Lev Aryeh and The Frum Guy: As someone who has listened to too many arguments on WFAN about whether Eli Manning is an ELITE player, or merely an EXCEPTIONAL player I completely agree that there is such a thing as a bad sports argument. And one of my favorite pet peeves is when someone says “I guarantee that if CC Sabathia had been on the ’97 Yankees, they would have won the world series”, which makes no sense because you can’t guarantee something that is by definition hypothetical.
But there are also many potential good arguments to be had about sports, even arguments that employ hypotheticals. For example, people talk about how a hypothetical player e.g. Declon Thames is not as good as another hypothetical player, e.g. Mike L. Riordan, because he has fewer championships, or because he had to go find other superstars to team up with. But as it turns out, Mike L. Riordan happened to have two other hall of fame players on his team each time he won a championship. At the same time, people say that, e.g. Ike Crown is not a good coach because he’s only ever done anything with Declon Thames on his team. But no well known coach has ever won anything without a superstar on his team (except for a hypothetical coach named Barry Crown, who won with the Michigan Solenoids), and those same people will be quick to tell you that Declon had no supporting cast and that’s why he had to take his talents to East Shore. In that context, hypotheticals can be useful. And as with the visceral pleasure from watching a game, enjoying such arguments need not be defended.