Board 8 > ~~SephG's decennial "Best of" topic: the 2010s!~~

(+) Yeah! (+)

It's hard to believe, but the end of the 2010s are upon us. It's been a decidedly weird decade, both for me personally and for the world at large. But I am here again, just as I was in 2009, to try and make some sense of it all.

The 2010s began as I was a senior in college, unsure what I was going to do next in the face of a floundering economy and a rapidly changing marketplace. As it is coming to a close, I am deep into my career, married to someone whom I didn't know existed ten years ago, and still shit-posting on board 8 (some things never change).

Likewise, the world was quite different in 2010. A black-haired Barack Obama was passing his signature legislation, which would start a domino effect on the American political landscape. Smart phone technology was just starting to blossom, and the idea of a fully functioning computer in every pocket that could hail a cab, find a date, get directions, or send money was fairly insane. Now, it's hard to imagine not having these conveniences, just as it's hard to imagine a world less politically and socially divided--and nasty--but those are the 2010s.

As I did in 2009, I am going to go through various pieces of media and geopolitical events to determine what the best and most important moments of the decade were. These are the things that will hopefully put this whirlwind into perspective, and allow us to reflect on what a shit show reality we live in (and maybe laugh about it a bit).
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Best ofs that will not be covered in this topic

In the spirit of making this topic as fair as possible, I have to first admit a few shortcomings on my part that will preclude me from an all-encompassing list. While I have attempted to stay abreast to the barrage of media we consume daily, I have admittedly fallen short (sometimes very short) in certain channels. So it's simply not right for me to rank the following:

Best Book (Fiction) of the 2010s: I am shamefully not as much of a reader as I used to be, and most of my time that I do have for reading is usually dedicated to catching up on the historically-regarded classics--books that have reached such a critical consensus that they supersede any recent novel on my backlog. This probably could serve as a microcosm for the current state of literature, but here we are. I won't be able to rank the best novels of the decade.

Best Book (Nonfiction) of the 2010s: Ditto for this one. I think the only nonfiction book I read this decade was George W. Bush's Decision Points, and that would probably invalidate this entire topic if I ranked it the #1 nonfiction book of the past ten years >_>

Best Play of the 2010s: I really do enjoy dramatic theater, but I couldn't even name an original play written this decade, and I won't pretend like I know which ones are the best.

Best Video Game of the 2010s: Now this is probably going to drive away a bunch of people from this topic. But I can't in good conscience pick the best video game of the decade when I haven't played Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, Skyrim, Xenoblade, or any of the other games that I know are contenders for that title. For what little it's worth, my favorite game released in the 2010s (of the maybe ten or so I've beaten) is Mass Effect 3 (post-patch).

With those out of the way, we're off to the races!
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i'm in, though undoubtedly i'll have little to add other than in TV
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Best Professional Sports Team of the 2010s: The Golden State Warriors
Runners Up: New England Patriots, Miami Heat

Let me begin our first category with a bit of a foreword: This list is (generally) an objective look at what are the "best" items in each respective topic. However, I am also factoring in a few other criteria: how much influence did they have on the decade at large and how emblematic they were to the 2010s (ie, how much will we remember this winner as being "so 2010s").

Luckily for the Warriors, they win in all three categories when it comes to professional sports. In a decade that saw the highest levels of parity we've ever had across the 4 major US sport leagues, the Warriors absolutely massacred everyone in their path in the latter half of it. Although they "only" netted three championships, that 5-year run culminating in KD and Klay's injuries in the 2019 finals was unprecedented--and easily could have resulted in 5 consecutive titles.

The Warriors of the 2010s were the only team that had the resume of a true dynasty. 5 consecutive finals appearances resulting in 3 wins, 2 of which were total dominations. They took MJ's Bulls' all-time NBA regular season record for wins that no one ever thought would ever be surpassed. They had the most likable, game-changing athlete in all of sports this decade (more on that later) in Steph Curry, along with a superstar in his prime (KD), and iconic supporting stars (Klay, Draymond, Iggy). And as much as people have grown to resent the team, it's hard to be mad about how it all happened--home-grown, underrated athletes who broke through with their own forward-thinking style and transformed the NBA. This is the team we'll remember when we're 80.

