Is Jordan the only athlete that ever lived up to or surpassed the hype?

[nzmusclemonster]

Career games
Player   Pld   Won   Draw   Lost   Win%   Ave   
Phil Taylor   1648   1444   25   179   87.62

16 time world champion

and he's a getbigger:

Indecent assault conviction
In 1999, following an exhibition match in Fife, Scotland, Taylor returned to his van accompanied by two women, aged 23 and 25, who subsequently accused him of indecent assault. Taylor denied the charges but in May 2001 he was found guilty and fined £2,000.[202] As a result of his conviction, Taylor's MBE nomination was annulled before he was awarded it.

[MORTALCOIL]

Career games
Player   Pld   Won   Draw   Lost   Win%   Ave   
Phil Taylor   1648   1444   25   179   87.62

16 time world champion

and he's a getbigger:

Indecent assault conviction
In 1999, following an exhibition match in Fife, Scotland, Taylor returned to his van accompanied by two women, aged 23 and 25, who subsequently accused him of indecent assault. Taylor denied the charges but in May 2001 he was found guilty and fined £2,000.[202] As a result of his conviction, Taylor's MBE nomination was annulled before he was awarded it.

So darts. Let's just throw in curling at this point. Who's the best ever and what kind of hype did he have to face?

[Hulkotron]

Jordan was like watching a super hero in real life.  I've heard Gretzky was the same (I don't follow/watch hockey).  LeBron might be as good as Jordan but even if he wins more Finals/MVPs/etc he will never be the spectacle/phenomenon that Jordan was.

Also look up Don Bradman if you've never heard of him (Cricket player).  His career batting average was something like five or six standard deviations above the mean for hall-of-fame players  

Edit: I see jr just posted about him sorry

[nicorulez]

NBA:

Michael Jordan
Lebron James
Larry Bird
Kareem
Magic Johnson
Dr. J (Julius Irving)
Bill Russell

Baseball:

Ty Cobb
Babe Ruth
Barry Bonds
Cy Young
Roger Clemons
Willie Mays
Hank Aaron

Football:

Walter Payton
Peyton Manning (disregard his SB losses, dude is a stud)'
John Elway
Emmit Smith
Joe Montana
Jerry Rice

Tennis:

Bjorn Borg
John McEnroe
Rod Laver
Pete Sampras
Andre Agassi
Roger Federer
Rafael Nadal
Djokovic
Serena Williams
Steffi Graf
Martina Navratilova
Chris Evert
Monica Seles (pre-stabbing)

Hell the list goes on and on. There are phenomenal athletes who even exceed the hype. I am just giving a smattering. Every sport has iconic figures; pick one and it is obvious. Greatness is probably born and not made.

[cannon_fodder]

Valentino Rossi

[Megalodon]

Anna Kournikova is one of the few athletes that exceeded the hype.

[hipolito mejia]

I know Jordan will go down in history as the only athlete that after been recognized as the best ever in basketball,  to admit that his fav sport is baseball all he ever wanted to be was a baseball player......

[ChristopherA]

Ricky Carmicheal. Thread over

[no one]

I wish we could meet up and talk about this for hours.

i'll be in LV for memorial day. we'll smash coronas and debate.

[ChopperRider]

Ricky Carmicheal. Thread over

Definately the GOAT on a dirty bike.

[Quickerblade]

i'll be in LV for memorial day. we'll smash coronas and debate.

I will be in LAX, If you want to meet me, I will be at the Qantas lounge, I convince you hype and marketing makes them look more talented then they are.. but it wont be a argument as I agree with most of your points.

Side note: they are talented.

[Army of One]

If Gretzky was so good , why don't people say like "he's like the wayne Gretzky of pool", always seems to be Michael Jordan who gets reserved for this statement when talking about the god of an activity

[hipolito mejia]

NBA:

Michael Jordan
Lebron James
Larry Bird
Kareem
Magic Johnson
Dr. J (Julius Irving)
Bill Russell

Baseball:

Ty Cobb
Babe Ruth
Barry Bonds
Cy Young
Roger Clemons
Willie Mays
Hank Aaron

Football:

Walter Payton
Peyton Manning (disregard his SB losses, dude is a stud)'
John Elway
Emmit Smith
Joe Montana
Jerry Rice

Tennis:

Bjorn Borg
John McEnroe
Rod Laver
Pete Sampras
Andre Agassi
Roger Federer
Rafael Nadal
Djokovic
Serena Williams
Steffi Graf
Martina Navratilova
Chris Evert
Monica Seles (pre-stabbing)

Hell the list goes on and on. There are phenomenal athletes who even exceed the hype. I am just giving a smattering. Every sport has iconic figures; pick one and it is obvious. Greatness is probably born and not made.

You forgot A Rod in baseball the fact that he was a gold glove SS. and 600 plus HRS  makes him superior that  any other ball player.

[no one]

If Gretzky was so good , why don't people say like "he's like the wayne Gretzky of pool", always seems to be Michael Jordan who gets reserved for this statement when talking about the god of an activity

hockey doesn't have the market or following basketball had esp in the 80's/90's.

[The Ugly]

Ted.

