Is there anything more played out in pro sports than the "guarantee".  Guarantees have gone from the brazen upstart "Broadway" Joe to the average Joe popping off at any opportunity.  It all comes down to the fact that we live in a different era.  The Super Bowl III story of Namath and the guarantee are legendary.  After that, Mark Messier comes to mind with his hat trick following a guarantee over the Devils.  At this point, the rest is garbage.  America and pro athletes were completely different then.  In 1969, people did what their bosses, teachers, police, and other authority figures did because they were the authority.  Americans went to work, did the job, and went home.  That was it.  Now, we live in a much more arrogant age.  Namath's guarantee was legendary because people didn't do that back then.  This was the pre-McEnroe era of sports.  Athletes were invisible.  Athletes weren't more respectful of the opponent.  They were just more publicly respectful.  Now, confidence bordering on arrogance is viewed as being essential for an athlete to reach the upper-echelon of professional sports.  Every athlete believes his/her team is going to win every game.  If they don't then you don't want them on your team.  Let's also not forget how much of an underdog the Jets were.  The Namath guarantee most closely compares to the Monty Brewster claim that he could get anybody out for three innings in the movie "Brewster's Millions".  He then paid the Yankees to scrimmage he and his Hackensack Bulls to a three inning exhibition in which Monty was proven wrong.  It was not a guarantee from the third option on the NBA's best team speaking about a second round playoff game in which the opponent's number two scorer is out on bereavement leave.  The bottom line is that there is, has been, and always will be only one "guarantee" in sports history.  With that in mind, shut up Rasheed!