Hi @Rik J – what did you make of Novak losing the US open final? I wasn’t all that surprised, after he lost at the Olympics and then kept dropping a set most matches in the lead-up to the final — it’s such an unbelievably tough thing to achieve the Grand Slam and arguably, tougher than when Laver did it in 1969 (given 3 slams were then on Grass and my guess is that Aussie open wasn’t well attended by overseas players). I think he just ran out of steam in the end. As you’d guess, I was kind of relieved he didn’t succeed, as given the enormity of the achievement, in my view, it would put to rest, probably once and for all, any GOAT discussions! (and probably for a long time too)

Nice wrap-up Avatar. I’m not much of a Djokovic fan and was a bit relieved he didn’t get the Grand Slam – it’s just such a mythical achievement in tennis and potentially would’ve really elevated him to another level in the public eye. He will likely, of course, end up the modern-era GOAT of course, as Fed is probably past the point of getting another slam and Nadal is often injured. I didn’t get a lot of chance to watch Novak’s matches, but reading about him constantly going to 4 sets at the US open seemed unlike Novak, which suggested some pressure / fatigue building up, especially in an Olympics year as well. It’s a bloody tough achievement getting the Grand Slam – there’s a reason it’s barely happened in the Open era.

Loved the article Chucka – I nearly wrote a comment just based on the head-line – you had me at ‘F-minus’ – made me laugh out loud! It really was ‘an everything that could go wrong, did’ year, although surprisingly, there were still some nice moments (Queen’s B’day – fyi best game of the year – I was there live, so I’m biased, but it was brilliant; the youngsters, Tigers game). I think it will still take us a while to recover from the trade calamity in particular, and given that I’m pretty much open to moving on any of our top 10 players, as I don’t think any will be around when we’re genuine contenders again (exceptions – probably Moore, DeGoey and Adams – I see latter as next captain and heart-beat of the club – I think Maynard is fantastic, but he is probably replaceable). Btw, I would like to see a new captain – Pendles has been marvellous, but I think it’s time, along with the new influx of leadership at the club.

In some ways, it might be easier inheriting a rebuilding team than a strong one as per Bucks, as Bucks could never really get rid of the question of ‘should we have changed coaches’, but with a rebuilding team, he should have more latitude to grow the team back into contention.

Agree Pete. I like how he presents himself – impacts as pretty humble and down to earth – appears to have a strong pedigree for the role. I didn’t hear the press conference – if he handled those predictable but annoying questions well, that’s also a good sign!

Thanks Yatz and good luck for your cats in the AFL – I’m pretty confident for you. Sorry, yes, you’re quite right and I should’ve mentioned that – Ben and Embiid just don’t fit in the same team and it’s been clear for a while – I dk re Lakers — I feel like he’s not as well suited in a team with a dominant interior presence as between Ben and ‘them’ (eg, AD), they clog the floor spacing too much on offense. GSW would be amazing, and watching Kerr on both the Last Dance and Luc Longley’s Aust Story (watch it, if you haven’t – really good), he seems really down to earth – however, I can’t see them trading out Dray (I know it’s the NBA, but I sense a lot of loyalty – maybe Dray could come off the bench though!). Back to the Lakers – I agree – I don’t understand Westbrook’s fit there – I guess we’ll see if the ‘grab all the talent you can and we’ll make it work’ approach works (applies to the Nets too, but moreso to the Lakers now I think!)

The 6ers fan-base has always been a bit rabid to what I recall, even back to the Barkley days. Interesting article – I’m not sure though that I’d want Ben on my team, unless my team was filled with excellent shooters, and i could play Ben as more of an interior player. I can’t quickly find what position he played in college, but he appears to be more a small forward+ – he could play power forward in the modern day athletic NBA potentially (I like the Dray Green comparison a lot). Being a potential star who can’t shoot is just such a draw-back, esp in the modern day NBA and one who can’t make FTs is a big liability – it could work but I hope he gets on the right team with the right coach and most importantly is open to working on his FTs (or we’ll be facing more BS tales of woe in play-off games for years to come).

