Interviewer: What is it like being the greatest drummer in the world?
Neal Peart: I don’t know. You’d have to ask Karen Carpenter.
Sometimes, when there is a “best” person at something, everybody knows it. Especially the others who are trying to be good at whatever “it” is. There are similar quotes to Peart’s about other superstars who were at the peak of their powers in a moment. When Jimi Hendrix was still alive, super-guitarist Eric Clapton spoke frequently about everyone else “competing for second place” behind him. Comedians often talk about who is the unquestioned best in moments, and the name regularly changes. There are hundreds of these examples across the world of entertainment and sport, from early baseball gods such as Babe Ruth or Hank Aaron to basketball monoliths like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Michael Jordan. When someone great is at their absolute peak, their apex, the whole world knows that everyone else is just competing for second place.
On occasion, one of these apex predators, these Omega-level mutants, actually plays their sportsball right here in Denver. Right now, we’re lucky enough to have (at least) four of them in town.
On Thursday, ESPN released a part of their league-wide poll of NFL execs, coaches and scouts, voting on the best player at their position. Thursday’s list was to review the league’s best cornerback, a vote in which nearly 90% of those expert respondents names the Bronco’s Pat Surtain II as the unquestioned best CB in the league. “Complete package”, “can handle it all”, and “always in control” were amongst the feedback for the NFL’s unquestioned apex cornerback. His dominance is such a given, even the article lede read: “The NFL’s Top 10 Cornerbacks. Who is ranked after Pat Surtain II?”
Players in the league describe PS2 as “one of one”, and “the ultimate elite shutdown CB”. Just like Champ Bailey before him, Denver and the Broncos are the proud home of the best CB the league has to offer, and at 25, Surtain will probably stay at that apex for quite a bit longer. Pat is so good, if you are on the opposition and need a catch, you’d damned well better throw the other way.
The Colorado Avalanche may have two of the NHL’s apex guys in Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar.
MacKinnon is the unquestioned engine that makes the Avs run, a recent league MVP, and consistently amongst the top three to five vote-getters for the award yearly. While there are other centers in the league who may pack a bit more scoring punch or a tad more speed, the Mack attack is easily the most well-rounded offensive game in hockey. Avs legend and former MVP Peter Forsberg says that MacKinnon at his apex is a better player than Foppa was at his. He’s not just the instigator of the Avalanche attack, but also the recent MVP of the Four Nations Cup and is invariably the top player amongst his A-List Canadian countrymen as well.
Makar just won his second Norris (defenseman of the year) trophy, and came into the league hot enough to also have been the Rookie of the Year. His offensive/defensive game is compared to hockey’s ultimate two-way defenseman, Bobby Orr, and often compared favorably. Coaches and execs around the league speak of Makar in terms that have him re-shaping the way the NHL view their defensemen. When Makar and MacKinnon won the Avs most recent Stanley Cup, it was Cale skating away with the Cup MVP, not Nate. His peers are astounded by his skillset and drive. He is amazingly maybe the more fearsome side of the two-headed monster opponents face every time the lace them up against Colorado.
Across the hall at Ball Arena, in the basketball locker room, the Nuggets have one of the most unlikely apex players who has ever been in any professional league. Center and three-time MVP Nikola Jokic was so underwhelmingly regarded when he entered the league that he was not only a second-round pick, but the third pick made by Denver that draft. The kid who was once an afterthought just hoping to maybe catch on in the world’s greatest basketball league has now become the player nearly every national pundit describes as “the best player in the world”. With a frame that is as hard to budge as a brick wall, laser finders in his passing hands, and a supercomputer between his ears, Joker is simply the most devastating offensive force in basketball. While he somehow astoundingly didn’t make the NBA’s “75 best ever” list on their 75th anniversary, Bleacher Report recently named Jokic the 17th best player to ever lace them up. And several folks outside the Denver faithful thought that was low. Leave it to the Nuggets to find their best-ever player wayyyy down on everyone’s list. How poetic. But unlikely or no, Nikola is now the force all of hoops has to reckon with.
It’s rare to have an apex guy in your town, let alone a quartet as lethal and impressive as the one above. It’s a moment to make sure you get out and see each of them in action to be able to someday say you saw them in one of the golden eras of Denver sports. Not many other places can claim the amount of peaks Colorado has. Even fewer can claim the amount of apex players in this moment.