[Simple Simon]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Bradman

Sir Donald George Bradman, AC (27 August 1908 – 25 February 2001), often referred to as "The Don", was an Australian cricketer, widely acknowledged as the greatest Test batsman of all time.[1] Bradman's career Test batting average of 99.94 is often cited as the greatest achievement by any sportsman in any major sport.

Batting Average:


Rank   Batsman   Career average   
1   Don Bradman   99.94   
2   Graeme Pollock   60.97   
3   George Headley   60.83   
4   Herbert Sutcliffe   60.73   
5   Eddie Paynter   59.23   
6   Ken Barrington   58.67   
7   Everton Weekes   58.61   
8   Wally Hammond   58.45   
9   Garfield Sobers   57.78   
10   Jack Hobbs      56.94   
11   C.L. Walcott   56.68   
12   L. Hutton           56.67   
13   Jacques Kallis   55.37   
14   G.E. Tyldesley   55.00   
15   C.A. Davis      54.20   
16   V.G. Kambli      54.20   
17   G.S. Chappell   53.86   
18   Dudley Nourse   53.81   
19   Sachin Tendulkar   53.78   
20   B.C. Lara      52.88   

World sport context

Wisden hailed Bradman as, "the greatest phenomenon in the history of cricket, indeed in the history of all ball games".[1] Statistician Charles Davis analysed the statistics for several prominent sportsmen by comparing the number of standard deviations that they stand above the mean for their sport.[238] The top performers in his selected sports are:[239]

Athlete   Sport   Statistic   Standard deviations

Bradman   Cricket   Batting average   4.4
Pelé         Association football   Goals per game   3.7
Ty Cobb    Baseball   Batting average   3.6
Jack Nicklaus   Golf   Major titles   3.5
Michael Jordan   Basketball   Points per game   3.4

The statistics show that "no other athlete dominates an international sport to the extent that Bradman does cricket".[2] In order to post a similarly dominant career statistic as Bradman, a baseball batter would need a career batting average of .392, while a basketball player would need to score an average of 43.0 points per game.[239] The respective records are .366 and 30.1.[239]

Arguably Tony McCoy ranks up there
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/horse-racing/24855097

[SuperTed]

Audley Harrison.

[Simple Simon]

Audley Harrison.

Thread end.

No ones gonna top that.

[ChopperRider]

Thread end.

No ones gonna to that.

Melvin "Vince" Goodrum

[Army of One]

Audley Harrison.

Fraudley should be locked up for taking that bbc contract

[The Grim Lifter]

Don Bradman

Federer is still up there in the best era ever

Tyson fought anyone and at 20 he won the heavyweight belt by way of 2nd round knock out then killed everyone until he partied too much

[Army of One]

Don Bradman

Federer is still up there in the best era ever

Tyson fought anyone and at 20 he won the heavyweight belt by way of 2nd round knock out then killed everyone until he partied too much

Federer was great no doubt, but feasted for years on a weak era, a peak nadal and djokovic are/were just as good

[The Grim Lifter]

Federer was great no doubt, but feasted for years on a weak era, a peak nadal and djokovic are/were just as good

Federer still beats Djok, when Djok had that crazy run a few years ago Fed was the only one who could knock him off.

Federer was playing awesome at the Aussie open, he mentally just can't play Nadal i've seen it a number of times. He just does dumb things and loses his cool like Nadal can out rally him and he goes for stupid winners like he doesn't know what to do.

I seriously think Federer could win an open this year if not all 3 if he doesn't play Nadal going on that form at the Aussie open. He mentally would have it over Warinka too or maybe not now but if anyone has it over him it's Federer.

[Sam]

Fraudley should be locked up for taking that bbc contract

..Along with the BBC for giving him it.

[The_Punisher]

In all sports Ive watched. I can only think of one athlete who was simply godlike in his abilities, and literally surpassed his hype, and that's Michael Jordan.Whenever his team had the equal or best record in the playoffs, they won.Jordan raised his scoring in the playoffs and took his game to next level, remaining the best u til he retired from the bulls.

bolt has been disappointing since his world record, seemingly coasting on natural abilities

Federer has lost his advantage whenever nadal , murray and dkokovic raised their game

Don't know enough about Gretzky , but from what I've read a peak Lemoiux was just as good

Babe Ruth played with stiffs, some fat dude in the twenties being the best, come on

Anyone who is being real watching football (soccer) knows its way too much of a team game for one player to dominate, sans short spells from pele, maradonna and messi

Bubka was dominant so I read,maybe someone can clarify but its a simple sport of planting a pole and launching, sure it's difficult to attain but I can see why someone can master it and be dominant

F1 is all down to the car

Ali lost too many times to make a case, same with Robinson

yes indeed.....this man always meet expectation as a player and he lived up to the hype.....I remember games 7 in the playoffs between Indiana pacers and Chicago bulls and Larry bird was coaching the pacers at that time.....this was one of the most hyped game 7 playoffs game and Jordan had a subpar game, but his intensity, his will to win was unmatched.....he had only 17 points in the game, but he was yelling, puffing at anyone of his teammates who would not match his intensity and remind them of what's at stake......I'd say Jordan lived for the Hype