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What team do you feel has had the most collection of talent in the history of sports?


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18 minutes ago, BillsPride12 said:

I'm not a huge baseball guy but wasn't the 86 Mets considered loaded with high end talent? 

High would be one way to put it...

 

They had two young potential HOF players in Gooden and Strawberry that drank and snorted their greatness away.

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38 minutes ago, NC-billsfan! said:

I think we need to differentiate between greatest assembly of talent vs the greatest team. I think to be the greatest, the team needed to accomplish something. I think this eliminates the SB Bills. 

The title clearly says “collection of talent” not “team”. 

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1980 - 1983 New York Islanders. 19 straight playoff series wins which is still an NHL record today. Five straight trips to the Stanley Cup Finals with four straight Stanley Cup championships.

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Posted (edited)

UGA’s last two National Championship teams.  15 players drafted off the first one (a NCAA record). They then would win it again and then lose another 10 to the draft.  This past draft another 8 off a 13-1 team would go plus transfers Burton and Mitchell who played for Georgia on the 2021 and or 2022 Championships teams.  


Of those 35 players, 9 were 1st rd picks and 7 were 2nd rd picks.  

 

Edited by GASabresIUFan
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Posted (edited)
7 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Clayton isn't really a rugby player though. It would be like my signing for the Bills and being described as a soccer player. He played in the 8th tier of English Rugby. I played in the 7th tier of English soccer. And trust me soccer is a LOT deeper in terms of the talent pool. Clayton's tried everything. He was a pretty talented sprinter as a kid, he had trials with a couple of pro soccer clubs on the back of that speed, then he has tried boxing and rugby but as of yet what he has been is a freakishly large and athletic human who hasn't quite found a sport to harness those talents. 

 

Good call on the All Blacks though. Particularly the team between their two World Cup wins in 2011 and 2015. That 4 year period they played 61 test matches, won 56, drew 2 (both with Australia) and lost 3 (one each to England, Australia and South Africa). Richie McCaw and Dan Carter are the two best players I have ever seen play the game and then they had Sam Whitelock, Aaron Smith, Owen Franks, Ma'a Nonu who are all in contention for top 5 all time at their positions. 


Thanks for the further insight on Clayton, I had not really done any looking into him and only thing I knew was the Rugby connection and his athletic talents from just some of the buzz when we picked him.  So didn’t realize it was the 8th tier.  
 

Hopefully football turns out to be his calling.  The little footage we got to see of his workout didn’t look like a guy who never played, so hopefully he can find his groove here.  
 

And yeah, that stretch of All Black teams  was ridiculous and just absolutely loaded.  I mean McCaw and Carter have cases to be the best players of all time in Rugby, and to have them on the same team was wild.  I’ve met and hung out with Carter at the USA 7’s tournament in Vegas, he’s a really cool dude and incredibly nice guy.  
 

I don’t know if you are familiar with Todd Clever, but he is probably the best American Rugby player of all time…he’s a good friend of mine and one of the nicest guys you will ever meet.  He said that era of the All Blacks was the most dominant team in sports history.

Edited by Alphadawg7
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17 hours ago, US Egg said:

UCLA 1964-1975? Nine championships in 11 years.


That’s more of a dynasty category, but you need talent to do it.

 

I agree.  If you are going to include college, you can't overlook this team.  Arguably the most dominant team in any sport over the span of a decade.

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Posted (edited)

For me it was the Cincinnati Reds teams of my youth, especially the '75 team.  Four of the position players that year would win have a MVP at some point and in '75 three (Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench and Pete Rose) of the top five MVP vote-getters were Reds with Joe Morgan winning it. They had two other '75 all-stars (9x all-star Dave Concepcion and 7x all-star Tony Perez)  and rounding out the every day starters were eventual league MVP George Foster, 3x all-star Ken Griffey and 4x Gold Glover Ceasar Geronimo. They won 108 games in the regular season and the world series in seven.

 

Or the '76 team where the same starting lineup will have 7 starters on the all-star team, again 3 of the top 5 MVP, again Morgan wins MVP. They go on to win it all again with sweeps in both series in the then shorter playoff format.

Edited by Coastie
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2 minutes ago, Coastie said:

For me it was the Cincinnati Reds teams of my youth, especially the '75 team.  Four of the position players that year would win have a MVP at some point and in '75 three (Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench and Pete Rose) of the top five MVP vote-getters were Reds with Joe Morgan winning it. They had two other '75 all-stars (9x all-star Dave Concepcion and 7x all-star Tony Perez)  and rounding out the every day starters were eventual league MVP George Foster, 3x all-star Ken Griffey and 4x Gold Glover Ceasar Geronimo. They won 108 games in the regular season and the world series in seven.

 

Thanks!

 

That Big Red Machine was one helluva team.

 

I had thought of (and provided) some examples from the NBA, NHL, and NFL, but hadn't come up with anything for MLB.  I grew up in that same time period and the Yankees had some pretty loaded teams too, such as the '78 team:  Thurman Munson, Chris Chambliss, Willie Randolph, Bucky Dent, Graig Nettles, Lou Pinella, Mickey Rivers, Reggie Jackson, Sparky Lyle, Ron Guidrey, Goose Gossage, plus a number of good role players.   They won 100 games and beat the Dodgers in the World Series.

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