It happens in every dive bar, every barbershop, and every group chat on a Saturday night. Someone brings up LeBron James, and suddenly the room is divided. Within minutes, names like Michael Jordan, Serena Williams, and Muhammad Ali are flying across the table like heat-seeking missiles.
Defining the greatest anything is hard. Defining the greatest athletes in history is basically impossible.
How do you compare a 1920s baseball player who ate hot dogs between innings to a modern triathlete with a $10,000 recovery chamber? You can't. Not really. But we do it anyway because sports are built on the myth of the "best." Honestly, the debate is usually more about our own memories and what we value—longevity versus peak dominance—than it is about raw stats.
The Jordan vs. LeBron Deadlock
If you grew up in the 90s, Michael Jordan isn't just a basketball player; he’s a religious figure. The 6-0 Finals record is the ultimate trump card. It’s the "killer instinct" argument. You’ve seen the clips of him playing through the flu or hitting the "Last Dance" shot in Utah. For that generation, Jordan is the definitive answer for the greatest athlete ever because he never blinked when the lights were brightest.
But then you look at LeBron.
LeBron James has been elite for over two decades. That is physically nonsensical. We are talking about a guy who entered the league with more pressure than any teenager in history and somehow managed to exceed it. He’s the all-time leading scorer. He has more assists than most elite point guards. If Jordan is the ultimate "peak," LeBron is the ultimate "program." He is a machine that refuses to break down. When people argue about these two, they aren't really arguing about hoops; they're arguing about whether you prefer a supernova or a sun that stays hot for fifty years.
Dominance Beyond the Ball
We tend to get stuck on the big American team sports, which is kinda narrow-minded when you think about it. If the criteria for being the greatest is simply "how much better were you than everyone else on Earth," then the conversation has to shift.
Take Wayne Gretzky.
In hockey, the gap between Gretzky and the second-best player is a literal canyon. If you took away every single goal Gretzky ever scored, he would still be the NHL’s all-time leading scorer based on assists alone. That is a fake-sounding stat, but it’s 100% true. He didn't just play the game; he saw it in four dimensions while everyone else was playing checkers.
🔗 Read more: Liverpool FC Chelsea FC: Why This Grudge Match Still Hits Different
Then there is Serena Williams.
She won the 2017 Australian Open while eight weeks pregnant. Think about that. She wasn't just beating the best tennis players in the world; she was doing it while her body was literally building another human being. With 23 Grand Slam titles in the Open Era, her dominance spanned eras. She beat the legends who came before her and the prodigies who came after.
The Physical Outliers
Sometimes greatness is just a freak of nature meeting a relentless work ethic.
Michael Phelps is the obvious example here. With 28 Olympic medals (23 of them gold), he has more hardware than most countries. His body was basically engineered for water—double-jointed ankles that acted like flippers and a wingspan that didn't make sense for his height. But he also swam 13,000 meters a day. It’s that mix of "born for this" and "killing myself for this" that creates a GOAT.
Simone Biles is another one.
The things she does in gymnastics shouldn't be possible according to the laws of physics. She has moves named after her that other elite gymnasts won't even try because the risk of a broken neck is too high. She has more world medals than anyone in history, and she did it in a sport that usually discards athletes by age 20. She redefined what a "gymnastics body" looks like and how long a career can last.
The Cultural Impact of Muhammad Ali
You can't talk about the greatest without mentioning the man who literally gave himself that nickname.
Muhammad Ali wasn't just a boxer. If he were just a boxer, he'd still be a legend—he’s the only three-time lineal heavyweight champion. But Ali’s greatness was tied to the fact that he stood for something when it cost him everything. He gave up three years of his prime because he refused to go to Vietnam. He spoke with a rhythm and a wit that made him a global icon.
💡 You might also like: NFL Football Teams in Order: Why Most Fans Get the Hierarchy Wrong
When we call Ali the greatest, we are acknowledging that sports can change the world. He proved that an athlete's voice can be more powerful than their punch.
Why We Get It Wrong
The biggest mistake people make in these debates is "recency bias." We think because we saw it on 4K highlights last night, it must be the best thing ever. It’s why people forget how untouchable Tiger Woods was in the early 2000s. There was a period where it was Tiger vs. The Field, and "The Field" was the underdog.
We also forget about the "pioneers."
Jim Thorpe won Olympic gold medals in the pentathlon and decathlon in 1912, then went on to play professional football, baseball, and basketball. He was doing all of this while facing systemic racism and having his medals stripped (and later restored). If you dropped a prime Jim Thorpe into 2026 with modern nutrition and training, he’d probably be a superstar in three different sports.
Real Data vs. The "Eye Test"
There are two ways to measure this.
- The Statistical Peak: Looking at a five-year window where someone was literally a god. Think Bo Jackson before the hip injury or Mike Tyson in the late 80s.
- The Cumulative Resume: The "Tom Brady" approach. Seven Super Bowl rings. Playing at an MVP level at age 44. This is about winning the war of attrition.
The problem is that statistics are influenced by the era. In the 60s, Bill Russell won 11 NBA championships in 13 years. That’s insane. But there were only 8 to 14 teams in the league back then. Does that make it less impressive than a modern title? Maybe. Does it take away from the fact that he won every time it mattered? No.
A Quick Look at Cross-Sport Dominance
- Usain Bolt: The fastest human to ever live. He stopped running before the finish line in Beijing and still set a world record.
- Marta: Six-time World Player of the Year in soccer. She carried the Brazilian national team for decades and showed the world what women's football could be.
- Don Bradman: In cricket, his career batting average was 99.94. To put that in perspective, the next best players are usually in the 60s. Statistically, he is the most dominant athlete in any major sport, ever.
What Really Matters in the End
The truth is, "the greatest" is a moving target.
Every generation gets faster. Technology gets better. We know more about the human body now than we did ten years ago. Today's "average" NBA player is a better shooter than the "stars" of the 1950s. That’s just evolution.
📖 Related: Why Your 1 Arm Pull Up Progression Isn't Working (And How to Fix It)
But greatness isn't just about being better than the people who came before you. It's about how much you dominated your own time. It’s about the gap between you and your peers.
Actionable Insights for Sports Fans
If you want to actually "win" the GOAT debate next time it comes up, stop looking at total points and start looking at these three things:
Relativity to Peers
Look at the "Standard Deviation." How much better was the athlete than the #2 person at that exact time? If the gap is massive (like Gretzky or Bradman), you have a much stronger argument for them being the greatest.
Rule Changes
Contextualize the era. Did the athlete play before the 3-point line? Did they play when defenders were allowed to basically tackle wide receivers? Greatness often means succeeding despite the rules, or forcing the league to change the rules because you were too good (like the NCAA banning dunking because of Lew Alcindor/Kareem Abdul-Jabbar).
Longevity vs. Impact
Decide what you value. If you value "The Best I Ever Saw," pick the peak years. If you value "The Best Career," pick the stats. Just don't mix the two up, or you'll just end up yelling in circles.
In the end, we don't watch sports to see "pretty good." We watch to see the limits of what a human being can do. Whether it's a 100-meter dash in under 10 seconds or a 40-year-old quarterback winning a trophy, we are looking for those moments where someone transcends the game. That’s what makes them the greatest. Not the trophies, but the fact that they made us believe the impossible was actually pretty doable.
Start looking for the "Peak Dominance" metric in your favorite sport. Compare the top player's stats to the league average of that specific year rather than comparing them to players from different decades. This removes the "modern medicine" advantage and shows who was truly ahead of their time.