Well, Now That Tiger’s No Longer the Best…

I knew it. What a fraud. Tiger Woods – number one in the world? Ha, ha.

It was only a matter of time before this showboat was exposed. Couldn’t even make the cut at the British Open! Come on, Eldrick. Champions don’t wilt under pressure. Five over par? Five over par? Puh-lease! Jack or Arnie or Ben or Sammy never would have slinked off the world’s biggest stage like that. Enough with the commercials and sponsorships, already. Come back when you’ve won something....

Oops! Sorry. I digressed, there, into the black hole of sports logic often employed by today’s “what have you done for me lately” pundits and fans. Case in point:

“LeBron James? NBA Most Valuable Player? How can that be, when he still hasn’t won a championship? He had his chance this year, and he blew it. Wilted, right there on national T.V.! And Kobe didn’t. He won the championship, which clearly makes him the greatest player in the game today.”

Except, of course, it doesn’t make him that, at all. I’m not sure when “championships won” became the defining criterion for greatness, but that’s the twisted logic that, to many, determines who the truly great ones are in sports.

No question, a few championships under the belt cement a star’s legacy. But to demote LeBron from best-in-the-game status to another-bum status, just because the Cavaliers lost in the Eastern Conference Finals, is ridiculous. Yet that’s what many fans and sports writers did. Wilt Chamberlain struggled to win two titles during his career, and he clearly was the most unstoppable force the NBA had ever seen during his playing days. Bill Russell’s teams won eight in a row. People like to argue that Russell was better – as if he didn’t have any good teammates on those Celtic teams (or a Hall of Fame coach, for that matter). I disagree, always have.

It’s absurd. Tiger had two bad days, that’s all. He’s human. His humanity got the best of him. He’s still, quite clearly, the best player in the game, and will take his place as the best ever in a few more years.

LeBron didn’t make it to the NBA Finals this year, which was a huge disappointment for him, personally and professionally. But it shouldn’t tarnish his reputation at all. Will his day come? The same question was asked of John Elway, who didn’t win a Super Bowl until the sunset of his career. And it was asked of Dan Marino, perhaps the most famous, accomplished athlete of our generation to never win a title. LeBron could win six, like Michael Jordan, or be lucky to ever win one. Time will tell.

But great is great. Tiger is great, and so is LeBron. Why can’t we leave it at that?

Best Ever: Otto, or Else...

The analysts who warned that the Cavaliers just didn’t match up well against Orlando (Charles Barkley chief among them) appear to have been onto something. Anything could yet happen in the Eastern Conference Finals, but, if the first four games are any indication, Orlando will advance. Cleveland simply hasn’t devised an answer for the Magic’s incredible three-point shooting arsenal. Seriously: 17 three-pointers in Game Four? That’s ridiculous.

And yet, the Cavs lost by just two points. In overtime. And LeBron James had the ball in his hands for another buzzer-beating attempt that would have won the game. That’s why anything could yet happen. The Magic have the upper hand, but every game has been a battle.

Predictably, with the luster wearing off of James’ star for the moment, people are coming out of the woodwork with the “best ever” banter. The party line goes like this: LeBron is great, but he’s not an all-time great. The true test of greatness is championships. Minus championships, no one can be the “best ever.” Michael Jordan is the best ever because of his six NBA titles. Joe Montana is the best ever because of his four Super Bowl victories. Babe Ruth is the best ever because of his seven World Series titles....

And that’s the sentence that begins to reveal the folly of the argument. No, Babe Ruth is the best ever simply because he was…well, the best ever. He revolutionized the game. He established the benchmarks against which hitters would forever be measured. Not just those 714 home runs, but also an insane .342 lifetime batting average. And, before all of that, he was one of the sport’s premier pitchers, winning 78 games for Boston over a four-year span – 18 of those in 1915, at the tender age of 20! The Red Sox won three World Series titles during that time. Ruth was, by any account, Herculean. Bunyanesque. Did I mention larger than life?

I bring all this up only because I read something this morning that left me scratching my head. A blogger on the ESPN Sportsnation website, who goes by the moniker “Pastor Troy,” blasted away at LeBron – apparently because the good reverend just had to get something off his chest. You can read the entire entry here, but he basically takes James to task (now that Orlando’s up 3-1) for not bringing out the best in his teammates; says Jordan did it, LeBron hasn’t, so ya’ll be hatin’. Something like that. And then he slips back into the championships-are-the-one-true-measure-of-greatness line.

Fine. Then I am here to proclaim, once and for all, that the greatest athlete in the history of professional team sports in the United States is not Michael Jordan…is not Joe Montana…is not Babe Ruth…is not Jose Mesa (ahem)…but is, without question…

…Otto Graham.

The man played 10 seasons at quarterback for the Cleveland Browns. His team was in the league championship game all 10 of those seasons. And they won seven of those 10. He was four-for-four in the brief history of the All-America Football Conference. Lest we be tempted to poo-poo that league as one minor (that’s the first time I’ve ever written “poo-poo” in a sentence), the year after the AAFC folded Graham led the Browns to the NFL title in their first year in the league. And then he led them to two more over the next five years.

Ten seasons. Ten championship games. Seven victories.

Take that, all you title-touters.

Bill Russell’s eight straight NBA championships (and 10 in 11 years) don’t count, because…it messes up my argument for Graham.

But not really. I’ve never bought the championships-as-benchmark line of reasoning. Of course titles matter. But Terry Bradshaw has four Super Bowl rings – and he did it first. Why isn’t he as great as Montana?

The aforementioned Russell’s 10 championships outdistance Jordan’s six (and everyone else's). Why isn’t Russell the greatest?

In hockey…OK, I don’t know anything about hockey.

But you get my point. I have no problem with people taking the Cavs to task for the way they’ve performed against Orlando. But the problem isn’t LeBron. He’s once again exceeded expectations. He’s making 30- and 40-point games routine – routine – and that hasn’t happened since Oscar Robertson was running roughshod over the rest of the NBA in his prime.

I don’t know whether Otto Graham was the best quarterback in history, or even in the top 10. I know he was unsurpassed as a big-game player. And he won more championships than any other.

But the greatest? There are too many factors to consider. And those who insist on titles first are missing out on the intangibles that make the greatest athletes truly great.

LeBron has those intangibles. Yes, I’ll accept that he needs to win a championship or two to fully secure his place in history. But Pastor Troy has jumped too quickly into the LeBron-taunting fray. Number 23 is everything he was cracked up to be, and more. And the series isn’t over, although the Cavs are admittedly on life support.

This is LeBron’s sixth season. He’s 24. Michael Jordan didn’t win his first championship until his seventh season, at age 27. LeBron’s time will come. The fact that he’s accomplished so much so soon is cause for celebration, not degradation – no matter what happens Thursday night, or for the rest of this series.