Nice article Yaz – good to see you on NBA as well as AFL. I’m at such a loss when I think of Ben. I can’t quite think of another player like him – names that come to mind are Rodman, Draymond, maybe even Jason Kidd (!) – all guys whose lack of shooting (at least initially in Kidd’s case) were compensated by pronounced strengths. The big difference is that none of the above (maybe other than Kidd initially) were seen as 1st / 2nd star banana stars on their teams, and that is I think the core of the dilemma with Ben. He is probably most like Dray (as the other article on Ben suggests), but Dray is 3rd / 4th banana on GSW (admittedly an important part of the team’s success). Ben could play that role, but only if he trade value could diminish to such an extent that he could be traded accordingly. For Ben to be a true star, there’s no ifs or buts – he needs to be at least a modest shooter and probably even more importantly, fix his FT shooting, since it will keep him off the floor in play-off games (to some extent, he has limited value if he can’t fix the latter). However, if he can traded to a team in a facilitator role with a bunch of excellent shooters, he could be amazing and be close enough to the basket that his shooting might improve (I hope GSW doesn’t trade for him – him + Dray seems a nett negative). Lastly, it concerns me that by some accounts (Stephen A – first take) that Ben isn’t open to feedback, which may limit his improvement, if accurate. It would be amazing to see Ben become a true NBA star, as it would be Australia’s first.

Good article – Baynes is a big out, but i don’t think the US will try to take advantage of our lack of talls, as they’re a relatively smallish team – Green is barely a tall and McGee barely gets any minutes. I think they’ll be happy to play a team without significant talls and it will become an athletically driven game, which will play to the US’ strengths as a team (whereas someone like France with their big bodies were able to bottle them up a bit more)

That’s true – I thought the recent events were relevant to our recent postings. Just for posterity, I’m not part of the Rafa or Fed faithful (I’m more an interested observer), so it’s probably more a growing disillusionment with Novak. I deliberately excluded Novak breaking his racquet against the net post as that seemed a pretty common occurrence (as per your comment re Sascha’s behaviour), but I can’t really justify throwing a racquet into the stands as typical tennis behaviours (esp given other incidents). Also, the ‘default’ for physical injury might be seen as a bit odd, given he’d just played an intense match and given it was playing for a medal for his country. Anyway, moving on. I do give the new gen a genuine chance, but really, the biggest obstacle facing Novak, as we probably just saw at the Olympics is fatigue and probably a decent slice of luck — winning 1 grand slam is hard enough — winning 4 — everything needs to go his way, including a full gas tank!

@Rik J – re Olympics, it’s really hard to feel positive towards Joker when he throws a racquet into the stands (I know they were mainly empty, but you think he might be a little more judicious after the linesman incident) and then defaults from the mixed doubles (I know – it might be legit, but his team didn’t want him to play mixed doubles in the first place – and then to default doesn’t look great from a few perspectives, including his doubles partner).

The nexus with Fed/Nadal is simply b/c he’s competing with them for modern-era GOAT status (and it will be a long time before anyone other than these 3 gets talked about in that context!)

No I wouldn’t begrudge him overtaking them – it is what it is and if he is good enough to get the calendar slam or lead in overall slams then he deserves that accolade – I’d just prefer I don’t have to acknowledge him as the undisputed goat!

PS let’s re-connect post US open — I’m hoping that other than injury (or being disqualified for ‘inappropriate’ winning celebrations – lol), he gets beaten before he can claim a Calendar Slam and lay waste to any claims of Fed/Nadal being on the same level as him!! (sigh, I feel like he might do it too, to my chagrin).

I don’t recall the ‘not too bad’ interview, so I’ve lost the context of that humour :). I think (and maybe I’m mistaken?) that your article seemed to imply people felt neutral to Novak before he started beating Fed/Nadal – I certainly didn’t feel that way and that’s what I was referring to by providing a more rounded narrative – in any case, it’s not crucial to your article. I don’t actually have a ‘barrow to push’ — I was just explaining why some people, like myself as an example, might not be a fan of Novak. For me, it’s just been a combination of behaviours over the years probably culminating in the Adria tour. I’ve probably only become aware in recent times that I’m really not a fan, but acknowledge that I’m sure there are other altruisitc behaviours that might present a different picture of him. The ‘throwing the hearts’ is not a reason I dislike him per se – it just makes me cringe and feel like he doesn’t quite ‘get’ how to connect with his audience, which is part of the reason I think he appears to be not as well liked as say Fed. In any case, it doesn’t really matter, as he’s a truly successful sportsperson and can probably live with some dislike — look at how McEnroe has rehabilitated his image over the years – lol

Thanks for the detailed reply. i think it was more the tone / focus of your article – it seemed to wanted to diminish why some fans might not like Novak and attribute some of that to eg challenging Fed/Nadal. It’s easy to rebut individual examples (striking linesperson, MTOs) etc, but I suspect, for many, it’s the overall combination of behaviours that has turned some fans off Novak (rather than challenging Nadal/Fed) – it has for me. Re the celebration – no issue with the bestial scream but the ‘giving the heart’ to all sections of the court makes me want to change channels… Re early career narrative – you’re obviously aware of it, but I think it would’ve rounded out your argument more if you provided some more context re how he was more popular earlier in his career. Yes, the ‘bad guy’ was a question looking for a headline. Again, thanks for an interesting article – I think, to me, it just probably felt at times like you wanted to argue one point of view, possibly b/c the Novak narrative feels unfairly one-sided

