The most mind boggling record I've ever heard
 

Lebron. Now at 1293 consecutive games scoring in double digits. Dating back to 2007. How is that even possible? He never left a game early with illness or an injury, or had a really bad night? Astonishing.

Amazing record for sure. It helps that he is essentially the coach of the Lakers and decides when to come in and out of the game.

Impressive but I think 2632 is much more impressive.

All he had to do was avoid major injury in a non-contact sport, and show up for work. :eek:

True but Lebron is playing a sport where 90% of the guys just show up and give 10% the effort they gave in college, especially on defense. The talent in the NBA is elite but the drive and motivation after getting cut NBA checks is honestly pathetic, and IMO one of the main driving points of why the league is on a YOY decline in watchers. And the fact basketball is a far easier sport in comparison to baseball. Like I said, its very impressive but there's way more baseball facts I find far more impressive.

What are you basing this on?

As far as consecutive game streaks are concerned, playing 2632 in a row is equally impressive, if not more.

With regard to records in general, I find Walter Johnson's 110 shutouts to be the most impressive. My unscientific guess is that it's 99.999% likely to stand the test of time. I don't even think there will ever be another pitcher who even records 110 complete games.

The college remark or the yoy decline? The college one is my opinion, I just watch college games and see some of the most savage play ever up and down the court. And then watch NBA games and see nba players barely show up and usually don't even seem like they want to be there.

The yoy decline is just official numbers.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadg...-declined-by2/


I saw a great quote that sums my thoughts up fairly well (except I'd say the decline is more because of lackluster effort than foreign stars):

College basketball is really competitive, a lot of well coached teams, playing the more traditional style of basketball. The NBA is driven by storylines and narratives, but is on a decline because most of the stars arent American.

I agree with you in that defense at the NBA level can be very mixed, especially during the regular season. But the talent funnel (talent pool against roster spots) relative to the size of the contracts probably makes the NBA the most competitive sport in the world. I could see Premier League football as being tied with the NBA.

I don't think you can mail it in in the NBA for very long without being cut.

As for baseball, two words: Anthony Rendon. Also, I love baseball, but it's not nearly as physically intense as basketball. Guys are playing through injuries in the NBA that would put someone on the 10-day IL in baseball (like sprained ankles).

LeBron didn't play in 1293 consecutive games, he just scored 10 or more points in that many consecutive games he happened to play in. Playing in 2632 consecutive games does seem more impressive to me.

With load management, most NBA players sit out a number of games even when they're healthy. MLB has become more like that with very few players playing every game.

Ripken as I recall made some pretty token appearances to keep the streak alive.

Can you provide any specifics? I've done a few quick searches and couldn't find anything to support your statement. However, he didn't miss an inning for over 5 years at the start of the streak. Also, I found this article that talks about the closest he came to missing a game.

https://www.mlb.com/news/brawl-nearl...ron-man-streak

Regardless, LeBron's streak is still a little less than half as many games as Ripken's. Combined with LeBron missing games during the streak and the fact that basketball has a lot more days off in the schedule and teams never play more than 2 days in a row, I'm still going with Ripken having the more impressive streak.

Ripken's streak was amazing. But you're missing the point, I think. His streak doubtless included hundreds of games where he went 0-4. LeBron has scored 10 or more points in EVERY game in which he has played since 2007.

Damn, it doesn't have to be one or the other. Both streaks can be pretty impressive....and completely unrelated to one another.

I've never ranked him above Jordan, but if he has anything over Michael it's durability and consistency. The guy has had a 23 year career, and he pretty much puts up the same numbers year after year after year. No matter what team, no matter who his teammates are, no matter if he's "feeling" healthy or not.

He's probably near the very end right now....but he's already done it longer and played more games then anybody ever, if you count the playoffs.

If I were to rank him over Jordan, it would be because he does so many things well besides score. Who else in the history of the sport is as versatile, could pretty much play any position (maybe Magic)? His personality has done him no favors in terms of being unpopular, but what a magnificent basketball player.

I get it, but my point is if LeBron wasn't healthy, he could just sit out the game and keep his streak in tact. Ripken had to play no matter how he felt to keep his streak going.

The two streaks are unrelated. However, they would be more comparable if we knew what Ripken's stats were had he been allowed three of the nine spots in the batting order and had his teammates pitch to him. :) Point being Cal had far less control on the outcome of any game and would need to rely on teammates to get him more ABs as well of course as more runs and rbi. Lebron--gimme the ball and when I play I'll generate the stats.
Thus mostly apples and oranges.

I think we can agree both are remarkable streaks.

It's an interesting debate. I'd probably argue that Cal's 8,243 consecutive innings played is even more impressive than his more famous record.

One of the things I'd be curious about is whether LeBron even knew that he was in double digits in every game he's played for the past 18 years.

For all the rightful obsession with the streak, it can be overlooked that Ripken ranks third among all time shortstops in WAR.

Just curious. Is that based on his career WAR or just during his time playing shortstop?

Career, according to Baseball Reference. I believe they assign a player just one position that he played the most.

He accrued very little WAR at other positions.

