re: Biggest What If Athlete in Sports History?

What's tragic is that modern medicine and orthopedics would have saved their careers. David Clyde and The Bird are the biggest what ifs in mlb pitching history to a certain degree.

Ben Simmons. If he knew how to shoot he would dominate the NBA.

Lebron if he chose football over basketball. He’s be the GOAT TE most likely

David Clyde may have had a much longer career had the Rangers brought him along properly.

Bias was ACC Player Of The Year at a time when the ACC was winning titles and producing players like Michael Jordan and James Worthy.

He may have turned into nothing at the next level but he was seen as a Jordan-level prospect.

Josh Booty if he would have come to LSU the first time around and played football and baseball here.

Tim Richmond, Alan Kulwiki, and Davey Allison come to mind for me.

I'm going to separate mine by sports.

Baseball
Steve Busby-pitched two no-hitters had one twenty win season and then blew out his arm all in a span of about four years with the Royals in the 1970s.

Randy Jones-Cy Young Winner with the Padres, had a chance to win 30 games in 1975 and then blew out his arm

Lyman Bostock-was looked at as being possibly the next Rod Carew before being murdered in the early 1980s

Fred Lynn-won Rookie of the Year and MVP with the Red Sox in 1975 before becoming the baseball version of Bert Jones.

Football

Joe Delaney
RGIII
Sean Taylor
Jerome Brown

Hockey

Anyone who played on the Soviet Red Army teams before the late 1980s
Pelle Lindburgh
Cam Neely
Vladimir Konstanenov

I think everyone has already hit on the basketball ones. Now for the really long list--auto racing

Greg Moore
Jim Clark
Gilles Villeneuve
Ayrton Senna
Peter Revson
Mark Donahue
Francois Cevert
Ronnie Peterson
Gunnar Nielson
Carlos Pace
Robert Kubizca
Michele Alboretto
Ernie Irvan
Blaine Johnson
Eric Medlen
Lee Sheppard

quote:

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Calvin Johnson

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How is he in any way a what if from an individual performance standard?

Sean Taylor