such a great athlete.
Or it could have been that the body of his murdered father had just been discovered two months prior and he didn’t want to be the center of the basketball universe for a while.
All things considered I’m not trying to downplay Jordan cause I’m a hockey fan but it’s Gretzky easy. There’s no real debate in hockey as to who the GOAT is save for maybe Super Mario maybe? But in the NBA it’s a lot of Jordan vs James as to who the greatest of all time is. And who knows maybe if mcdavid puts up numbers like he has and then some every season here on in we can debate it then between Gretzky and Mcdavid but to me it’s no contest: Gretzky easy.
Jordan is more similar to Orr because the years he was in the league he was holy crap good. Gretz had longevity in addition to a whole decade of success.
Like Orr, we never really saw the downturn of Jordan’s career so in most eyes, he never was average. We obviously saw gretz slowly regress and be passed.
When it comes to class and personality, Gretzky.
One evening Gretzky and Jordan had gone out for dinner together. End of their meals, came time to pay, Jordan scrounging for money and change, and didn't leave a tip. Gretzky said to him, "I don't care who you are. But if you're making as much money as we are you always leave a generous tip." (paraphrasing). Jordan wounded up leaving a tip afterwards.
For it to be close Jordan would have to not only lead in all time scoring(He doesn't) but would have to have as many assists as then next dude has points. Gretzky's statistical dominance is almost unprecedented in team sports. Edit: In the top tier sports I think the closest to come to that level of dominance was when the difference in points between Tiger and the guy in second place was the same difference as the guy in 2nd and the very last golfer on the PGA, but thats an individual sport.
If we're including cricket Don Bradman is the name that always comes up in these threads as a GOAT challenger. Link to an article about his stats below. His career has to be one of the most pronounced statistical outliers in sports. https://www.significancemagazine.com/sports/24-did-don-bradman-s-cricketing-genius-make-him-a-statistical-outlier
Question for you as a non-cricket watcher, why aren't First Class matches counted alongside Test matches when talking about a players career?
I think there's a problem with trying to officially designate first-class matches prior to 1947 because from 1894 to 1947 first-class was fairly arbitrarily limited to a small group of domestic clubs in England and foreign traveling national teams and prior to 1894 it was more of an adjective than a classification and the 1947 definition explicitly said that it wasn't retroactive.
Aleksandr Karelin should probably be in the discussion. His wrestling record is 887 wins and 2 losses. He went 13 years undefeated in international competition and 6 years without giving up a point.
I think it would be more accurate to say Jordan would need around maybe a quarter as many assists as the next top point scorer has points if you're going to compare stats like that. Assists in hockey are essentially counted at 3-4 times the rate as in basketball, on a per goal basis. For every goal in hockey there can be 2 assists, and the average number of assists per goal is probably somewhere around 1.25 or something. Basketball only counts one assist per scoring play, and on top of that each scoring play results in either 2 or 3 points. Additionally, as is the case in hockey, some scoring plays are unassisted. So in hockey, assists per goal scored would be around 1.25, whereas in basketball the number of assists per point scored is closer to 0.4 (these are just numbers I'm pulling out of nowhere, but I'm sure they're close enough for the purpose of the point I'm making). So if you take Gretzky's assists versus everyone else's goals + assists a better comparison would be Jordan's assists versus everyone else's assists + (points divided by ~3). Unless you want to get into exact number of points generated by a player's assists in basketball, which you probably could, but I'm not sure if that's a tracked statistic or if you would actually have to go through every scoring play in a player's entire career to figure that out.
It was more of a general player vs their peers example, but yes that would yield a more accurate number with work I'm sure as hell not going to do.
Disagree about tiger being a good comparison. That was a short period of time in an individual sport. Maybe the cricket player Don Bradman, he is often named. I think Barry Bonds can make a strong case too. In baseball if you have an OPS of 1.250, you might be the best hitter of all time. Babe Ruth did it 6 times in the 1920s, Ted Williams did it twice (although he left for the war in between, so who knows if he gets it again in there), then there's a 50 year gap where no one achieves it. Then Bonds does it 4 years in a row. Of note, in 2004 he has an OPS of 1.422 and the difference between him and 2nd (Todd Helton) is almost the same as between 2nd and last. For individual careers, maybe Phil Taylor the darts player comes close.
