Chula Vista

1970-71 Season

MVP of the regular season. Scoring title. Best defenseman. MVP of the playoffs. Stanley Cup. Sportsman of the year. Canadian athlete of the year.

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“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

YorkeDaddy

There are so many factors you'd have to consider here, this discussion is a little too open-ended

For instance, if we're talking about just the best athletes, how many are gonna beat out Bo Jackson or LeBron James? If we're going by pure success, how does Jordan make the list but not Bill Russell?

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Chula Vista

Ya, he's the best in my book. He freaking owned Chamberlain.

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“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

Cuthbert

Depends on the sport, I'm just going by talent for the most part (which is why I included O'Sullivan over Stephen Hendry). For example Messi isn't as good an athlete as Ronaldo or as decorated as Xavi, but he's the better player by a distance cos of what he can do.

It's there to be discussed (I don't know shit about Basketball ftr I'm just putting a name out there to get the ball rolling)

Educate me innit, why is Russell better than Jordan?

Chula Vista

Phil Jackson, Jordan's coach.

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“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

Goofle

The dude said Kobe and Jordan was a coin flip. Maybe we should disregard his opinions?

Also Ryan Giggs won 13 Premier League titles so...

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Thom Yorke

I think you're thinking of 1969/70, which may have been the craziest single season ever. He put up better numbers later on, but he completely changed hockey that season.

I'm biased as a Bruins fan, but I give the edge to Orr over Gretzky. It's more than just an offensive game. Orr was dominant in every phase of the game, which I just don't think Gretzky was.

I definitely understand the longevity argument though; it is easily the main thing going against Orr. I still think his complete game makes up for that though.

Chula Vista

Only 4 players (all forwards) in the entire history of the NHL, averaged more points per game than Orr did.

Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Mike Bossy, and Sidney Crosby.

Bobby Orr (a defenseman) averaged more points per game than these other notable forwards:

Steve Yzerman, Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg, Phil Esposito, Jarri Kuri, Eric Lindros, Marcel Dionne, Guy Lafleur, Evgeni Malkin, Alexander Ovechkin, Jaromir Jagr, Pavel Bure, Brett Hull, Mark Messier, and hundreds of others.

No other defenseman in the history of the NHL has ever won a scoring title. Bobby Orr did it twice - and both times was named best defenseman too.

Orr won the Norris trophy a record 8 consecutive years. No other player has won it more than 3 consecutive years.

For those who are of the opinion that Wayne Gretzky is the greatest ever, try this. Imagine Bobby spent his entire career as a forward and that Gretzky had spent his as a defenseman (hard to do seeing as Wayne was nowhere near tough enough for the position) - now try to imagine how many points each would have scored. Wayne made a career of hanging out by the blue line waiting for outlet passes - Bobby never had that luxury.

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“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

Ninetales

I know orr is great and maybe he is better than gretzky (I think comparing different positions is unfair as is tho, which is why im not going to say hasek > gretzky), but isn't using offensive numbers to show how great a dman is one of the reason guys like Karlsson is so hated now? I mean he has some ridiculous defenseman numbers but people still get pissed when he rightfully wins the Norris. different argument but sue me.

and comparing Orr's ppg with guys like Crosby's is super unfair unless you adjust it for the era.

again not saying orr wasn't the best dman of all time. he very likely is.

Thom Yorke

Orr was not sub-par defensively like Karlsson is though. Good offensively does not mean bad defensively. Take a guy like Weber for example; he's a D-man that is elite in both regards. Elite defensemen should have some type of balance between offense and defense because hockey, more so than any sport, has you switching between offense and defense in a heartbeat, and quite often. A guy like Karlsson is not nearly good enough defensively to be that 28 minute-a-night, all-situations workhorse for a team. The Sens do use him that much, but I don't think he impacts the game like a lot of the other elite D-men do because he is pretty poor without the puck.

By all accounts, Orr was elite defensively as well. Sure, he's known more for his offense, but many considered him the best defensive d-man of his time as well, and no one seems to have him at anything less than "good defensively".

When you reflect on a guy like Coffey, some people just absolutely blast him for how poor he was defensively, and it's a main reason why no one has him even close to Orr despite putting up similar offensive numbers in his heyday (along with era-adjusted scoring and surrounding talent, of course).

Thing with Orr is that I don't know if anyone in NHL history has been further ahead of the curve on a physical attribute as Orr was with his skating ability. Even if you just watch highlights of him, it literally looks like he's going up against a bunch of kids sometimes. It's something that let him take huge risks on the ice; he could basically always be back in place if something went wrong.