As the 21st Century is in its quarter century mark, we often may look back with fondness (or sadness as time comes for us all) with many great sports moments such as the Red Sox dramatic comeback of 2004 and 18 and one Giant loss, through Alex Ovechkin winning a Stanley Cup and Caitlin Clark mania. While most publications focus on great sports moments or teams, the focus will be on the athlete who defined each year, whether it’s through MVPs, championships, or Olympic victories. If an athlete is going through a scandal that becomes a huge news story, that also counts as a qualifier.
There will also be some ties, because sometimes, two athletes can dominate a year through different means.
This will be a three-part series, with each part focusing on eight athletes and eight years. Let’s get started!
For a generation of sports fans, Tiger Woods is the first and possibly only golfer they may know. Woods became ubiquitous after his win in Augusta at the 1997 Masters, but it wasn’t until 2000 that his stretch of pure domination began.
Starting with the 2000 U.S. Open and culminating at the 2001 Masters, Woods won four straight PGA Majors. He was the first player to do so, and the feat would become known as “The Tiger Slam.”
Honorable mentions: Shaquille O’Neal, Basketball, and Ray Lewis, Football
Perhaps no individual is more responsible for changing how basketball and athletes in the 2000s looked than Allen Iverson.
In 2001, Iverson won the MVP, solidifying his standing as one of the greatest guards of his generation, and led the Philadelphia 76ers to the NBA Finals. Yes, the Sixers lost the series in five games to the dynastic Los Angeles Lakers in the middle of their three-peat, but what is truly remarkable is that he carried the Sixers to the Finals and won Game One of the series by himself.
The cherry on top? The most iconic moment of Iverson’s career and one of the most iconic moments in basketball history that’s on par with Michael Jordan’s final shot in the 1998 NBA Finals and Christian Laettner’s buzzer-beater against Kentucky in the Elite Eight.
Honorable mention: Ichiro Suzuki, Baseball, and Tom Brady, Football
Barry Bonds is considered the greatest baseball player to have ever lived. Steroids (we’ll get to that) or no steroids, if your team was facing Barry Bonds and they decided to have the pitcher pitch to him, you prayed against the inevitable home run.
In ‘02, Bonds led the San Francisco Giants to their first World Series in 13 years and his only World Series appearance. The Giants lost in a dramatic seven-game series, highlighted by the collapse of the San Francisco bullpen in Game Six. Bonds would have won the MVP of that World Series to go with the 5th National League MVP he won that year.
As was mentioned, a scandal may also be factored into the decision. In 2002, Sports Illustrated did a feature on former MLB player Ken Caminiti. Caminiti, a former MVP, admitted to using anabolic steroids and said most ballplayers were using steroids and HGH to gain a competitive advantage. With Caminiti retired, Bonds became the glaring face of steroid use in MLB after breaking the single-season home run record the previous year, just three years after Mark McGwire did. Even though he never failed a drug test, the physical signs were there.
Honorable mentions: Jason Kidd, Basketball, and Serena Williams, Tennis
The first tie! It was hard to pick against the GOAT, Brady, who was in the middle of his first dynasty with the New England Patriots. When considering the full context of 2003, however, Martin Brodeur won his third Stanley Cup, solidifying his place in a triumvirate with Patrick Roy and Dominik Hašek as the three best goalies of their generation. Pick your poison.
The Pats started off the 2003 season 2-2 and seemingly couldn’t shake the funk of their 2002 season, where they went 9-7 and missed the playoffs. What followed was a 21-game winning streak that included a Super Bowl XXXVIII victory. Yes, the main engine behind the first Patriots dynasty was their defense under Head Coach Bill Belichick, but the QB is always the face of the franchise, and the games were always over when the ball was in Brady’s hands for the final possession.
Brodeur, with the New Jersey Devils captain Scott Stevens, were the faces of the Devils teams that won three Stanley Cups between 1995 and 2003. Stevens was the hardest-hitting defenseman in the NHL at the time, and the Devils were not known for a high-powered offense like the Colorado Avalanche or Detroit Red Wings of their era, but for their trap defense. You’ll be amazed if you check the box scores during that era of Devils’ hockey and look at how many shutouts or one-goal games Brodeur’s goaltending was behind. In 2003, he broke the record for most shutouts in the playoffs with seven. Growing up in New Jersey, Brodeur was just about everyone’s favorite hockey player.