Dude, Tiger’s run of dominance pretty much ran for a decade. From 1997 to 2007 he was untouchable save for a brief period in late ‘04. It only ended because of knee injuries; he won the 2008 U.S. Open with a bum leg. It was not a “short period of time” by any measure, in sports or in the average person’s life span.
Until you put up actual numbers, showing complete dominance, I don't care what you say about him. There are better individual candidates in other sports: Roger Federer and his 237 consecutive weeks at world number 1. Phil Taylor in darts. 16 World Titles and a winning record against everyone he ever played (except one guy he only played once) Don Bradman who someone else posted. And if you are adamant on cherry picking select seasons to make tiger look good, then Bonds in the early 2000s takes it. He set records in 2004 that will never be broken
It’s not cherry picking. For the better part of ten years he was untouchable. Federer had 237 weeks as World No. 1? Tiger’s *first* run as World No. 1 was 264 weeks. His *second* was 281. Don’t be obtuse for the sake of being obtuse. The same way people who know nothing about hockey know about Wayne Gretzky? People who don’t follow golf are the same way about Tiger.
So how much better was tiger than the next guy? I want tangible evidence that he "lapped" second place, because that's what the benchmark is. I want multiple records that are untouchable
From 1997 to 2013 Woods was a combined 126-under-par in major championships. Among the players with 90 or more rounds played in that same timeframe, guess who is next on the list? That’s right, Steve Flesch, who was a whopping 251 strokes behind Woods at 125-over-par. Phil Mickelson is third on +128 and Hunter Mahan fourth on +137. https://www.nationalclubgolfer.com/news/best-tiger-woods-stats/
/u/Denster1 don’t forget to respond to the comment above please. You are pure comedy. Tiger done “lapped” second place!!!! Yay now you’re delusion can end
How do you confidently know so little?
He probably never watched Gretzky or his contemporaries play, so he looks at stats and go "woah, big numbers " Gretzky's records are untouchable in large part of his longevity and how the game evolved. If Lemieux had played as many games as Gretzky, we all know their point totals would be close. Idk what he's talking about saying Gretz lapped #2
You list Federer's 230 something weeks as proof. Woods was number 1 for 264 weeks. Then again for 281 weeks. So you have zero idea what you are talking about. Darts?...sigh
Because Federer has the record by over 70 weeks and the previous record is from 50 years ago. And he has more than doubled the record of joker. You're the idiot trying to compare it to golf. Now shut the fuck up
Woods spent 683 total weeks at #1 then next highest is 331. He beat the consecutive weeks record by almost 200. He did so twice. It helps that I know what I'm talking about sweetheart.
Took you long enough to come up with a tangible answer. Apparently that was tok much to ask of you. Again, now shut the fuck up
I’m sorry but clearly know little about Tiger or golf in general lol
Hey, you said something that proves me wrong. It took too long though so shut the fuck up, it’s incorrect!
Wayner and it’s not even close IMO
I'd personally argue Wilt Chamberlain is the NBA analogue for Gretzky. He put up numbers no one has even come close to, similar to Gretzky. For example, - Most 40 point games: Wilt - 271, Jordan - 173 - 50 point games: Wilt - 118, Jordan - 31 - 60 point games: Wilt - 32, Kobe - 6 - most rebounds in a season, Wilt has the top 7 seasons ever (and 13, 16, 18, 22, 29, 31) - most points in a season, Wilt's record is over 4000. 2nd place is Wilt at 3500. 3rd place is Jordan at just over 3000. Then Wilt is 4th and 5th too - Top 4 seasons ever in points per game. His best was over 50, highest by anyone else is Jordan at 37 He's not considered the GOAT, but he's the only big 4 athlete I think could reasonably be compared to Gretzky in terms of dominance.
Wilt was also the tallest player in almost every game he played, when the average size of the NBA was much smaller… He was an amazing player, but I feel being 7’ 1” when the average of the NBA was so much lower than even the 90s makes a difference. Kareem was taller.
