ESPN Made a List of the Most Dominant Athletes of the Last 20 Years
Spoiler alert: it's pretty awful.
The dude pictured above IS NOT ON THE LIST.
In case you don't know who that is (if you don't then who are you) he is probably the greatest American since Abraham Lincoln: Michael Phelps.
The man who set the Olympic record for most gold medals is not on that list.
I cannot even begin to fathom not placing Michael Phelps in the top five, but to exclude him altogether is flat out sacrilege. It's not like the man is only dominating one certain American sport (as some people on this list) but he dominated the biggest stage on Earth, the summer Olympics!
We'll get to the list in a moment, but riddle me this, why in the world would a list of dominant athletes exclude the playoffs in respective sports? In their words: "In evaluating players, we considered regular season stats only, since there's no good way to compare playoffs across sports."
So it's easy to compare regular season statistics across sports but not the playoffs, interesting.
Anyways, this list is obviously terrible and for those of you who don't know what the list looks like, here it is:
1. Tiger Woods
2. LeBron James
3. Peyton Manning
4. Jimmie Johnson
5. Roger Federer
6. Annika Sorenstam
7. Michael Schumacher
8. Floyd Mayweather
9. Marta
10. Usain Bolt
11. Lionel Messi
12. Serena Williams
13. Lauren Jackson
14. Cristiano Ronaldo
15. Novak Djokavic
16. Allyson Felix
17. Barry Bonds
18. Mike Trout
19. Manny Pacquiao
20. Tom Brady
No love for hockey I guess.
Lets start with the obvious fact that there's a 100% chance ESPN still hates Tom Brady. How in the world is he the 20th most dominant athlete of the last twenty years.
Also, Barry Bonds and Mike Trout? Bonds may be dominant but he never won a ring and is laced with allegations of steroid use. Mike Trout? Sure he's been the best player in baseball since he came into the league but it's not like teams are scared of only him, considering the Los Angeles Angels have only made the postseason once since 2012.
Lauren Jackson may have been dominant but she was dominant at a time when the WNBA was even smaller than it is today.
LeBron James is a tremendous player but it can easily be argued he is not the best basketball player of the past 20 years (i.e. Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan).
Floyd Mayweather at #8? Absolutely disgraceful.
Peyton Manning at #3? How many Super Bowl rings has he won compared to Tom Brady?
Let's also mention how there are glaring omissions such as Mariano Rivera, Sidney Crosby, Kobe Bryant, and MICHAEL FREAKING PHELPS.
Discrediting postseason dominance is like discrediting the Revolutionary War in helping the colonies drive away the British. Without it, there would be nothing to a legacy.
The list is pretty bad, so to make up for it, I'm going to create my own list of dominant athletes. If you see any glaring fallacies, tell me and I'll be glad to fix them.
1. Michael Phelps
2. Floyd Mayweather
3. Roger Federer
4. Tiger Woods
5. Tom Brady
6. Usain Bolt
7. Jimmie Johnson
8. Kobe Bryant
9. Serena Williams
10. LeBron James
11. Annika Sorenstam
12. Lionel Messi
13. Cristiano Ronaldo
14. Allyson Felix
15. Sidney Crosby
16. Mariano Rivera
17. Novak Djokavic
18. Peyton Manning
19. Michael Schumacher
20. Abby Wambach