Honorable mentions: Tim Duncan, Basketball, and Carmelo Anthony, Basketball
The 2004 Red Sox are arguably the most important baseball team of the 21st Century. They broke the 86-year Curse of the Bambino by winning the 2004 World Series. They do not, however, get there without David Ortiz.
Ortiz, for two nights in October 2004, lifted the Sox from the grave where the Yankees had them buried at 3-0 in the American League Championship Series. In the 12th inning of Game Four, he hit a walk-off home run that got over the small right field wall at Fenway Park, promptly ending a five-hour marathon.
The next night, in Game Five, Ortiz upped the ante with a solo shot in the eighth inning to tie the game and hit a base hit to center field in the 14th inning to bring Johnny Damon home. Ortiz brought the Sox from the depths of imminent doom, got the Sox within a game of tying the series, and ultimately won in seven games in the Bronx at Yankee Stadium.
Ortiz was rewarded for his efforts by winning the 2004 ALCS MVP, becoming THE face of one of MLB’s premier franchises, a first-ballot Hall of Famer, and maybe the greatest player in Boston Red Sox history. If Theo Epstein knew what lay ahead, he probably would have traded for Ortiz in 2002 before signing him after Ortiz was cut by the Minnesota Twins.
Honorable Mentions: Roger Federer, Tennis, and Michael Phelps, Swimming
While the greatest game of Tim Duncan’s career came in Game Six of the 2003 NBA Finals, where he posted a near quadruple-double, the 2005 Finals is where Duncan won his third ring and his third Finals MVP. In the Finals, Duncan averaged 21 points, 14 rebounds, and 2 assists in the underrated seven-game series. Duncan was also a First Team All-NBA and NBA All-Defensive First Team member.
While the Finals may have run seven games, Duncan and the Spurs made light work of the competition in the West, capped off by beating league MVP Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns in five games. What ultimately makes Duncan the best athlete of 2005 is that, with his third Finals MVP and championship, he put himself with Larry Bird as the two best forwards in NBA history.
Honorable Mentions: Roger Federer, Tennis, and Tiger Woods, Golf
Around 2017 and 2018, when James Harden was at the peak of his powers, some pundits and some basketball fans were coming out of the woodwork and proclaiming that James Harden was the third-best shooting guard of all time after the 1-2 combination of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. Not only were they flat out wrong, but the assertion that he was better than Dwyane Wade is so beyond disrespectful that it could make basketball fans who actually watch the game, and not just highlights, apoplectic.
Dwyane Wade’s 2006 NBA Finals performance is one for the ages and, perhaps, the best Finals performance that decade made by someone not named Shaquille O’Neal. After falling behind 2-0 to the Dallas Mavericks, the Miami Heat rattled off four wins in a row, with three of those games decided by three points or less. It’s because of Wade’s efforts in those four games, where he averaged just over 39 points, that Miami was able to hoist the franchise’s first championship.
James Harden will only ever dream about having a performance in the Finals like D-Wade. Wade actually did it.
Honorable Mention: Zinedine Zidane, Soccer, and Peyton Manning, Football
It’s surely American bias in selecting David Ortiz, who played in the United States, because 2004 was the year Roger Federer became known to even the casual sports fan. Tennis was emerging from the reign of Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi when Federer emerged as his generation’s premier tennis player.
2006 may be regarded as Federer’s best season, as he steamrolled competition, but 2007 is where he held onto the throne despite Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic coming for the crown.
In 2007, Federer won three of the four Tennis Grand Slams, and finished second in the one he didn’t, the Australian Open. Federer was also in the middle of a 283-week reign as the best men’s tennis player in the world, a record that still stands today.
Don’t let this award fool you, though, because 2007 was a toss-up between teammates Tom Brady and Randy Moss of the New England Patriots. The Pats, in 2007, went undefeated in the regular season, and Brady and Moss led the way on an offense that still may be the greatest anyone has ever seen. However, the loss in Super Bowl XLII knocks them to an honorable mention.
Honorable Mention: Tom Brady and Randy Moss, Football, and LeBron James, Basketball
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