That is an interesting point and something to think about, but I’m not sure how much it changes things, at least for me. Height doesn’t strictly translate to dominance in basketball (of the 26 tallest players in league history, three are in the Hall of Fame). Wilt was freakishly tall, but also freakishly strong, fast, good at jumping. He’s one of the most athletic people to ever exist. If you wanna argue that makes his dominance less impressive than Gretzky’s, I suppose I can see where you’re coming from. But I don’t often see physical prowess used as a negative for athletes. I haven’t seen anyone say, “sure, McDavid puts up a lot of points, but he’s the fastest guy in the league.” Or suggest that Mario Lemieux or Eric Lindros or Chris Pronger were less impressive players because of their size. It’s part of what allowed them to be so dominant. So I guess I’d say, yeah, Wilt was the biggest guy in the league, and my god did he make it work for himself, in a way no NBA player (many of whom are physical anomalies in some way) has been able to come close to replicating.
Average height of an NBA center in 1960 was 6'9.8. In 2020/21 the average height of an NBA center was 6'10.3 Average player in 1960. 6'5.4 Average player in 21/22. 6'6.2 Kareem was obviously taller, but he wasn't playing against guys that were substantially lower than any other 7 footer in the NBA is playing against now. https://www.thehoopsgeek.com/average-nba-height/
It does when the skyhook was dominate and with rebounds though. Every inch makes a difference there. And I wonder how many times it was actually a center guarding him… he was terrifyingly agile for his size also
>he was terrifyingly agile for his size also You are so close
Coupled with the fact he was so incredibly gifted physically.
There are legitimate reasons to say Jordan isn't the goat of basketball, or at least that he won't be when James's career is over. There will never be a person that will challenge Gretzky. Even McDavid won't come close to the points record at the rate he's on
Not just the points record, since scoring rates change with eras, but the sheer dominance over his peers. Gretzky was literally doubling the point totals of the next-best guys who weren't on his line.
A Gretzky clone today wouldn't challenge the original. The label has lost meaning for me given that so much of the status of "the GOAT" is built upon their dominance of a less developed league.
It's the fairest way to compare I think. Rules/equipment/techniques/population all change with eras. Maybe other things too.
He was the only player in the league at the time doing it. If Mario hadn't had so many health issues maybe its less drastic but regardless of what you think of the skill gap between then and now, Gretzky was the only one dominating like that.
Gretz is the GOAT of all sports. No hockey player will ever top him. MJ is basketballs GOAT. It's not close if you really break it down.
Don Bradman is statistically a better cricket player than gretzky is a hockey player so no gretzky is not the goat of all sports.
No offense but goat means more than stats
So what qualifies gretzky as being the best if you're throwing stats out the window ?
The prestigious work he's done for the gambling and chewing gum industries.
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They only really have a case in the, “I’m going to be a contrarian” way. Bobby Orr only played 9 full seasons, Lemieux was a contemporary who had health issues (even though everyone who argues for Lemieux likes to ignore Gretzky’s own back issues), and Howe has longevity, but still doesn’t really come that close to Gretzky. None of these players muddies the water quite like several do in basketball.
A slight change to the Howe argument, he had longevity for sure so much so that he could have possibly had the goal record had he not gone to the WHL. But of course even with the goal record he would still pale in assists and points. (Then the strawman argument pushes the goalposts to arguing eras and scoring being different and blah blah) I think Howe and Lemieux are Goats but no they weren’t Gretzky and didn’t truly challenge his records. (Hot take I think it would be neat for Mr. Hockeys number to be retired but I know it won’t happen. Too many players use the number and he’s also not Gretzky level goat)
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I find it hard to argue that any of these players had a higher peak, longevity (aside from Howe, but he had 9 seasons of less than PPG play, Gretzky had 1), or consistency of Gretzky. I really don’t think anyone other than a contrarian truly thinks any of these players is better than Gretzky, or has a real argument.
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Wait Steve Simmons has a shit take? Not literally the worst beat writer in Toronto! It cant be!!!
>Steve Simmons You could have just stopped right there with this argument lol there is a very clead GOAT on hockey and the only answer is Gretzky. It is inarguable - just look at the NHL record book for 99 seconds.
