Why is basketball players looked up to as the greatest athletes?

Are basketball players the best athletes?

  • Yes

  • No

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BB players are extremely adept at flopping, even more so than fairy soccer players.
that takes immense skill and dexterity.
 
Best athlete is too subjective in relation to the standards you measure by.

As for basketball players, you kinda have to "look up" otherwise you're staring at their dick.
 
Patof said:
Best athlete is too subjective in relation to the standards you measure by.

As for basketball players, you kinda have to "look up" otherwise you're staring at their dick.
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This post oddly went from intelligent to weird real fast.
 
Melas Chasma said:
In these discussions people tend to forget that MMA is not comparable to almost any other sport. You say you need to be a 1%er just to get into either of those leagues (probably more like 0,1%, or 0,01 but whatever). But when talking about MMA, less than 1% of the people would have the courage and mindset required to even train and try MMA as an amateur, let alone pro.

Anyone can play basketball, but almost no-one wants to even try MMA, because the vast majority of the people are scared/hate fighting. And that includes your "A - level" NBA - players.
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Lol Nobody wants to climb El Capitan either. Don't make Alex Honnold the best athlete in the world.

<seedat>
 
Kenny Powerth said:
Athletic, exhibit both slow and fast twitch muscles, in excellent shape, deceptively strong, excellent hand/eye coordination (trying springting up and down a court while bouncing a basketball ball in front of you, etc.

Not taking anything away from other sports; honestly an argument could be made for any sport but imo basketball players are the best athletes.
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I don’t know, you tell me. We need to have the strength and power of a football player, the stamina of a marathon runner, and the concentration of a brain surgeon. But we need to put all this together while moving at high speeds on a cold and slippery surface while 5 other guys use clubs to try and kill us. Oh yeah did I mention that this whole time we’re standing on blades 1/8 of an inch thick? Is ice hockey hard? I don’t know, you tell me.
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Brendan Shanahan
 
They largely max out the scale in terms of speed/quickness/dexterity/leaping ability and hand-eye coordination. All of those attributes cut across most sports positively. This is stacked on top of them being significantly taller than other athletes on average (I think the average height is about 6'7'' or so).

In terms of pure, raw strength not as much but even then plenty of bigs have pretty serious strength as well.
 
athletic is such a vague term, it would depend on what you value more in gauging athleticism. Federer couldn't play basketball as well as Lebron, but Lebron couldn't play tennis as well as Federer.
 
We all know that sherdoggers are the best athletes.
 
Not many people are born to be fighters. It requires a completely different mindset. That said, fighters in general are not elite level world class athletes in terms of speed, vertical jumping etc. Fighters are more of a trained specialist with a screw loose than a freak athlete. If the world ever has an a level basketball player born with the mentality of a fighter and a great chin who wants to make 1/100 of the money and be subjected to life altering brain injuries then I guess we will find out. Until then we will just have to enjoy the Diaz brothers and Masvidal trying to make a living killing each other, or former Olympic wrestlers who have no where else to go after they no longer have the opportunity to compete for gold medals.

No one with any common sense would argue MMA fighters have anywhere near the raw athletic ability as a NBA player. Conversely they also understand they would get the shit kicked out of them in the Octagon without significant training and knowledge of fighting styles.
 
basketball is the highest paying American sport which tends to attract athletes. It’s also the second most played American sport behind only bowling. Then add in that it has far few roster spots then the other major American sports meaning you have the most played sport with the fewest roster spots available and it creates a creme of the crop atmosphere for athletic specimens
 
Only Basketball player I can think of that would do good in the octagon with some training would probably be Meta World Peace
 
Look up the Miami Heats James Johnson. He may be the one NBA basketball player we may get a chance to see compete in MMA once his basketball career is over. If you do not think he would compete at a very high level within a short period of time you are crazy.
 
BjPenn2017 said:
Only Basketball player I can think of that would do good in the octagon with some training would probably be Meta World Peace
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D.J. Mbenga was 7 feet chiseled and a judo black belt who trained various martial arts since he was 13. There’s been a few guys who were serious into boxing and built reputations as guys you didn’t mess with.
 
As a whole Basketball players are tremendous athletes, but major pussies. In terms of fast twitch explosivity combined with freakish length, they are top of the food chain. Russel Westbrook is possibly the quickest most explosive guy I’ve seen. Imagine him doing the masvidal flying knee!?! Zion, the The GreekFreak!!! Their physical attributes combined with their alien-like athleticism it’s just unlike anything MMA has ever seen. The GreekFreak is the same size as Struve and would dance around like EPO Dillashaw with an 88” reach. Yes an 88” reach.
 
MXZT said:
And that they can transition to MMA better than any other athlete from any sport. According to Sherdog.
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idk, has any transitioned athlete in mma done well. always the skilled fighter who does well in the end of the day
 
I think basketball selects too much for height. That weeds out like 99% of humans.
 
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