As for the runners-up...this was a hard one. As I mentioned before, the 2010s showed incredible parity, for better or worse, in every major sport. The Lebron/Wade/Bosh-era Heat was a force to be reckoned with at one point, even if it didn't last very long. The Pats have a crazy resume on paper, but will we really call a team that fluked its way into two of their last three Super Bowl wins the best of the decade?

The 2010s were the decade of the Golden State Warriors. And, to me, this one isn't even up for debate.
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RKOs @ExThaNemesis
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This is quite well-written thus far, Seph. The opening post particularly impressed me. I'm looking forward to this.

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Are you JeffZero?
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Nelson_Mandela posted...

Are you JeffZero?

Thats what I used to go by, yep.

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I'm still waiting on your VGM ranking topic. Blocked until you start that back up.
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Then how will you know...!

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Touche
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i loved the warriors but there's no way this isn't the patriots. the warriors sucked for 2 years. the pats have never finished with fewer than 11 wins and made it to the final four eight straight years. you can call their SB wins fluky, but their losses were arguably fluky too, and they still made it to 5 SBs without a single off year.
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SeabassDebeste posted...

i loved the warriors but there's no way this isn't the patriots. the warriors sucked for 2 years. the pats have never finished with fewer than 11 wins and made it to the final four eight straight years. you can call their SB wins fluky, but their losses were arguably fluky too, and they still made it to 5 SBs without a single off year.

The Pats also coasted through a turd of a division while the Warriors conquered iconic rosters (Lob City Clippers, OKC's big three, Harden's Rockets, etc.).
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The 2010s were the decade of the Golden State Warriors. And, to me, this one isn't even up for debate

They took MJ's Bulls' all-time NBA regular season record for wins that no one ever thought would ever be surpassed.

I struggle with calling them the best sports team of the entire decade (all sports included) when you literally lost to Lebron. That Cavs team wasnt half of what that warriors team was. The record setting year was indeed the year they also set the record for the only team to ever lose a finals series up 3-1.

The best team across all sports in the entire last decade lost 3 games in a row in the finals? That's the best dynasty ?

This isnt even a fluke one and done like the superbowl it's a best of 7 so we truly see what teams and players are made of.

As much as I truly hate the Patriots and you could argue about some super bowl wins (the earlier ones) theres no way they arent the best dynasty probably in sports ever. The 2010s were the encore presentation. The consistency of their winning percentages and playoff stats don't lie. 5 SBs I believe and winning 3 of them?
Old man Brady setting like every playoff as well as SB record in the process that will almost undoubtedly mever be touched by another QB ever.

Don't let the fact that the Warriors won team of the decade let you forget they blew a 3-1 lead.
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Best College Sports Team of the 2010s: UConn Huskies Women's Basketball
Runner Up: Alabama Crimson Tide Football

Of the dozen or so categories I'll be presenting, this one was literally the hardest to decide between the winner and the runner up. No other major collegiate athletics programs even come close to touching these two in terms of dominance for the decade. And it's hard to imagine any other team will for many years to come.

There are a few factors at play in this one. On one hand, I think it's uncontroversial to state that it's much harder to win a college men's football game than to win a women's college basketball game. The physicality, the competition, and the stakes are just so much higher in the former. That's what makes Alabama's series of annihilation throughout the course of the decade (4 national titles and 10 solid years of being in the running) so impressive. But it's also what makes the UConn Lady Huskies' decade so fucking astounding as well.

It goes without saying that women's basketball is a little different than Alabama football. However, those differences and the success this team had in spite of them is why I am awarding them the Team of the Decade title. Alabama made millions and millions of dollars from their sports program. They enlisted dozens of the best recruiters to snatch up the best football players in the country, year after year, and their success only made them an even bigger juggernaut. UConn, on the other hand, doesn't exactly live and die by the success of their women's basketball team. Athletes are scouted, sure, but there isn't an entire industry made out of it. And because of that, many of the best female basketball players go to school based on where they want to go to school--not based on where they want to play. In short, UConn murdered everyone not because the best talent was drawn to them, but because their program was that unparalleled.