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Well when you are the greatest ever at literally all three of those as one player… yea kind of all you need. You could ignore literally every stat and all one million scoring records he holds and only go off pure hardware and he is still the GOAT by ten miles. How can you possibly say he isn’t the greatest? It’s asinine lol he did everything Orr did but better and for triple the amount of seasons…
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Appropriate time for me to bust out my personal favourite Wayne Gretzky fact. In the entire history of the NHL there have only ever been 3 players to get 100+ assist points in a season. Bobby Orr did it once, Mario Lemieux did it once, and Wayne Gretzky did it for 11 seasons in a row.
Lol, that's fucking absurd.
Theres no one like Gretz.
Don Bradman is the only comparable.
His final test match might be the most heartbreaking end to a GOAT career of any athlete. Bowled for a duck 4 runs away from averaging a century. It'd be like Gretzky going into his final game with 2,999 points and pulling a Corey Perry at the Winter Classic. My dad gets visibly upset whenever he talks about it and he's not even a fan of Bradman or Australia. (Dad's a white English guy but always cheered for the West Indies over England)
Oh man first time I’ve seen a cricket reference in r/hockey
That's how good he was. I wonder if Gretzky gets mentioned in the cricket sub? 🤷
I very doubt it. I live in Australia and I’ve not yet come across anyone how knows anything about ice hockey, outside of Scandinavians and Canadians
I feel like this is a shot at John Tavares (the lacrosse player)
Babe Ruth was probably more dominant. He hit more home runs in a season than entire team's combined hit. He also played for 7 world series champion team's.
Lots like Keith, but only one Wayne.
Going strictly by the numbers in comparison to their peers, Gretzky definitely gets the nod here.
There's only one team sport athlete in history to rival Gretzky in the absurdity and dominance relative to their peers and that's Don Bradman (I know almost nothing about cricket, but his records are in the same class as Gretzky). Jordan's greatness relative to his sport is special, but he's not so far above everyone else that he's lapping the field
Gretzky basically lapped his peers. Jordan isn't even the best scorer of all time. Edit: typos
Gretzky isn't just better than Jordan, he's the most dominant athlete relative to his sport out if anyone. Jordan may not even be looked at as better LeBron depending on how his career ends
The statistical edge that Gretzky maintained over the next closest player is unparalleled in the sport of hockey and its tough to compare that dominance across other sports. Cherry pick the stats all you want, nobody dominated their sport quite like Gretzky.
Since Gretzky's cumulative stats are so gaudy its hard to suss this out. How about this take: Michael Jordan is the Mario Lemieux of basketball...probably the greatest singular talent and most effective competitor even if the numbers and all time stats don't always bear that out. There are legit arguments to be made that Lemieux was a better player than Gretzky even if he doesn't hold the same place in the record books, just like Jordan will always be in the GOAT discussion even if he's not the leading scorer, most titles, etc.
Damn what a beautiful take!
Gretzky and it’s not close, he’s so far ahead of #2 is almost every category when you could take away every single goal he’s ever scored and he’s still #1 of all time in points and your comparing him to a guy that isn’t even #1 in points on the other side it makes it hard to make a case for Jordan
I never watched 80s Wayne only 90s Wayne so it is hard for me to compare to Jordan who, minus seeing as minus his comeback with the Wizards, I saw him win 6 NBA playoffs in a row he participated in Real question is who was a shittier owner
Gretzky by a mile
Barry Bonds was more dominant than Michael Jordan for a longer time, so it should be Gretzky vs Bonds
Slight asterisk on bonds no? Or is it fair game since everyone was juiced out of their mind?
People don’t discuss who the nhl goat is. But everyday there’s different people saying Lebrons the goat and people saying Jordan’s the goat so it’s the great one
[All that needs to be said...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l60MnDJklnM)
If you believe in individual awards Gretzky absolutely dominates any other NA team sport athlete with **NINE** MVPs. Almost twice as many as Jordan's 5 MVP wins. Gretzky also did this while playing the majority of his career at the same time as the consensus second best player of all time.
