Is the best and greatest the same thing?

[Wurider05]

Got a question. I like most consider Jordan to be the greatest basket ball player of all time but I consider Magic Johnson to be the best "basketball player" ever. Can an argument be made that they aren't the same thing or are they. From a skills perspective there wasn't much Johnson couldn't do. The man was able to play all five positions. He could score,rebound, pass, play defense, shoot. For his career he average 20 pg, 7rpg, and 11 assists for his career!! Oh yeah he was also 6'9!!!

[mattlanta]

Magic Johnson is probably the most valuable player to any team IMO. But the best / greatest is Michael Jordan. He transcended the sport... one might even stretch it out to say that MJ basically is the sport.

[DrReality]

They both were truly great in their own way and time. Both in talent and personality.

[HawkItus]

I think what you might be referring to is Talent. Magic is probably top 5, if not the most talented player in the game. MJ was just great.

[crimedog]

I tend to think they are different but I also think that Mike was both the best and greatest, and I dislike Mike and LOVE Magic.

I think of great as a career and achievement measure. I think of best (or any less superlative variant - good, better) as more of an ability measure.

They are pretty highly correlated -- Mike was the best ever, scoring, defending, passing, rebounding... he was tops in every catergory. He also was the greatest ever because of the ridiculous accomplishments he perpetrated in terms of rings, mvps, finals mvps, scoring titles, dpoy, all-whatever teams, all-star teams, and general transcendence.

Magic was similar but a very slight notch below as both best and greatest. Almost as many awards and titles, but not quite there. Could do a lot of things, more than Mike in a couple cases, but his overall impact was just below when you accounted for everything.

Russel is a guy who was greater than he was good and Doc J was a guy who was probably better than he was great.

[FrankWhite]

Yeah, I was going to say that while Jordan is almost definitely the greatest, you can certainly make a case that Russell was the "best".