I’ve read a few writers say that about Gonzalez – he does appear to be very under-rated.

I used to take the view that the Big 3 are the Modern Era GOAT due to the complexity of trying to evaluate the modern vs split amateur / professional era, esp in terms of Laver’s amazing performances (I think Rosewall not winning Wimbledon probably just rules him out of any GOAT discussion). However, I recently changed my view on that and would have the Big 3 as the all-time GOATs, at least as far back as say the1950s – whilst I probably need to do a bit more research to refresh myself on the 1950’s/60’s professional era, but in short, the players who went professional ‘ruled themselves out’ of the GOAT debate, at least in terms of not counting their non-amateur performances, as the professional tournaments, to my knowledge, just don’t compare to the grand slams (even if the better players were playing pro’s at that time). It’s like saying that the cricketers who went on rebel tours or the Packer’s super-tests of the 1970s should be counted in the cricketers’ overall career stats. So I think I’ve been too kind to Laver, as I rate him SO highly, but he’ll have to sit second tier for me!

Hey Peter – hope you’re doing well – another AFL season around the corner. I agree re Tay as next captain, but I think the Pies missed a trick not appointing him now – I haven’t been overly rapt with Pendles as a leader over the last 12 months, and I think given some of the baggage the Pies have dealt with over recent years, I think it was time for a completely clean broom leadership wise. Also, I don’t want to add to the ‘pile on’ on Madgen, but I do agree that it’s an issue if he needs to be in our best 22.

Good article Paul – I was rather confused when the Lakers signed Westbrook – a mediocre shooter, at best, to sit alongside Davis and LeBron… of course, Davis’ absence is hurting the team a lot, but his level had fallen this season. I liked the comparison between Westbrook’s stats last year and this year – whilst dipping slightly, they’re broadly similar, and it just makes you wonder how the Lakers could think that he would be a good fit in their team — surely, 3 point shooting was the complement they needed (or at least some floor spacing).

I think I agree – he isn’t quite top 10 yet – im guessing somewhere in the top 20 bracket but if could land another one or two titles and at least add one finals MVP and maybe another MVP to his CV, I think he would likely be comfortably in the top 5 to 10 argument — I think his time with Durant will always get in the way of him getting too high in that list (similar to how Abdul jabaar can’t really be ahead of mj and probably has been surpassed by le Bron as he wasn’t the best player on a few of his title teams)

It does seem like Nadal and Joker faced stiffer competition overall and certainly sustained their peaks for longer, but wow, Fed’s peak was out of this world. The reason for writing these articles is I’d been reading quite a bit about how Joker was the GOAT and a few that argue for Fed, and I thought ‘it comes down to Slams’ and then I was interested to see whether ‘in slam’ performance made any difference (this article), which it doesn’t, so yes indeed, I’m happy to view them all the GOAT’s.

thanks Peter. I don’t hold a strong view of GOAT vs GOATPee – as you know, I started with an emphasis on the GOATPee and then changed my mind. Better tennis player is as you indicate is difficult (probably impossible) to evaluate. I think you got confused in some of your argument above – I think it might’ve been matth who made the comment re quality of Laver’s opponents, so I’m not sure if your comments that follow re ‘adjusting for circumstances’ also relate to that perceived comment of mine? I would only tend to make a comment re quality of opposition if there was some stats to back it up. As a general rule, I’m not into making comparisons of different conditions between eras as making performance in one era better or worse than another era, mainly b/c I find that these lead to circular argument. My personal favourite in this regard is people who argue that Bradman’s performance should be discounted given the limited teams he played against etc. You can only ‘beat who you can beat’ in any given era. Thanks for commenting. I might try the UFC (MMA) GOAT next, although there’s probably a GOATpee aspect to that too… You should have a look at my other GOAT article on NBA!

Yep, certainly entertaining, but appreciate your challenge and also @matth. You’re right, I called it the ‘modern era GOAT’ throughout my articles, but yes, GOATPee is right. However, I’ve revised my opinion after thinking this through and I actually think the Big 3 are legitimate GOAT, not just modern era. I’d like to do a bit more research to refresh myself on the 1950’s/60’s professional era and probably the pre-1950’s era as well, where my knowledge is more sketchy, but in short, the players who went professional ‘ruled themselves out’ of the GOAT debate, at least in terms of not counting their non-amateur performances, as the professional tournaments, to my knowledge, just don’t compare to the grand slams (even if the better players were pro’s at that time). It’s like saying that the cricketers who went on rebel tours or the Packer’s super-tests of the 1970s should be counted in the cricketers’ overall career stats. So I think I’ve been too kind to Laver, as I rate him SO highly, but no, he’ll have to sit second tier.

