Of Mr. Irrelevant, Steph, and Gael Monfils; how do we define greatness?

So Mr. Irrelevant has become Mr. Permanent—at least for the next five years, the length of his contract extension with the San Francisco 49ers. And if Steph Curry is healthy enough to make putts in that tournament at Tahoe, then make baskets next fall when the season starts, the Warriors will be fine.

Yes, it is a summer of near sporting silence in the Bay Area other than the Giants, and, of course, the newly arrived Valkyries of the WNBA.

Everybody needs a few days off, including athletes and general managers, but for fans and journalists, it’s a period of near boredom. Plenty of sports on television from the wee small hours—the French Open, Roland-Garros, comes on at 2 am Pacific time zone—through midday, golf tournaments, to evening, the NBA playoffs. And don’t we miss the Warriors?

They tell us the future is a myth, but at this time of the year, and when the local teams have not produced as hoped, the future is all we have.

One would think that for Brock Purdy and his $265 million contract extension, the future is quite promising. You must have defenders and offensive linemen—the Niners went after the latter group in the draft—but it always comes down to the man who takes the football when it is snapped.

When the great John Elway retired, after leading the Denver Broncos to two Super Bowl victories, longtime NFL coach Norv Turner was asked how much Denver would miss Elway.

“I can’t say exactly,” said Turner, “but a great quarterback will win two games his team probably would have lost without him.”

Does winning reflect greatness, or does greatness reflect winning? The debate can be carried to every game we play competitively.  

At the French Open, the 39-year-old Gael Monfils won his first-round match and then on Thursday lost his second to a younger man, Jack Draper. Monfils has never won a Grand Slam tournament, but does that mean we shouldn’t call him great?

Whether some day Brock Purdy, who was unwanted until the last round of the ’22 draft, will be called great is to be determined by his play and the results of his team. Purdy will be under greater pressure than ever, from the outside. However, maybe to the contrary, he will feel less pressure because he knows where he will be for a long while.

“Pressure is a privilege,” said the legend Billie Jean King, a quote posted at the home of the U.S. Open, Arthur Ashe Stadium. “It’s only through embracing it that we achieve our most significant breakthroughs.”

The privilege has belonged to Steph Curry, Gael Monfils, and dozens of others. Now it belongs to Brock Purdy. Summer can’t end fast enough.