A few quick stats from this team in the 2010s:
-5 NCAA tournament championships
-4 consecutive titles
-4 undefeated seasons
-111-game winning streak, which is the longest winning streak of any college sports team in the history of college sports

We will not see anything like this again.
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Bootyhole posted...

As much as I truly hate the Patriots and you could argue about some super bowl wins (the earlier ones) theres no way they arent the best dynasty probably in sports ever. The 2010s were the encore presentation. The consistency of their winning percentages and playoff stats don't lie. 5 SBs I believe and winning 3 of them?
Old man Brady setting like every playoff as well as SB record in the process that will almost undoubtedly mever be touched by another QB ever.

The Pats would have a single title this decade if not for two unprecedented meltdowns by their opponents.

The Warriors may not have had that long of a window, but they were truly unbeatable for a time.
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Shouldnt this NCAAF and NFL season count towards this decade even though the title games arent until next year?
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Jakyl25 posted...

Shouldnt this NCAAF and NFL season count towards this decade even though the title games arent until next year?

Meh
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Like even if you remove the title game itself, would Alabama going undefeated and winning the SEC boost them?
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Nelson_Mandela posted...

SeabassDebeste posted...

i loved the warriors but there's no way this isn't the patriots. the warriors sucked for 2 years. the pats have never finished with fewer than 11 wins and made it to the final four eight straight years. you can call their SB wins fluky, but their losses were arguably fluky too, and they still made it to 5 SBs without a single off year.

The Pats also coasted through a turd of a division while the Warriors conquered iconic rosters (Lob City Clippers, OKC's big three, Harden's Rockets, etc.).

the warriors never beat the lob city clippers in the playoffs! clips beat em in 2014 without bogut and then they never once faced off again before last year.

OKC also lost its big three before they faced golden state. harden left the same year GSW got good. harden's rockets are a good win, but it's hard to call them an "iconic roster."

their best win by far is the finals in 2017 (and i guess with WCF in 2016) but the KD era was a complete shroud of weirdness.

pats won a lot in the regular season against shit teams, but they still won 3 super bowls and beat up every team in the AFC other than denver.
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Jakyl25 posted...

Like even if you remove the title game itself, would Alabama going undefeated and winning the SEC boost them?

Yeah well I'm not a soothsayer. Every ranking is based on the moment that I write it.
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definitely not educated enough on ncaa sports for that one.
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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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SeabassDebeste posted...

definitely not educated enough on ncaa sports for that one.

I'm not a big college sports guy but I'd love to hear your take
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Tag
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Sports done.

Up next will either be music or TV/film (will need to watch The Irishman tomorrow first). Current events will close it.
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tag
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the Cavs title offsets the absolute choke job against the Mavs, to me. It doesnt elevate him.

What he did with the Lakers is kinda fun - take a year off to destroy a team so they could have an extra year with AD. The way he has outfoxed one of the big cartel leagues is impressive.
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Bumpo
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i feel like from an american big 4 perspective, yeah, it's gotta be lebron. he defined the entire decade of the NBA. he's clearly the most athletic of anyone there, too

brady became the GOAT this decade while lebron didn't, but i don't necessarily think that puts him above lebron in this ranking. most of the others are individual sports that i don't follow/give a fuck about

do you follow any combat sports? i think there are maybe three boxers i could see as fighter of the decade - mayweather, pacquiao, or weirdly enough, canelo - though no way any of the could be considered athlete of the decade
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SeabassDebeste posted...

do you follow any combat sports? i think there are maybe three boxers i could see as fighter of the decade - mayweather, pacquiao, or weirdly enough, canelo - though no way any of the could be considered athlete of the decade

I thought about Mayweather because I think he's clearly the best boxer of all time in his class. But I discovered that he only had like 10 fights the entire decade! It's insane to think that he's been around since the 90s.
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Best TV Show of the of the 2010s (Comedy): BoJack Horseman
Runners Up: Silicon Valley, Community, Eastbound & Down, Parks and Recreation

TV is the only entertainment category that I am going to break apart by genre (comedy or drama). Why? Because the formula and construction of a comedy show is just so different than a drama that it's really unfair to compare the two. There is a reason why it's rare to find a straight comedy that lasts for one hour an episode or to find one that's not at least somewhat serialized. And also it's my list so I can do what I want.

