Missing the cut: Sports stars who deserved to be Time Magazine Athlete of the Year

Since 2019 Time Magazine has recognized its Athlete of the Year, which is a spinoff of their traditional Person of the Year accolade. In order, the winners have been U.S. women’s soccer team, LeBron James, Simone Biles, Aaron Judge, Lionel Messi and Caitlin Clark. While these are all worthy choices, there are a few legendary athletes who may have deserved the honor more in a given year.

We’ll start off with the Golden State Warriors sharpshooter. Curry has literally changed basketball as we know it by changing the definition of what fans and coaches consider to be a “good shot.” He makes 25-foot three pointers look like layups. Curry should have received a long look as Time Magazine Athlete of the Year in 2022.

Curry averaged 25 points per game during the 2021-2022 NBA season, which is an average season for him. With that said, he led the Warriors to their fourth championship in less than a decade in June 2022, when many believed their championship window had closed. Golden State received a vintage Curry performance in Game 4, when he scored 43 points and grabbed 10 rebounds. All statistics were sourced from Basketball Reference.

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When asked about the 2022 title, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr told NBC Sports Bay Area, “It’s fair to say it was a surprise.” Granted, it would have been difficult for Curry or anyone to knock Aaron Judge off the throne in 2022 when he set an American League record for home runs, but the Warriors guard further stamped an already historic legacy in 2022.

Mahomes won his third Super Bowl in February 2024, at age 28. Everyone in the NFL and in the sports world knows how special of a player he is, and he still couldn’t be stopped. Mahomes threw the game-winning touchdown pass in overtime to give the Kansas City Chiefs another ring, but Time Magazine tabbed Caitlin Clark as their Athlete of the Year in 2024.

It’s no knock against Clark, who has catapulted women’s basketball into a completely different level with her remarkable play. With that said, Mahomes has been a driving force for several years, and punctuated his greatness once again on the NFL’s biggest stage. The prolific passer has three rings, to go along with three Super Bowl MVP’s.

Mahomes told Yahoo Sports after the win that “Once you win that championship and you have those parades and you get those rings, you’re not the champion anymore,” quoting Tom Brady. The Chiefs got off to a blistering start during the subsequent NFL season, further proving Mahomes’ greatness during the 2024 calendar year.

Coming into the 2024 MLB season, Ohtani had already cemented himself as an all-time great. He had won two MVP awards, showcasing his brilliance as a pitcher and as a hitter. Even though he was unable to take the mound in 2024, Ohtani took his game to another level at the plate and on the basepaths.

Ohtani brought home his third MVP award after hitting 54 home runs and stealing 59 bases in 2024, creating his own 50-50 club in each of those categories. This prompted The Washington Post to write, “Sorry, Babe. Sorry, Willie. Ohtani the Sho-stopper is baseball’s greatest.” The sentence depicts the rarefied air Ohtani found himself in after his historic performance.

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Like Mahomes, Ohtani had an excellent case to be named Time Magazine’s Athlete of the Year over Caitlin Clark in 2024. Clark had a brilliant rookie season, but it stands to reason that she will only get better in the years to come. Mahomes and Ohtani are at the pinnacles of their sport, which is seemingly what the award is supposed to reward.

Caitlin Clark may have received the most attention during the 2024 WNBA season, but she wasn’t recognized as the league’s best player. That honor went to Las Vegas Aces superstar A’ja Wilson, who brought home her third WNBA MVP award. As captured on Basketball Reference, she averaged 26.9 points, 11.9 rebounds and 2.6 blocks.

While Wilson would have been a fine choice for Time’s Athlete of the Year in 2024, she would have been a deserving selection in any of the last three or four years. She led the Aces to back to back WNBA titles in 2022 and 2023, and she was also the league’s Defensive Player of the Year in those campaigns as well.

Additionally, Wilson has represented the United States awfully impressively during two Olympics, in 2020 (held in 2021) and in 2024. According to FIBA’s website, she averaged 18.7 points and 10.2 rebounds per game during the 2024 Olympics. She also blocked four shots in three different games; against Japan, Australia in the semifinals, and against France in the gold medal victory.

Ledecky’s accomplishments in the pool has lifted her into conversations involving the greatest Olympians of all-time. While she has been a swimming superstar for years, she would really only enter the discussion for Time’s award during Olympic years, so 2021 and 2024 would have been her best chances to win.

There are so many talented athletes at the Olympics, but Ledecky’s chief competition for highest billing in the Olympic realm would come from Simone Biles. Biles was Time’s Athlete of the Year in 2021, even though she withdrew from the all-around competition that summer due to mental health concerns, as reported by the New York Times.

There’s no denying Biles’ greatness in her sport, but her decision not to participate could have and maybe should have opened the door for Ledecky in 2021. Time Magazine wrote a story about her in July 2021, acknowledging Ledecky’s remarkable legacy at such an early stage of her athletic career.

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