How much does aesthetics play into the GOAT debates?

Example - plenty of people will say Barry Sanders is the greatest RB of all time. And you could certainly make statistical arguments to place him squarely in the top 5 at worst (imo)

But I think if we're being honest a lot of it has to do with how entertaining or aesthetic his highlight reel is.

Some similar observations - Hakeem was very fun to watch and statistically you could make arguments that he is the greatest center to ever play (and again he's probably easily top 5 especially when you look at career blocks and how center focused a lot of the elite teams were during his run. He schooled guys like Shaq, Ewing, Robinson in important post season games to be certain)

I'm sure there are countless other examples you could come up with where guys are very easily top 5 or top 10 that might get elevated because they were so fun to watch (MJ certainly benefits from this and I don't think a person on the planet would argue that he is outside the top 3 at worst and most believe he is the greatest)

Curry is certainly elevating his status as well for this reason. Definitely the best 3 point shooting guy that has handles that we've ever seen. You could make an argument that some might be better 3 point shooters but they don't typically score in other ways and don't have the ball skills he has.

Anyway I think most would agree here. Who are some other greats in your opinion that benefit from being so fun to watch?

Oddly what prompted this thread was I was watching a highlight video of sweetness and his running style was very fun to watch.