I think Novak is 6-0 against Fed in the French, so by my count, he is 4-4 against Fed at other slams. I think he is 7-2 against Novak in the French, so that would make him 3-4 on that count. I’d say that’s pretty special for a clay-court specialist!

Yes indeed!

Thanks Peter85 – I like your comments – I don’t think you can count Fed’s head-start as counting against him in the GOAT race – his ‘peak value’ period was astonishing and I don’t think (from memory) anyone has ever been close — I’d really need to see some hard-core stats to say that the standard of competitiveness in his era was less than subsequent era, even if intuitively, there might be some merit to it. I think if you look at the stats above, what I’m basically saying, is that on an objective level, if you agree performance in Slams is the main game, then you can’t separate the Big 3.

I can’t agree with above as much as I rate Laver. I’d like to do some more research on the 1950/60’s professional era before commenting, but it’s a hectic end to the week, so a few preliminary comments — correct me if I’m wrong, but my recollection is that the professional tournaments were nothing like the slams in format (a very limited number of players and not same intensity of format), so Laver effectively rules himself out of the GOAT argument – I hadn’t thought about this so clearly until you challenged me on it, but it feels right — it’d be like saying that the cricket rebel tours count in a cricketer’s career stats or the break-away Packer cricket super tests of the 70s – it’s unfortunate as Laver may well have been the GOAT, especially with 2 grand slams to his name, but he rules himself out unfortunately. Nonetheless, I respect his achievements and rate him incredibly highly.

Agree that Rosewell and Gonzales are both under-rated (as per @matth’s comment) and agree that Laver’s ’62 GM might’ve been a lot more challenging had all players been playing amateur circuit – interesting, I read that Laver didn’t win many significant games in his first year after he made the move to the pro’s, which was apparently pretty typical for players making that move!

Thanks matth – make a case for me how laver’s performance is superior? Copying from a reply above, it was an utter mess really pre-1969 – you had the best players playing eg, 8-men tournaments, sometimes with less good players to make up the numbers (as I understand it), and so it’s hard to fathom how to rank victories in those tournaments even though it was probably the top pro’s of the time (I liken those tournaments a bit to the ATP Finals) – some commentators want to say Laver has the equivalent of eg 20+ slams if we count his wins in those tournaments, but they’re almost impossible to weight as a ‘like for like’. I assume btw that I’m on topic when you’re referring to ‘amateur and pro sides of his career’? Btw, I don’t like saying ‘modern era GOAT, but I make an exception for tennis, as I just can’t fathom a way to evaluate the 1950’s and 1960s (I guess if I was being a purist I might count pre-1950s in my GOAT analysis!)

Thanks matth. Hmmm – interesting take but make a case for me how you can objectively justify that comment re Laver? – I’ll cheat by copying part of a reply above – pre-1969 was an utter mess really – you had the best players playing eg, 8-men tournaments, sometimes with less good players to make up the numbers, and so it’s hard to fathom how to rank victories in those tournaments even though it was probably the top pro’s of the time (I liken those tournaments a bit to the ATP Finals) – some commentators want to say Laver has the equivalent of eg 20+ slams if we count his wins in those tournaments, but they’re almost impossible to weight as a ‘like for like’. I assume I’m ‘on topic’ though when you’re referring to ‘amateur and professional’ sides of his career? Btw, I do say ‘modern era GOAT’ which is equivalent to ‘best in modern era’ – I don’t like doing this, but I make an exception for tennis, which I don’t feel applies in most other sports.

