My most systematic look is in a series of posts over the years about the MacArthur Foundation's so-called genius fellowship, which I eventually consolidated into a working paper: The Genius Chronicles: Going Boldly Where None Have Gone Before? In this post, the second in the series, I talk about athletes: The Hunt for Genius, Part 2: Crackpots, athletes, 4 kinds of judgment, training, and Cultural Context. I start with sprinters, who can be judged on a single dimension (fastest time at distance), then move through multidimensional disciplines (such as gymnastics, diving, or figure skating), to the ultimate multi-dimensional category, best athlete of all time. Then there's a bunch of posts under the rubric of TalentSearch, which includes much of the MacArthur material. But also this short post about the Bard: Just how good is Shakespeare anyhow? [Man, I'd forgotten I'd written some of this stuff.] Walter Murch on collective creativity. Ah, here's what I was looking for: TALENT SEARCH: Generating leads, qualifying them, and closing [#EmergentVentures]. And then there's my current (and ongoing) series on the greatest literary critics of all time.
All of which is an (over) elaborate lead-in to Sam Amick, As LeBron James hits 40,000-point threshold, the age-old GOAT debate has shifted, The Athletic, Mar. 2, 2024.
But to watch LeBron James surpass 40,000 points on Saturday night against the Denver Nuggets was to realize he is truly all by himself in the annals of basketball history. Jordan, nor anyone else in the field of 4,890 players who have taken the court since the NBA began in 1947, can touch this legacy he’s leaving.
The scoring is just one part of James’ sublime skill set, of course, but the meaning of this latest absurd feat is best understood by taking a moment to appreciate the elite company he has now left behind. Only seven players — LeBron, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (38,387), Karl Malone (36,928), Kobe Bryant (33,643), Jordan (32,292), Dirk Nowitzki (31,560) and Wilt Chamberlain (31,419) — had ever reached the NBA’s 30,000-point club. To call that group the cream of the crop is a gross understatement, as they represent just 0.0014 percent of the players who have ever laced up in the Association. And now, with James’ second-quarter, left-handed layup, he stands alone in this 40k club.
After telling us that he'd long worshipped at the altar of Michael Jordon, Amick says:
But this final chapter James is putting together, this curtain call for the ages that is ravaging the record books, is enough to convince me that the age-old GOAT debate is over. Not because James is the winner, though, but because their stories have become so different that the endless comparisons are becoming more pointless with every passing year.
Jordan’s two retirements — the first coming after his father, James, was killed in July 1993, and the second after he won his sixth title in 1998 — meant that he missed four seasons in all during the 19-year span of his career. We can play the what-if game from here until eternity, but it won’t change the fact that Jordan’s body of work is vastly different from James’ when it comes to staying power and longevity.
James, meanwhile, has somehow managed to live up to all of that “Chosen One” hype while surviving the increased scrutiny that came with the internet age along the way — for two straight decades. He took a far different path than Jordan, becoming one of just four players to win titles with three different franchises in the Cavs, Heat and Lakers (and none of the others — John Salley, Robert Horry and Danny Green — were leading men, so to speak).
So, the two are not readily comparable despite the fact that they play(ed) the same game. Moreover:
What’s more, the GOAT construct is tired and flawed in ways that do a disservice to them both. Contrary to popular belief, it’s OK to appreciate Picasso and Da Vinci at the same time and just leave it at that. There are enough flowers to go around.
There's more at the link.
