This was supposed to be a low-effort post, but I ended spending hours doing list math, and not even the kind of list math that’s good enough to show to other people so let’s not dwell on that. No morals clause has been applied: for each of these athletes, your assumption until proven otherwise should be that they’re violent, cheat on their taxes, or are Tom Brady. Deductions are made for solid evidence of sports-related misconduct, though the only athlete removed from the list entirely is Sun Yang for his 1980s pro wrestling heel levels of blatant cheating. Hardest to calibrate is how to balance men’s and women’s sports; in the end I did what I did and that won’t please anyone. Enjoy otherwise!
Novak Djokovic
15 Grand Slam titles in the time period. What clinches it is his opposition: he earned these against two of the three other men’s tennis players ever, and was clearly the best of the three over the decade.
Cristiano Ronaldo
See: morals clause, lack thereof. His on-field superiority over his generational rival is not so clear-cut, getting the edge here because he’s won stuff at international level and Messi hasn’t.
Lionel Messi
A couple of years younger than Ronaldo, he’ll probably end up the greater player, though a World Cup or Copa América would help to clinch the case. Or some meaningful win against Brazil; give me something to work with here, Lionel.
Mike Trout
Arguably the greatest start to a career in the last century in the sport of… baseball, right? I think he plays Center Field or something.
Serena Williams
Limited through no fault of her own by the lack of a foil to prove herself against over most of the time period: the Serena-Kerber rivalry was hardly one for the ages. By the time Osaka came along, the narrative demanded a torch-passing.
Rafael Nadal
Probably the greatest male tennis player (by now he’s beaten Federer a lot), though due to the oddities of endpointing, not the greatest player of either the 2010s or the 2000s as decades.
LeBron James
Another screwed by the periodization, which excludes his epic 2009 and 2020 playoff runs. Greatest achievement may be miraculously turning into a good person, though we should still tax him heavily.
Usain Bolt
Was not as fast as he was in the previous decade, which was still faster than everyone else ever. Fell over in his last race in a tribute to Don Bradman.
Tom Brady
To maintain his youth he must feast on the blood of innocents daily. Surprised he can get those in Florida.
Simone Biles
Hard to place, since the public only cares about gymnastics at the Olympics, and she’s only won everything at one of those. But she got the public to compare about Simone Biles outside of the Olympics, which is an achievement.
Katie Ledecky
Lewis Hamilton
Mo Farah
Richie McCaw
Drew Brees
Steve Smith (the cricket one)
Floyd Mayweather
Katinka Hosszú
Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce
James Anderson
Alex Ovechkin
Kohei Uchimura
Michael Phelps
Sidney Crosby
Virat Kohli
***
Next week: Experience aids experiments in March’s Semipop Life.