I think this is well said – @Rik J, your article is good, but seems to ignore some of the reasons people probably don’t support Novak — I rarely develop dislikes of sportspeople, but I was actively supporting him losing at Wimbledon! I also think you’ve re-written his early career narrative in terms of how he was perceived – as James Green said, he was really quite entertaining earlier in his career and impacted as quite likable in interviews. Not ignoring his greatness on the court, but anti-vacc stance / Adria tour / post win celebrations (ugh) / hitting the ball-person (yes, accidental I know) / apparent mid-career tendency to look like he was using medical issues to change momentum (it’s a pity almost no one is good enough to get him to use this now!) – I feel like I’m leaving a few things out, but Adria Tour, as you’ve acknowledged, was just bizarre, and probably cemented a lot of views towards him. As you can tell, I’m not a fan of how he goes about things – a pity it looks like he’ll end up the modern era GOAT!!

What makes you sold on Noble (he makes a lot of clangers)? My main issue with Magden is that his decision making, and kicking efficiency leave a lot to be desired.

Loved the article and the game too of course! Really positive about Darcy Cameron’s development and Maynard is becoming the heart of the team. Great to see Adams back – big fan of his. The only thing that surprised me is you really rating Noble – he makes me ‘groan’ at least once (if not a few times per match) with the clangers he makes — his speed is what keeps me thinking he’s worth another year on the list, but his kicking efficiency needs to improve out of sight. Jack Magden is the other one that makes me wince a few times per game, even though he gives a good solid effort – I’m not sold on these two at all.

You can probably guess that I take a ‘you can only beat who you can beat’ perspective, given my focus on slam wins 🙂 — I tend to see the counter-argument a lot with Bradman and his cricket success of people using the limited number of test playing countries of that era to discount his incredible batting average. I find the which era is tougher such a tricky proposition, although ironically, I have time for separating the eras in tennis, due to the complete mess that was the 1950’s and 1960’s.

https://www.theroar.com.au/2020/10/15/what-does-lebrons-lakers-title-mean-for-the-goat-debate/ — I wrote this after the Lakers’ win last season (MJ currently)

I’m honestly a bit perplexed by your description of this match as one of the greatest women’s finals at wimbledon – I almost wanted to write an article on how surprised I was that no one seemed to have commented on how borderline unwatchable the first set to set and a half was – it seemed like everyone just wants to comment on the positive narrative of her great win (which is great of course) – I think I’m worried I’d be shouted down if I wrote it!
To give context to my views, I haven’t really watched a lot of women’s tennis for quite a while, so I initially questioned whether the first set was a reflection of potential differences between the women’s and men’s game, BUT on reflection, the last half of the match was of a good standard, even reaching greater heights at times, and reflected the quality of women’s tennis when I used to watch it regularly, so I ended up attributing the first set-plus to a really poor start from Pliskova and Barty just keeping her unforced error count down.

I don’t think the 237 consecutive weeks adds a lot for Roger fans (I am one) – I think Roger would give that up in a heart-beat for another slam. I find stats like these can really complicate things. Weeks at number 1, as my earlier point above to Kane, can be affected by a number of things, such as relative competition at the time and other factors (eg, short grass-court season) – it is a sign of excellent though, for sure. Don’t mind it as a tie-breaker thought, as per head to head.

I reckon we could go back and forwards on this one for quite a while! My perspective is that you may be losing the forest for the trees ???? – I kind of gets into these debates with NBA and AFL as well. If it’s about Slams ‘it’s about Slams’ and ranking points adds ‘flavour’ for close tie-breaker arguments – also, the short Clay court season would potentially undermine Nadal’s weeks at no.1, which might under-cut this point a bit. Similarly, a potential issue with your ‘6 slam win streak’ argument is that there are viable counter-arguments – eg, the relative ages at which Fed was peaking vs Novak was peaking and their relatives ages at the time of each peak would probably under-cut your point (top of my head). Will make a similar point to Chris Love below. Good debate though!

PS also wanted to add I had a late night ‘brain fade’ when writing my last comment – completely overlooked that it would also be a Calendar Slam if he wins US open, which would make him as modern GOAT a clear no-brainer…