Let's touch on TV comedies in general this past decade. The 2000s really saw a revolution in the comedy programming. Traditional laugh-track sitcoms, though still garnering the highest ratings of the lot, really fell out of critical favor after reaching an apotheosis in the 90s through the likes of Seinfeld, Friends, etc. As those shows became more directed at elderly viewers who relied on a simple formula to please their deteriorating brains, shows like Arrested Development, The Office, and 30 Rock began to take form and introduced a smarter, dryer wit to network television. Most of those programs peaked in the past decade and wrapped up their run in the early part of the 2010s; but, to me, most are very 2000s shows and therefore couldn't make the cut for this list.

What did begin to happen when those shows died out was an interesting phenomenon though. Gone were the days of writing teams grinding out 25+ episodes per season, and in were more refined, curated 10-14 episode runs with season-long arcs found in shows like BoJack and Silicon Valley. This formula worked to various extremes, I think. In the best of them (like the winner and each of the non-NBC runners up), you had these amazingly polished, brilliant, and captivating seasons of television that tell a complete story without any weak points to speak of. However, most shows now are not able to match the consistency of these programs, and what we're left with are seasons where you have maybe 90 minutes of good content and a bunch of weak filler. I think audiences are still trying to reconcile this movement.

Anyway, onto BoJack Horseman. If you only watch the pilot or if you go into this show thinking that it will be throwaway Family Guy-esque humor like I did, you will be missing the single-most introspective, experimental, and satisfying sitcom of the decade. The absurdist setting is only there to provide the most subtle of jokes that you can catch on a second or third viewing--but the heart of BoJack Horseman is in its characters and its unique approach to narrative structure. BoJack does callbacks (nearly) as good as Arrested Development, density of humor (nearly) as good as peak Simpsons, and meta-humor as good as Community. All of these elements blend together to form a truly unique show that stands alone amongst its peers. For me, this one wasn't even close. BoJack Horseman is the best TV comedy of the decade, and I am sad to see it come to an end.
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Add Half in the Bag to my runners up!
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Nelson_Mandela posted...

but will we really call a team that fluked its way into two of their last three Super Bowl wins the best of the decade?

lmao
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Bumpo
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Ludicrous that you put Lionel Messi as one of the runners up and not Cristiano Ronaldo, who had a FAR better decade than Messi did.
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For example, Messi's Barcelona team only won two Champions League's this decade, neither of them back to back.

Ronaldo's Real Madrid won FOUR, including three straight. The Champions League is the most difficult club sports competition in the world and Ronaldo's team won it three years in a row. He dominates Messi this decade and arguably overall.

But Messi smiles a bunch and is in more commercials so
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A few points on the Ronaldo / Messi thing:

i) They're probably the two best soccer players of all time, I absolutely agree with Ex that they both deserve to be on that list.

ii) The idea that either Ronaldo or Messi dominated the other this decade is pretty ludicrous. There are two ways you can look at this - individual achievements, or team achievements. Let's break both down.

Individually, both won 4 Ballon D'Ors this decade. Based on quick wiki maths, Messi has 523 goals in 526 appearances, Ronaldo has 478 in 483. I'm sure there are more stats you could find to weight the argument one way or another, but for me this is almost a total wash.

Team-wise, Ronaldo wins 4-2 on Champions Leagues, Messi wins 7-3 on league titles and 5-2 on domestic cups. You can weight this in favour of European competition if you want, but I call this a wash too.

iii) On Real's Champions Leagues: I know nothing about american sports, but if Seph believes that it is possible to "fluke" a Superbowl win, then Real Madrid "fluked" at least two of those Champions Leagues. They're statistically obviously the best club team of the decade in european competition. But even when they were winning those trophies, did anyone actually think they were the best team in the world? Especially the last two years, they just seemed like an average side who were preternaturally good at (and obsessed with) winning that specific competition. They only won two Spanish leagues in the whole decade, for comparison!