Interesting – I wouldn’t have omitted them from my top tier b/c they can’t be undisputed best on their own, but understand your criterion. Interesting what would’ve happened if it was a Big 2 – I guess if it had been Fed and Rafa, I could never have got enough of it 🙂

Rod Laver is a tricky one – I don’t know how much you know about the pre-1969 era. It was an utter mess really – you had the best players playing eg, 8-men tournaments, sometimes with less good players to make up the numbers (as I understand it), and so it’s hard to fathom how to rank victories in those tournaments even though it was probably the top pro’s of the time (I liken those tournaments a bit to the ATP Finals) – some commentators want to say Laver has the equivalent of eg 20+ slams if we count his wins in those tournaments, but they’re almost impossible to weight as a ‘like for like’. As a result, Rod’s between a rock and a hard place, missing 7 prime years of his career between 2 grand slams!

thanks for the summary of this thorny issue Justin. The key issues seem to be right to freedom of thought, but also not putting fellow players etc at risk by your decisions. However, the nagging thought in all of this is that ‘it’s kyrie’ and i find it difficult to trust and decipher his intentions – this is the guy who asked to leave LeBron, then claimed he’d learnt a lot from LeBron re leadership before proceeding to blow things up in Boston, before being part of a super team in Brooklyn, and then going off on ‘unexplained personal leave’ for a few weeks, before we even get to the latest saga — I believe he does a lot of good outside of basketball, but within the confines of basketball, it certainly seems like ‘Kyrie is about Kyrie’ and doesn;t appear to really take into account the organisations and players he works with – of course, this is the outside looking in…

kyrie getting paid is more complicated than that – if the team is ‘choosing’ that he doesn’t play away games, they;ve probably had advice that they should still pay him in those circumstances, but don’t need to when it;s home games, where it;s purely his choice not to play

lol, funny observation!

Really good article – I’m late to the party, but one of my favourite ones on the TheRoar for a while. I agree that I would’ve liked to seen more of Neale, and I was amused by the lack of reference to Roos — after the end of the Pies ‘coaching transition’ followed shortly by the Hawks ‘coaching transition’, it would’ve been good to reflect on the a transition done well and Roos’ early contribution to laying the foundation to setting the club on the right direction.

Nice work – i felt a lot like that back in 1990! Lol, funny that you’ve watched the Couch and 360 a few times – I found them 2 of the more ‘boring’ episodes I’ve watched, mainly because they had understandably very little insightful to say other than how amazing the Demons were (which is precisely why you liked them, no doubt!)

This is not the first time I’ve said this on here, but I just don’t understand the references to ‘year end titles, masters titles, etc’ — having followed tennis fairly closely for 40 years, the real focus is Slams and everything else is not that significant in terms of legacy etc — the Slams are what the ex-pros talk about when they look back at their career and how pros appear to judge success — I respect that masters titles, time at no. 1 etc are probably somewhat relevant when trying to split GOATs (although personally I like H2H’s as more compelling, at least between the big 3). Yes though – the Joker will end up as the ‘modern era’ GOAT – but for me, he needs to win more Slams than the other 2 to make that argument compelling – otherwise there will always be pros & cons of the other arguments (eg, I read somewhere that Fed is the GOAT b/c he was better at his peak – I don’t buy that – but Novak winning some more slams will put that kind of argument to bed).

I’m very late to this party, but good work @ matth – I’ve done some reading on the pre-open era and I’ll only use the words ‘modern era GOAT’ to describe any of the Big 3. Pre-1969 was just a mess in tennis for about 15 years from what I can gather — from what I can gather almost no one took Roy Emerson’s 14 slams during that era as especially meaningful, since many of the top players were playing on the professional circuit. I agree that on a ‘like for like’ basis you can mount an argument for Laver having more ‘slams’ than the Big 3. Also, minimising Laver’s 69 slam due to 2 surfaces and physicality doesn’t appear to have much basis – you can only ‘beat who you can beat’ at the time and there were some damn good players around then from what I know.

Fair enough – I didn’t watch the game, but from all accounts, Medvedev was on fire, but as is usually the case, there are 2 angles to look at it from, and it just seemed a bit un-Novak like, as he is a true competitor. I hadn’t thought about the unique scheduling – that probably really explains why Novak was underdone – that’s a good point really. I certainly didn’t put too much importance on his Olympics losses – yes it’s nice to win a medal for their country, but I’d argue it’s still a ways behind a grand slam.
And no, the GOAT debate isn’t going anywhere – but it probably would’ve, to some extent, if Nole had won the grand slam. I’m very clear that my evaluation of GOAT has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not I like a player – there can’t be any question that Novak is Fed and Rafa’s equal – the stats don’t lie. I’d just prefer he doesn’t get ahead of them…!
Btw, one GOAT debate point that I’m less familiar with is the idea of how great a player was at his peak, which one article I read recently used to say that the GOAT debate is only between Novak and Fed (due to Fed’s mid-2000s run) and Nadal isn’t in that equation. That’s feels like a debate about the GOATIE (greatest of all time in an era)!