Note: Updated for Charles Woodson’s 2021 Hall of Fame selection.
On the defensive side in football, arguably the most important position after having a dominant pass rusher is a lockdown cornerback – by shutting down half the football field or the other team’s best wide receiver, an elite cornerback can effectively disrupt an opposing team’s entire offense. For well over a decade in the 2000s and early 2010s, Champ Bailey and Charles Woodson were two of the NFL’s elite cornerbacks (before Woodson made a seamless transition to ballhawking safety) on their way to the Hall of Fame in Canton. Between these two great defensive backs, with their essentially overlapping careers, an apt question to ask is:
Note: Updated for Chris Bosh and Chris Webber’s 2021 Hall of Fame selections.
As the NBA has moved more and more towards “positionless” basketball (e.g. LeBron James could essentially play any position, and play it at a high level), the power forward archetype has evolved from a big bruiser who can score and rebound in the paint to more of a versatile playmaker with shooting range. In recent history, two players who have exemplified this paradigm shift are Chris Bosh and Chris Webber. At their respective peaks, each player was among the dominant power forwards in the game, leading us to ask the question:
With big-money free agency dominating professional sports these days, it is rare for athletes to spend their entire careers with one team. As such, we often look back with nostalgia on ballplayers who did indeed only play for one team during their professional careers; during the 1980s and 1990s, two MLB superstars who epitomized this bygone era were Don Mattingly of the New York Yankees and Kirby Puckett of the Minnesota Twins, who for a decade, were each the heart and soul of their respective teams. As their careers essentially overlapped and both players retired in the same year with highly comparable numbers, it is only natural to ask:
In hockey, defensemen who not only prevent the other team from scoring goals, but can also quarterback their own team’s offense, both on the power play and at even strength, are invaluable to a team’s success. Throughout the long history of the NHL, a select few players have brilliantly displayed both of these skills – two of these legends are Brian Leetch and Al MacInnis, who are recognized as two of the most offensively-gifted defensemen of all time and are part of a rare group that has reached the 1,000 career point milestone from the blueline. In comparing the long and accomplished careers of these two players, the question is:
Two of the greatest dynasties in NBA history have been the 1960s Boston Celtics and the 1990s Chicago Bulls – led by legendary coaches in Red Auerbach and Phil Jackson and transcendent superstars in Bill Russell and Michael Jordan, respectively, equally important to each team’s success were their “secondary” or “complementary” stars. In particular, two names that stand out from these teams are small forwards John Havlicek and Scottie Pippen, who were each renowned for their versatility in terms of an ability to score, rebound, pass, and defend, and basically do whatever was necessary to win. Superstars in their own right, given their similar importance to legendary teams, an apt question to ask is:
