LogFAQs > #929812715

Best Athlete of the 2010s: LeBron James
Runners Up: Serena Williams, Lionel Messi, Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps, Tom Brady

This is a super interesting one for me because it illustrates just how much shit went down in the past ten years. I'm going to divvy this up by bloc.

Athletes not on the list: I am trying not to list more than 5 runners up, which led to a few curious observations. Other than Tom Brady, whose individual greatness was certainly more present in the 2000s and early 2010s than it has been the entire decade, no football player has demonstrated a consistent level of greatness in the sport to the extent of the other icons listed. There are also no baseball players. Mike Trout is undoubtedly the best player in the MLB this decade, but when has Mike Trout been truly relevant? No championships, no cultural impact. Nothing. The greatest athletes of the 2010s, whether you agree or not, are those who have had that ubiquitous presence--and who have all given their cases for "GOAT-status."

The runners up: You could make the argument that each of the runners up are the best to ever do it in their respective fields. Starting with the Olympians: Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps could easily have been Athlete of the Decade, but really performed at the highest level in the 2008 Olympics (in fact, I think I had Phelps as the runner up athlete of the 2000s). Serena Williams has been otherworldly in her dominance in women's tennis singles, but has tapered off somewhat toward the latter half of this decade (not a knock against her, but again, the timing just didn't align perfectly). Ditto for Tom Brady, as I mentioned before. Lionel Messi is basically Steph Curry on a global scale: both are those culture-changing, era-defining athletes. Smaller dudes who use talent and finesse to excel in their sport and inspire literal billions of kids to play the game differently. But neither of them quite match the pure athletic freakishness of the Athlete of the Decade.

The winner: Love him or hate him, LeBron James is the most iconic and ubiquitous figure in sports of the 2010s. And what sets him apart from all of the other runners up is really one thing: his peak lasted the entire ten years. The 2010s seem like they started with The Decision--otherwise known as the most memorable out-of-game basketball moment since Jordan retired. His Miami Heat team is what I think about most of the early 2010s. They seemed to breed a whole culture down there. Rick Ross and Drake rapped about them, every douchebag wore red and black, and Miami as a city saw a cultural resurgence not seen since the Miami Vice heyday in the 80s.

Sure, LeBron's championships here seemed cheap and unearned at times, but his team still did thrash when everything was clicking. But what really elevated LeBron from that ultimate duality--competitive but petulant, ferocious but thin-skinned--was his title run with the Cavs. LeBron pulled off the greatest upset of the decade by defeating the best regular season team of all time after being down from 3 games to 1. For one man to return to Cleveland and reverse a century of stink in that city, even just for one season, was a final act of defiance against his critics. And in that moment, even the biggest LeBron haters such as myself had to give him props.
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