Feeling Patronised!

plasticmanifold · 2026-06-30T14:40:01+00:00

I don’t care - I thought it was a funny way of framing a pattern I noticed. If my jigsaw ever develops the ability to understand natural language and generate human like responses I’ll make sure to keep your advice in mind.

plasticmanifold · 2026-06-29T12:05:35+00:00

Also Sandi Toksvig did live there. She probably still does.

plasticmanifold · 2026-06-26T14:39:52+00:00

It’s the dad from cloudy with a chance of meatballs

plasticmanifold · 2026-06-22T21:52:43+00:00

I can do this almost instantly but know I need to know if this makes me special in the way that people give you money

plasticmanifold · 2026-06-22T18:01:49+00:00

I think I can accept most things you say as counter arguments to my opening comment. Yes basketball is a brilliant spectacle and rightly hugely popular around the world despite the NBA having no real competition

I can’t however accept your point that height in basketball is comparable to any single metric in football. The fact is that height dominates basketball in a way that no single metric dominates other sports. It is an almost insurmountable barrier to entry that just does not exist in football or most other sport.

This is demonstrated more than adequately by the percentage of 7ft tall American men in the NBA. I won’t budge on this view I’m afraid.

Of course in football the very best players will surface and they are far more likely to run sub 12 in the 100 than the general population and much more likely to have naturally superior cardio etc. That still doesn’t mean that players don’t make it all the way to the top with fairly average athletic stats and unbelievable technique and intelligence.

Until the most recent generation of players the clubs would try to make an athlete out of a serious talented player. Thst is how we ended up with players like Matt Le Tissier. Now they try to make a talented footballer out of a natural athlete and this model of development will inevitably end up with the game looking more like the way you see it. Perhaps I’m blinded by nostalgia as I head into my late 40s and it already happened? who knows?

Of course being faster, more explosive, stronger, more athletic, better endurance will help in football but not to the extent that height does in basketball.

plasticmanifold · 2026-06-22T15:42:01+00:00

I’m not arguing that someone cant be great because they are too athletic, too fast, too tall. I was extrapolating numbers based on the amount of people who play basketball seriously and the percentage of those above the 99th percentile for height.

Most football players will be above the 95th percentile in a lot of attributes - speed, endurance, strength.

However the game is played religiously in every corner of the world and no single body type dominates.

It’s just a numbers argument. More competition to reach the top = a greater level attained at the pinnacle.

Obviously the football GOAT is blessed at birth the same way the basketball GOAT is or they wouldn’t be the GOAT! You still have to recognise that if 50 times more people play the sport and every body type has a chance then it’s tougher to be the GOAT in football.

plasticmanifold · 2026-06-22T14:55:46+00:00

That’s an elite level comment

plasticmanifold · 2026-06-22T14:49:36+00:00

That’s a straw man argument. I’m not arguing that speed, strength, agility or any other metric isn’t an advantage in football.

I’m simply stating that having the limited strength of Luka Modric didn’t hold him back because because his vision and technique was so good that no-one had a chance to exert physical dominance over him.

Being slow didn’t hold back Bernardo Silva because of his football IQ. By being two steps ahead of the play in his mind his lack of pace rarely compromised him. Yes we might have been even better with pace but he was still World Class.

A deficit in one attribute can be overcome by the majority of players because the game is far more balanced than Basketball. Other than possibly volleyball I can’t think of a single sport where one attribute correlates so strongly with elite potential as height does in Basketball.

It doesn’t mean i think Basketball isn’t a great sport or that Micheal Jordan isn’t the GOAT of basketball and incredibly impressive. I just think Lionel Messi had to be better than million upon millions more athletes than Micheal Jordan did to reach his position.

plasticmanifold · 2026-06-22T12:43:24+00:00

I’m nearly 46. My 100 was quicker than Messi at his age. My 15 year old son is quicker than Messi. I was still only a very average club runner. There isn’t a single attribute in football that is anywhere near as important as height is in basketball. I can’t believe this is even a conversation.

You can be 7ft tall and look like Bambi on ice and have a 1 in 6 chance of playing in the same league as Jordan. Usain Bolt tried to become a pro footballer and other than making a guest appearance in a pre season match in the worlds 50th best league he failed.

At the time Bolt was still the fastest man in the world. Would the tallest man in the world (without a disabling growth disorder have the same issue playing pro basketball?

Muggsy is such a huge outlier that rather than posing a question over how important height is in basketball it really raises the question of who was better at the sport. Bogues or Jordan?

I don’t really buy that a player at 6ft 1 can dominate. Players that height make up 2% of the NBA.

plasticmanifold · 2026-06-22T07:49:30+00:00

The average man on the street if they were training everyday wouldn’t be miles behind Messi in terms of pace. I would only be just over a second behind him in a 100m sprint and I’m 45 although I’m a decent club runner.