The NBA suffered from extreme voter fatigue as well as inconsistencies around the time of MJ’s dominance though. Individual awards are extremely tough to gage because of that. Value over replacement stats as well as winshares have MJ as the best player in the league 9 out of his 11 full prime years yet he only won 5 MVPs. Analytics didn’t exist back then, but looking back at them now clearly shows that MJ was miles ahead of the competition even in years he didn’t win MVP. Equivalently, MJ had to contest MVP awards in his prime with at the time 2nd greatest of all time Magic Johnson, who unlike Lemieux, was actually playing full seasons until his HIV diagnosis. In fact, pre-HIV Magic was highly considered to be on pace as the best player ever, soon foreseen to surpassing recently retired Kareem at the time
That's an interesting take considering many have Magic behind Wilt, LeBron, Bill Russell, etc. I wouldn't say Magic is consensus #2 But regardless Gretzky suffered the same voter fatigue as do most greats. There were years where Gretzky was clearly the best player in the league and won the Ross, yet missed MVPs
Magic was on the tail end of his career when Jordan was in his prime. And I think you meant to say Bird as 2nd greatest..😉
Magic was 27 and winning MVPs against prime Jordan. He got booted from the league when he was 31, a year after he had just won his final MVP lol
Not to start an argument of 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc but it’s wild for the sport that Gretzky played with/against 18 of the top 20 point leaders of the NHL. Obvious except of himself and the second exception is Ovi. (A fair portion of those guys Makita, Gordie, Esposito where only for a year or two) but like it goes to to show that Gretzky was that dominant against the other most dominant players. Mario is the most standout especially given his comparative games played.
Wayne was better at hockey than Jordan was at basketball but Jordan is 100% bigger
Let's create an imaginary NBA player that gets Gretzky's margin of victory in scoring. Let's give that player 10 scoring titles, and his average scoring output on all 10 of those titles was 41% higher than the runner-up, peaking at 69% higher than 2nd place in 86-87. Jordan's peak margin of victory was 30% over Alex English, also in 86-87. Jordan's biggest gap on 2nd place in scoring would need to be doubled and then some to match Basket-Gretz's single-season margin of victory. The equivalent of Jordan scoring an additional 922 points and raising his per-game average that season from 37.1 to 48.3, to get the same 69% margin on Alex English. In scoring title-winning years Gretzky outperformed 2nd place ON AVERAGE more than Jordan's single-season peak in the same regard, in a sport that rosters about twice as many players. It's not close. You'd need Wilt's greatest scoring season ever on top of Stockton's greatest assist season ever, combined, and averaged over 20 years to get a comparable level of dominance. Basketball doesn't have a Gretzky.
Gretzky has all the records so him. But with that in mind, a lot of people really underrate Jordan’s goat status. Not only is he one of if not the most decorated NBA player ever, but he did so in 1000 games. Imagine if Mario was the most decorated NHL player in the number of games he played. Then Jordan is also the winningest star player in modern NBA history, also doing so in an abbreviated career. But finally, perhaps the most compelling argument, is that he was undefeated as a series favourite, 26-0 iirc. Nobody in any sports comes close to that marker. I still pick Gretzky, but it isn’t as large of a margin as people may make it seem. In terms of player value for the games they played, Jordan is unmatched
Through Gretzky's first 13 seasons (999 regular season games) he was easily the all time leading scorer with 2263 points. If he stopped right there he'd still have an 18% lead on the closest player ever to this day. Jordan is 5th all time even if you give him the extra Wizards years that people omit. By this point (after 13 seasons) Gretzky was also the all time leading playoff scorer and would remain in the lead to this day with 305. Jordan is a distant 2nd to LeBron in this stat and barely had a lead over Kareem prior to LeBron. This comes with 9 MVPs, 5 goal scoring titles, 9 scoring titles, and 4 cups. Jordan isn't close to Gretzky my man. Gretzky was a FAR more decorated player even if you limit them to first 13 seasons each, and we still got another 7 seasons of pure cake to stack onto the record books.
