Professor David Berri, on why the best basketball player in the world might just be a woman and what that says about our well-accepted but flatly incorrect notions regarding men’s vs. women’s sports.
Who is the best basketball player in history?
Shout out this question in a room of young men and you might hear names like LeBron James, Steph Curry, or James Harden. Older men, though, might shout out Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal, Oscar Robertson, or Wilt Chamberlain.
Of course, fans who really know basketball would say all these names are wrong. Or, at the very least, a few names are missing.
It is definitely not common to be in a room of men who shouted out any of the following names: Diana Taurasi, Candace Parker, Tamika Catchings, Jonquel Jones, Elena Delle Donne, Sylvia Fowles, Sheryl Swoopes, or Cynthia Cooper-Dyke.
The interesting question to examine is: why? Because, if we are going to be serious about who is the best player in basketball history, we have to consider the above names, which comprise some of the best women to have played in the WNBA.
Also, it’s because the answer to the debate might just be Cynthia Cooper-Dyke.
Yes, it is probably the case that many of the men who think they are experts on basketball don’t know any of the women who dominate the sport. And even if they do, man of these men would insist these women can’t rank above the LeBron, Shaq, or Jordan. Or even belong on the same list.
As many these men will be happy to tell you, no one watches the WNBA. And sure, Candace Parker regularly dunks on Shaq on TNT when she comments on the NBA, she is in no way better than Shaq on the basketball court!
But many of these men would be wrong.
To explain why, it might help if we start by thinking about a different question: Who is the best Major League Baseball player of all-time?
Recently ESPN presented a list of the top 100 players of all time. Topping their list was Babe Ruth. As David Schoenfield says in justifying this choice: “No player dominated his era like Ruth.”
Sure, there are lots of statistics to back up this contention. But what do those statistics really mean? One of the best pitchers Ruth faced was Walter Johnson (who ESPN says is the 9th best Major League Baseball player of all-time). Johnson was known as the “Big Train.” In 1924, Johnson won 23 games, posted a 2.72 ERA, and was named the American League MVP. Terrific stats.
| Ruth wasn’t exactly facing the same sort of pitching we see today. And obviously, Ruth played in an all-white league. He did not play against any African-American talent. He also didn’t play in a league that was bringing in the very best players from all over the world. Given who Ruth faced, it seems unlikely those numbers really mean he was the best baseball player of all time. |
Interestingly, that year, the Washington Senators – with the league MVP – averaged less than 7,500 fans per game. No one really came to see Johnson pitch. That suggests attendance isn’t really something men consider in identifying “the best” male athletes. All that matters is performance against the talent those athletes faced on the field of play. And here is how Bradford Doolittle describes Johnson’s performance. “Estimates of how hard Johnson threw are all over the place, but we can safely say that at the very least, for his time he was off the charts.”
One estimate of Johnson’s speed was offered by MLB.com in 2015. According to an article written by Lindsay Berra, analysis by Gregg Franklin (a physicist at Carnegie Mellon) argues that Johnson threw about 94 mph. Yes, this is fast. However, there are a large number of pitchers today – in both the major and minors – who throw harder than Johnson. Heck, there are no name relievers across MLB who regularly get it up near 100 MPH.
If 94 mph was “off the charts”, though, 100 years ago, it seems safe to say Ruth wasn’t exactly facing the same sort of pitching we see today. And obviously, Ruth played in an all-white league. He did not play against any African-American talent. He also didn’t play in a league that was bringing in the very best players from all over the world.
So yes, Ruth put up some amazing numbers. But given who Ruth faced, it seems unlikely those numbers really mean he was the best baseball player of all time.
Of course, the writers at ESPN aren’t saying that Ruth and Johnson would necessarily dominate talent today. They are saying these players dominated the talent they faced a century ago.
This is the same approach used when writers construct “pound-for-pound” boxing rankings. According to Brian Campbell of CBS Sports, the best boxer in the world today is Canelo Alvarez. Campbell also argues that Tyson Fury is only the 6th best boxer. Fury, though, weighs at least 100 pounds more than Alvarez. No one seriously thinks Alvarez would have any chance in the ring against Fury. In fact, boxing rules – which separates fighters in very strictly enforced weight classes – won’t even let such a fight happen.
| What matters is how well a boxer does against the competition faced. In Campbell’s view, Alvarez is more dominant against the fighters he faces than Fury is against his opponents. The fact that Fury might be able to defeat Alvarez and his opponent at the same time isn’t relevant. |
But that doesn’t matter in determining who is “the best.” What matters is how well a boxer does against the competition faced. In Campbell’s view, Alvarez is more dominant against the fighters he faces than Fury is against his opponents. The fact that Fury might be able to defeat Alvarez and his opponent at the same time isn’t relevant.
Sportswriters are not the only people who make such comparisons. What would the average football fan like to watch? Trevor Lawrence and the Clemson Tigers against Tua Tagovailoa and the Alabama Crimson Tide OR Trevor Lawrence and the Jacksonville Jaguars against Tua Tagovailoa and the Miami Dolphins?
In 2018, we saw Lawrence and Clemson face Tagovailoa and Alabama in the NCAA championship game. At that time, 22.6 million viewers tuned in to see what would happen. Three years later, Lawrence and Jacksonville faced Tagovailoa and Miami in London, against higher-level NFL competition. This NFL game, though, only attracted 7 million television viewers.
The teammates joining these quarterbacks in London in 2021 were clearly much better than the players who joined these two signal callers three years earlier. After all, every single player on the field in London were NFL players. Although a few players on Clemson and Alabama eventually moved on to the NFL, most of the players on both rosters saw (or will see) their football career end when their college career ended.
So, why were fans so excited to watch two inferior teams play football in 2018? Again, the issue wasn’t absolute competition. The issue for fans was relative competition. Clemson and Alabama dominated the college teams they faced that year. Three years later, fewer people were interested in watching two NFL teams that were not nearly as dominant against the talent they faced.
In sum, all that matters to fans of men’s sports – whether we are talking baseball, boxing, football, or any other men’s sports – is how well the athletes do against the competition they face. It simply does not matter who is the absolute best.
At least, that is true when men talk about men.
But once the conversation turns to women, suddenly all that matters is who is the absolute best. Sure, Serena Williams has won more Grand Slams than any man playing today. But until she beats these men like Billy Jean King beat Bobby Riggs, many men will not agree that Williams is the best tennis player in the world. And I’d be willing to bet that there weren’t men clamoring to boast at family gatherings that “they were pretty sure they could take a game from Rafael Nadal,” as they often do when talking about Serena. (“One game? Sure, I think I could take her.”)
But just like sportswriters do when they tell us Babe Ruth is the greatest baseball player ever, let’s look at the statistics. In terms of Grand Slam victories, the top three men in history are Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, and Novak Djokovic. Not only has Serena Williams won more grand slam titles than these three, her career winning percentage in matches is also better than all three. In other words – to paraphrase Schoenfield – “No player has dominated tennis like Serena Williams”.
| Why is attendance and revenue so much larger for the major men’s professional sports? Many men seem to think the fact a league like the NBA has more fans and more revenue than the WNBA says something about the women who play basketball, i.e., that attendance and revenue is so much larger because the men’s game is “better” or “more entertaining.” In reality, this outcome really just tells us something very disturbing about men and sports. |