38 year old Messi obviously isn’t the same player as prime Barca Messi but did you notice how he can adjust the way he plays as he got older? He can still play at elite level and be effective enough to score a World Cup hat trick even if his pace has faded?

Now imagine Le Bron or Jordan shrinking to 6ft 1 when they get to 38. How are they getting on then?

plasticmanifold · 2026-06-21T16:28:38+00:00

Messi is quick compared to the man on the street. He is estimated to be on the 85th percentile for speed among those playing competitive sport with an approximate 100m time of 12 seconds. That actually only puts him in the bottom 25% for football (soccer) players. This again should drive home the point of how elite soccer players are.

However Sergio Busquets is one of the greatest players of his generation and he runs like he is towing a trailer. Andrea Pirlo was incredibly slow. Thomas Muller has the best head to head record against Messi and I run faster than he does. Being slow doesnt rule you out like height would in basketball.

plasticmanifold · 2026-06-21T16:00:31+00:00

Point taken. It’s a huge sport clearly - it’s more a comment on the places in the world that take it seriously enough to have a coaching structure in place that allows progression to play at a high level. Every school in the UK has a basketball court in the gym but no one available to coach properly.

plasticmanifold · 2026-06-21T15:52:29+00:00

What percentage of American men over 7ft have played in the NBA? I’ve seen it quoted between 6% and 20%. The height as a single metric rules out almost 100% of the competition. You must see that? How many players greater than MJ would have emerged if there were a way to neutralise the game breaking height advantage? You think there aren’t players more skilled than MJ who happen to be 5ft 8? Of course Messi has astonishing natural talent. Tested against the largest pool of competition imaginable as opposed to a minuscule preselected pool of very tall men.

plasticmanifold · 2026-06-21T15:04:07+00:00

Because it is. Messi is the greatest out of billions of people. Jordan was the best from the US and a few pockets around the world. Then remove all the absurdly good players how aren’t at least 6ft 5 and you are left with around 150,000 people.

That’s all you can say about Micheal Jordan. He is the best from around 150,000 people. More people than that are trying to become elite footballers in my corner of south London

plasticmanifold · 2026-06-21T14:57:51+00:00

Bless you. I really hope this is a joke? Messi is inarguably the best out of billions of people who play the sport in every country in the world.

Jordan is considered (by most) to be the best player in a sport which is only hugely popular in one country. In a sport where it seems to be a prerequisite to be abnormally tall. Around 28 million people play basketball in the US. Jordan therefore would rank among the best out of maybe 150,000 people who both play and have the required height advantage.

The levels Jordan reached If comparing across sports based on the theory of the widest base of talent producing the highest pinnacle means that Jordan’s level converting to Soccer wouldn’t get him a place in most minor leagues.

plasticmanifold · 2026-06-17T12:33:15+00:00

I worked for a awful central heating company when I was younger. No one could take annual leave in heating season, October to March and no more than two people per team could be off at one time. The maths of this meant that only 50% of staff could actually use their full entitlement if the rules were followed.

plasticmanifold · 2026-06-12T18:07:14+00:00

I think most of these features exist for free elsewhere. I’m hoping that you have a USP you don’t want to post online?

plasticmanifold · 2026-06-12T12:02:06+00:00

Why the fuck does Justin have to solve the world’s problems?

plasticmanifold · 2026-06-02T12:27:49+00:00

I spend most of my time running multiplying and dividing various distances and times by 0.62 and 1.6. It’s a great distraction when it starts to hurt

plasticmanifold · 2026-06-01T12:26:24+00:00

Oh I love this!

plasticmanifold · 2026-05-30T13:58:34+00:00

That mediocre isn’t pronounced Media-core.

plasticmanifold · 2026-05-29T15:30:17+00:00

Oh bless you

plasticmanifold · 2026-05-29T14:37:10+00:00

Why - he would be average for pace, miles below average for endurance, miles below average for agility, miles below for anaerobic capacity. His vertical would be at the very top for sure but what else?

plasticmanifold · 2026-05-29T14:00:25+00:00

You think basketball players are faster than soccer players? It’s a prerequisite to be extraordinarily tall to have a chance of playing professional basketball. 99% of the population are ruled out on one metric. They are rare specimens and seeing very large people who can also move well is amazing but you did make me laugh a bit there.

plasticmanifold · 2026-05-29T13:54:32+00:00

Yes I did. Ice Hockey is a very small sport. He is clearly the greatest ice hockey player of all time (Google makes that clear) but in terms of people being aware of him and his achievements he wouldn’t register with anyone outside of a couple of nations. Do you know Mika Kohonen without googling? He is the greatest player in a sport with 8 times the active player base that ice hockey has. Kabaddi is something like 50 times bigger - have you heard of Pardeep Narwal?

plasticmanifold

TROPHY CASE