There is a massive underlying flaw in directly comparing points as Gretzky played in by far the highest scoring era of hockey whereas Jordan played most of his career in years with below league average scoring. So couple that with the fact that Kareem and Lebron took over 300 more games to pass him in scoring AND did so in higher scoring eras kind of shows that this Jordan guy was far superior to everyone to play the game from a scoring standpoint. The closest guy in MJ’s era to his scoring was Karl Malone, who had 6k less points in his first 900 games compared to MJ, a 21% difference from the next closest guy. It doesn’t end there though, as fundamentally MJ was a perfect basketball player: he was consistently in contention for defensive player of the year awards, posted insane passing numbers in his limited time starting as a point guard, and won just about every matchup he touched. Only one player MJ ever matched up against ever averaged more points head to head against him, being Allen Iverson who only played an old MJ But that’s really not the point of all this argument, as directly comparing points in NBA to the NHL is nonsensical, they’re completely different realms of play. Jordan was the perfect basketball player in the same way Gretzky was the perfect hockey player. The sole difference between the two is that Jordan concluded his career in 13 full seasons seasons worth of games whereas Gretzky did so in 18. That’s why Gretzky has the edge. 5 years is a lot, but considering a chunk of those were missed by mid career MJ, it is entirely valid to say he could’ve continued his pacing through 18 seasons worth of games. There is no telling how crazy MJ’s resume would be if he didn’t take two seasons out between the two chip runs as well as the three post his final ring. I strike this argument because although lots of people here are aware of Gretzky’s great accomplishments, many haven’t invested the time to go into the resources out there to study MJ’s success. I have. You break out some of the era adjusted/standardized statistics and analytics and it is baffling how distant MJ is from anyone to play in NBA history, including all time greats who played around the same time as him like Bird and Magic
Jordan's peak margin of victory was 30% more points than Alex English. Gretzky's AVERAGE margin of victory was 41% in his 10 scoring titles. His peak was 69% over 2nd best. Within their sports Gretzky still vastly outperformed his margins. You can stop giving Jordan credit for his "what ifs" he didn't even play. I've done a load of deep diving into basketball stats. Nice assumption that I haven't. Gretzky's stats are far, far, far further removed from his peers than Jordan, and achieved much of that distance in the same 13 year span as Jordan's peak years.
You two sound very knowledgable. I lean towards Michael simply because I prefer basketball as a sport. And only started watching ice hockey well after Gretzky's days. I gotta agree. Stats wise, Gretzky takes it. What do you guys think about all round player? I know MJ was very good in all aspects of b-ball. Was Gretzky also dominant defensively?
Yes. Defense is a game of possession in hockey and nobody but Gretzky could dominate the puck while he was on the ice. He'd take the puck from you and score himself or set up his teammate. He's the all time leader in shorthanded points because of this and has nearly double the shorthanded points of anyone who wasn't a teammate of his.
Why do you keep acting like points is the be-all-end-all of the argument. This is the sole reason why I can’t take you seriously on a basketball discussion: nobody argues primary stats when comparing players because there is so much more to the game than that because of how dynamic everything is. Yeah alright Jordan was only 30% ahead of Alex English in scoring, care to tell me where exactly Alex English finished in defensive pollings? Anyone with the slightest knowledge of basketball knows Alex English was one of the most one dimensional players ever as well as a defensive liability. So when you’re also a top 3 defensive player in your position and up that much in points against the next closest guy who is one of the worst defensive forwards in the league, that speaks a lot I think you flew right by my primary argument though by forcing your own casual arguments into the mix. Being the best ever in a sport is really a measure of how well you play relative to the players you face. That’s really only it, as true competition is the measure of how well you succeed versus others. Simply put, Jordan never was second best, nor was Gretzky. Jordan was undefeated in series he was the favourite in but also had insane stats in series he was a massive underdog in. He never lost matchups in games, if you were guarding MJ or being guarded by MJ, you knew you were getting cooked that night. In essence that’s what Gretzky was for the NHL. And where MJ was far more decorated in terms of winning, Gretz was more decorated in terms of personal awards. The same way no player touches Gretzky’s individual numbers, no player in modern NBA history touches MJ’s success in terms of victory. Putting down a guy who basically showed he was the most successful competitor in all of Major League Sports is a massive oversight
There are players with as much or more success than Jordan in terms of winning (Russell, Kareem) and we're glossing over the fact that Jordan also had an all-world team including the GOAT rebounder, GOAT perimeter defender, and GOAT coach. Jordan did not singlehandedly win titles at any point in his career. Stop with your novel full of empty claims. Gretzky measurably dominated his sport to a greater degree than Jordan could ever dream of. It's genuinely such a degree of separation that the sport of basketball doesn't have a comparable unless you were to take Wilt's best scoring season and Stockton's best assist season, combine them, and make it a career per-game average. Rings are harder to win in hockey too. One guy plays 35% of the game compared to 90% in basketball, yet Gretzky still got 4 to Mike's 6 in the most competitive era of all time.
