Biggest Sportsperson Disappointment...

I'm not sure I find much issue with that, in part because he may well give more than we think - he just doesn't make the giving about him.

Or, if he doesn't, at least he's not insincere about it.

 

Throwing Lance Armstrong into the mix.

Guy single … handedly made cycling popular in the US. Like actually mainstream popular. Survived cancer. Just dominated the Tour De France. Everyone wore those Live Strong bracelets.

Then it turns out he’s a drug cheat and a tremendous asshole.

 

The Rise and Fall of Kirby Puckett

 

And the most dominant junior player I have ever seen. Literally a man against boys.

 

I don’t know how you can call Tiger a “disappointment.” He’s one of the two or three best golfers to ever play the game. Who cares if he’s a shithead off the course?

 

One the one hand, completely agree. On the other, if he doesn’t cheat to keep up with everyone else, you would never have heard of him.

 

I’ll also throw Randall Cunningham into the mix, though it’s through no fault of his own.

He should’ve been the MVP in 1990. And I maintain to this day the Eagles would’ve won it all in ‘91 if he hadn’t gotten hurt.

He was never the same after that injury. Then they tried to turn him into a West Coast QB.

It wasn’t until he went back to a playground offensive system in Minnesota with Carter and Moss that he showed he still had some of that magic. But even that lasted only one year.

 

Good side discussion: How much should a disproportionate hype machine be held against someone?

It’s not Lindros’ fault that he didn’t live up to the impossible hype. It’s also not his fault that the Flyers bought it too, and gave away the farm to get him.

Yet, still, the hype machine is why people are still arguing that LeBron James is not the greatest basketball player of all time, or that Bryce Harper is somehow a chronic underachiever.

The media is terrible at reasonably managing expectations, but how much should that affect our view of a player?

 

As a New York sports fan, it’s Dwight Gooden. If you saw him in 1984-86, you would have thought that he would have been one of the top pitchers of all time. And his era of dominance was done in a flash and by the time he was 25 or so, he was a .500 pitcher.

 

I think it was our collective naïveté.

 

Ben Johnson would be among the leaders in the clubhouse, Canuckistani division