In any case, the Zidane-era Real really don't strike me as a team that anyone will talk much about in decades to come - if you look at the decade as a whole, Guardiola's Barcelona (featuring Messi of course) is easily the defining team in terms of impact on the sport. So I'm not so sure that's an inarguable point in Ronaldo's favour either.

iv) So yeah, I don't really agree with Ex at all there. You can definitely make the case that Ronaldo is a superior athlete, that he's more "clutch", that his moments of brilliance have defined the sporting decade more than Messi's have. But I'd argue that Messi's actually been dragging both Barcelona and Argentina along behind him for years now, with - counterintuitively - comparatively little attention. In the end, choosing one over the other is pretty much entirely subjective, and to act otherwise is pretty silly.

Enjoying the topic so far, despite the fact I can't add much to the US sports discussion at all. Looking forward to music/TV drama chat later!

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i'd say messi is overrated but then i'll get yelled at by xic that i'm an idiot and don't know anything about soccer so
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messi is mango and ronaldo is armada
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My soccer knowledge is limited. I'll admit the Messi placement was driven largely by so many people telling me he's the GOAT far and away.
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Messi is a fraud.

But also hate Ronaldo
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For what it's worth, I don't think you can be the athlete of the decade by playing soccer anyway
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@XIII_rocks come yell at extha
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Nelson_Mandela posted...

For what it's worth, I don't think you can be the athlete of the decade by playing soccer anyway

odd thing to say about the most popular sport in the world!

I'd almost get it if you were judging it by pure physicality, but then you wouldn't be picking LeBron either so idgi

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Giggsalot posted...

Nelson_Mandela posted...

For what it's worth, I don't think you can be the athlete of the decade by playing soccer anyway

odd thing to say about the most popular sport in the world!

I'd almost get it if you were judging it by pure physicality, but then you wouldn't be picking LeBron either so idgi

I'm just trying to make extha mad, don't mind me
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oh in that case go right ahead, my apologies

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hey extha van persie is an awesome dude

there i just made extha mad
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Nelson_Mandela posted...

Best College Sports Team of the 2010s: UConn Huskies Women's Basketball
Runner Up: Alabama Crimson Tide Football

Of the dozen or so categories I'll be presenting, this one was literally the hardest to decide between the winner and the runner up. No other major collegiate athletics programs even come close to touching these two in terms of dominance for the decade. And it's hard to imagine any other team will for many years to come.

There are a few factors at play in this one. On one hand, I think it's uncontroversial to state that it's much harder to win a college men's football game than to win a women's college basketball game. The physicality, the competition, and the stakes are just so much higher in the former. That's what makes Alabama's series of annihilation throughout the course of the decade (4 national titles and 10 solid years of being in the running) so impressive. But it's also what makes the UConn Lady Huskies' decade so fucking astounding as well.

It goes without saying that women's basketball is a little different than Alabama football. However, those differences and the success this team had in spite of them is why I am awarding them the Team of the Decade title. Alabama made millions and millions of dollars from their sports program. They enlisted dozens of the best recruiters to snatch up the best football players in the country, year after year, and their success only made them an even bigger juggernaut. UConn, on the other hand, doesn't exactly live and die by the success of their women's basketball team. Athletes are scouted, sure, but there isn't an entire industry made out of it. And because of that, many of the best female basketball players go to school based on where they want to go to school--not based on where they want to play. In short, UConn murdered everyone not because the best talent was drawn to them, but because their program was that unparalleled.

A few quick stats from this team in the 2010s:
-5 NCAA tournament championships
-4 consecutive titles
-4 undefeated seasons
-111-game winning streak, which is the longest winning streak of any college sports team in the history of college sports

We will not see anything like this again.

Stupid trivia:

The trinity college squash team has that last record with 252 consecutive wins, if you count it

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/sports/trinitys-record-winning-streak-ends-at-252.html
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