According to a Google search, the NHL is the hardest and most competitive sport to go pro in. The odds of a teenage hockey player making the NHL is 1 in 613. So for instance, with a huge group of over 12,000 players, only 20 would make the NHL.

That number becomes 1 in 4,000 making the NHL in regards to US High School players.

Regarding the most skilled and difficult sports to play as discussed, ESPN did a study to find this out. According to the study, they had a panel of experts "made up of sports scientists from the United States Olympic Committee, of academicians who study the science of muscles and movement, of a star two-sport athlete, and of journalists who spend their professional lives watching athletes succeed and fail". Ten categories were chosen and each sport was ranked according to endurance, strength, speed, agility, flexibility, eye-hand coordination, etc.

Their findings concluded that Boxing was the #1 most skilled and difficult, followed by the #1 team sport Hockey (2nd overall). Baseball was #9 overall, Basketball #4 overall.

Hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in any sport period. Aside from a few other ball sports, its the only one where on offense you are not in control of the ball. It's really not even close, multi sport athletes will always say hitting in baseball is much harder than basketball or football. Boxing being #1? A sport notorious for guys going undefeated or having very minimal losses. Where there are countless examples of random people off the street and nobody's beating professionals. Are we kidding? That is the opposite of difficulty, it's one of the easiest sports to break into. Shouldn't even be in the top 10.

I would say hitting in baseball, serving in tennis, and scoring a goal in the NHL are the top 3 actual hardest. I think if every aspect is taken into account of a game, tennis is the hardest sport by a landslide.

The nhl being hard to break into I do believe, the teams have like 10 people total. Joking lol.

I’m only half-kidding here:

Make 12 free throws in a row, you’re doing OK. Lots of players have done it many times.

Complete 12 straight passes, you’re doing fairly well. Again, though, quarterbacks do this all the time.

Throw 12 pitches in a row for strikes, you’re in a groove. Still, it’s not that uncommon.

If you’re bowling, though, 12 straight strikes is a perfect game. And nobody is trying to block the throw, hit it with a bat, tackle you, or any of that. Maybe bowling should be number one.

Hmm, not sure I agree with the statistical conclusions.

In a nutshell, there were about 537,000 high school basketball players in the 2022-2023 season in the United States ((https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/res...uresMethod.pdf)
). 58 players are drafted in total. So if the pool of NBA draftees were only limited to American high school players, your odds as an American high school basketball player is about 1 in 10,000.

But it isn't. Basketball is a global sport -- there are an estimated 610 million people across all ages who play basketball. Not sure how many are high school age, but even if it is 1% of that figure (likely a gross underestimation), it would be about 4 times the number of organized ice hockey players globally (about 1.6 million according to the International Ice Hockey Federation).

Ice hockey is an awesome sport, but the funnel is just far narrower than basketball and with a lot less money at stake.

Love these cross sports debates! I beg to differ on tennis. It's fundamentally a (relatively) rich person's sport, which means that the athletic funnel is definitionally narrow. There are probably 1,000 rejects from the Premier League who have a superior athletic base than any tennis player in the history of the sport.

That doesn't mean it's not the hardest game. Being able to play it and it being a very high skill cap doesn't correlate at all imo. Sure maybe some poor kid in Tanzania might be the best tennis player of all time, and we will never see them play. But there's another kid in the middle of siberia who is 99% as good. The game would still be at an unimaginable difficulty.

The exact same can be said with other sports.

Thought about this one from the perspective of which one would be the hardest for a reasonably trained amateur to do if he were, say, given 10 tries.

In that case, I think defending the basket against an NBA player driving the hoop would be the up there in terms of difficulty. Maybe not as hard as hitting major league pitching, but probably up there.

Also surviving a round with a heavyweight boxer. I was looking at old footage of Mike Tyson hitting a heavy bag. Holy J-sus. And he's not even the biggest hitter in the sport. I think that's why boxing is so hard also; it's the only sport where the point is to knock someone unconscious and you're supposed to continue fighting unless you are knocked unconscious.

Or what about the balance beam for gymnastics? Anyone want to try that one? F--k no.

If you want your son to have the best chance at a professional sports career, hockey is definitely the way to go. Here are the data.

According to the NCAA, here's how many high school age boys played on their high school or club teams (or both) in 2022-23.

Football 1,050,000
Basketball 548,000
Baseball 488,000
Hockey 45,000

And here are how many U.S. players played in the major pro leagues in 2023-24 (from various reliable sports sites).

NFL 2,200
NBA 402
MLB 488
NHL 288

Adjusting for average career lengths of 4.5 years in professional basketball and hockey, 5.6 years for baseball and 3.3 years for football, the relative odds of a high school age boy athlete making it to the pros are as follows.

NFL 1 in 394
NBA 1 in 1,533
MLB 1 in 632
NHL 1 in 174

Long odds in all sports for sure, but a much easier path to the pros as a hockey player.

I agree, nobody else even cracked 100, next highest is 90. Hell I think the top 100 in career shutouts is safe, with Kershaw retired, the highest active player is Verlander with 9. That's why I always so impressed with John Tudor's 85 season when he had 10 shutouts out of nowhere.