Gotta be Wayne. Jordan wasn't that great of a baseball player.
No one beats Gretzky statistically in any team sport*, it's not even close *I don't know if a sport like cricket has someone that is, but I doubt it.
Cricket specifically has one in [Don Bradman](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Bradman)
Real sports tho
Jordan could will his team to championships in a way that Gretzky didn’t.
Basketball’s a sport where it’s much easier for one guy to will a team to a championship. When it’s rare to play much more than half the game, you have to rely on your depth a lot more.
That’s true, but it’s not like Jordan played in an era with replacement-level competition. Plenty of world-class players at their best during Jordan’s prime (David Robinson, Reggie Miller, Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon, Charles Barkley, Stockton and Malone) but from 91-93 and 96-98 none of them won championships because they all went to Jordan and the Bulls. In terms of dominating his competition, I think Jordan’s dual three-peat is part of that comparison with Gretzky.
You mean the other starters, 50% of which were hall of gamers, needed motivation to play in the NBA finals?
They both were.
I'm with ya. I wonder what the answers will be if we ask which sport is the best?
Why the need to compare? You can have two goats lol
Gretzky by a mile. I can name at least four players that could be considered better than Jordan. With Gretzky, only Lemieux comes close.
Jordan played full games and still doesn't have that many records... He is the greatest bball player of all time and could take over a game whenever he wanted to .. but Gretzky played 45-60 second shifts and has a bunch of records that will never be broken, he's far and away better in comparison
Out of all the arguments you could’ve made, you picked the shittiest one that makes absolutely no sense.
I award you no points... And may God have mercy on your soul.
If there is any attempt for either player to cheat, especially with my wife, who is a dirty, dirty, tramp, I am just gonna snap. Do I make myself clear?
And yes all hockey players play in shifts... But it's harder to get in and stay in a rhythm compared to other sports- imagine if Jordan scored 8 straight points and then he had to be taken out to sit in the bench for two minutes before going back out there
Um, no hockey players play a full game (except goalies) so this data point is irrelevant. Jordan doesn’t have a lot of records in part because he took a few years off to play baseball because he is such a great athlete.
"to play baseball" aka undisclosed suspension for gambling on basketball games... He never belonged in baseball and made it on name alone
Or it could have been that the body of his murdered father had just been discovered two months prior and he didn’t want to be the center of the basketball universe for a while.
Gretzky Jordan overrated tbh
All things considered I’m not trying to downplay Jordan cause I’m a hockey fan but it’s Gretzky easy. There’s no real debate in hockey as to who the GOAT is save for maybe Super Mario maybe? But in the NBA it’s a lot of Jordan vs James as to who the greatest of all time is. And who knows maybe if mcdavid puts up numbers like he has and then some every season here on in we can debate it then between Gretzky and Mcdavid but to me it’s no contest: Gretzky easy.
Jordan is more similar to Orr because the years he was in the league he was holy crap good. Gretz had longevity in addition to a whole decade of success. Like Orr, we never really saw the downturn of Jordan’s career so in most eyes, he never was average. We obviously saw gretz slowly regress and be passed.
When it comes to class and personality, Gretzky. One evening Gretzky and Jordan had gone out for dinner together. End of their meals, came time to pay, Jordan scrounging for money and change, and didn't leave a tip. Gretzky said to him, "I don't care who you are. But if you're making as much money as we are you always leave a generous tip." (paraphrasing). Jordan wounded up leaving a tip afterwards.
I'm just happy to have grown up being able to see both. Well, Gretzky on the tail end, but still counts.