Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has the GOAT answer to end the GOAT debate

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If you need undifferentiated smart, there are not a lot of better places to go than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He is a Hall of Fame thinker on a multitude of subjects, and you don’t even have to agree with him to agree with that.
 
But all that was before he challenged the most dull-witted of sports media staples, the GOAT.
 
In this case, he told Marc Spears of The Undefeated that “greatest of all time” debates are empty calories designed to eat air time, internet feeds and, for you codgers, newspaper space. And only that.
 
The most quoted quote follows.
 
“These GOAT discussions are fun distractions while sitting around waiting for the pizza to be served. But they’re on a par with ‘Which superpower would you want most: flight or invisibility?’ Whether I’m included or not in anyone’s list doesn’t matter. I played my hardest and I helped my teammates. That’s the most important thing I walked away with.
 
“The reason there is no such thing as the GOAT is because every player plays under unique circumstances. We played different positions, under different rules, with different teammates, with different coaches. Every player has to adapt to their circumstances and find a way to excel. This isn’t Highlander. There can be more than one.”
 
Of course he is correct, and of course everyone acknowledges it. But the reaction from those engaged in the GOATery was along the lines of watching their puppies tossed into a chipper shredder. “How dare he screw with our best segment-eater? Without this, how can we go on? Without this, our audience will rise up and slaughter us like the pigs we are.”
 
And he’s still right, and that beats every other argument.
 
There is only one GOAT, and it is the same in every sport – “Whoever I say it is.” That’s not an argument or a debate, it’s just one more way of saying, “I’m just sayin’,” the most evil non-racist, non-sexist, non-anti-progress, non-anti-acceptance sentence in the language.
 
You know how the debates go. You’ve lived through a lot of them. They always end with the defeated person in the argument responding with a weak-voiced “I’m just sayin’” to get in the last word, no matter how meaningless. You end up wanting to hit the offender with a beer stein just as a warning.
 
But worse, all this GOATitude is actually a crime, or should be legislated as one – time theft from people whose life spans are limited. Everyone knows there is no answer, because everyone knows nobody wants an answer. They just want to yell about something because yelling, typing and groin-kneeing are the last vestiges of human communication, and the GOAT argument meets all those needs while resolving nothing, thus making it the best kind of idiocy -- evergreen idiocy.
 
The response to that from the blathering class is, of course, “But that’s the fun of it. People like it. That’s why we do it.” Which is of course a lie, because what it really is is an admission that thinking of something else to talk about is too hard that it must be defended at all costs.
 
Also, I suspect most people actually are done with GOAT discussions, and would rather do nearly anything else, including waiting for Kareem’s metaphorical pizza to be delivered.
 
But at least those defenders of the GOATocracy should wear a sign nailgunned to their heads that reads, “I’m Here To Steal Fifteen Minutes From You, And You Should Pay Attention Because Some Mythical Nitwit We Have Never Met And Would Relocate To Avoid Thinks This Is Entertaining.” True, they’d need a fairly prodigious head to hold that much verbiage, but it’s a risk most right-thinking people would be willing to take.
 
Anyway, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is absolutely and indisputably correct on this, and anyone who would rather be loud than correct is why we all daily pray for the meteor that will make the planet start over with a more deserving dominant life form.
 
Say, maybe goats. They deserve a time as the GOAT as much as anyone.

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