What was the greatest sports team of the decade?

Not only has Christmas crept up on us stealthily this year, but so too has the impending conclusion of the 2010s, prompting the typical wonderings about where all that time went … and also the head-scratching question of how the sports world managed to pack so much into the last 10 years.

Such occasions are always an appropriate time for reflection and comparison, and because sports fans love to live in the hypothetical, we will be rolling out some “best of the decade” festive goodness over the next week or two.

Before the mathematically-minded of you start pointing out that the end of the decade won’t actually arrive until the end of 2020, rest assured, we know all about the intellectual kerfuffle over the various dates. But do you really want to wait another year to figure out who in sports has dominated the last 10 years of our lives?

Didn’t think so. Currently, the vote for Team of the Decade is underway on FOX Sports’ social media platforms, with seedings, a bracket and a bunch of worthy franchises all jostling for another notch on their immortal belts.

It is fun and entertaining, and while we know that topping our poll won’t rival the hoisting of the Lombardi Trophy or the World Cup for the athletes involved, it does all give a fascinating insight into how we view greatness, and how we remember epic achievements over time.

The first round saw some upsets of significance, with 8th-seeded Alabama, led by Heisman-winning RB Derrick Henry, getting past the 2016-17 New England Patriots, captained by that year’s NFL MVP in Tom Brady. Those Pats might have come back from being down 28-3 in the Super Bowl, but they couldn’t compete with a voting swell for the Crimson Tide.

LeBron James and Kyrie Irving’s 2015-16 Cavaliers were a seven seed and toppled the swashbuckling 2015-16 UConn women. As for the Curry-Thompson-Green-Iguodala Golden State Warriors team that lost to the Cavs that same year after going 73-9? They fell to the three-headed monster that was Lionel Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez’s 2014-15 Barcelona squad.

Who was the best Team of the Decade? ?

After a couple of BIG upsets in Round 1, it’s on to the SWEET 16 in your bracket. ?

VOTE NOW! ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/L7nC05mVuZ

— FOX Sports (@FOXSports) December 19, 2019

It makes you think about what we’re really looking for in an ultimate team for the ages. Do teams that capture their finest hour with a moment of breathtaking drama have an edge, having not just earned the admiration of the sporting public but also etching an emotional connection?

Does a team that veered to the brink of losing, but survived on the back of its inner steel and intense drive position itself as more worthy than one that cruised over the line, or does the fact that an opponent got so close diminish it?

Those Cavaliers had “The Block” and “The Shot,” plus the hook of LeBron James bringing a feel-good title back to his hometown. Clemson in 2018 steamrolled the field, smashing Notre Dame and Alabama to win a national championship, minus the drama. Take your pick. Actually, if they both win their next round of the vote, you really can, as they’ll meet in a quarterfinal.

FOX Bet provided a hypothetical futures market before the “event” took place, and had those 73-win Warriors atop the odds list at +750, narrowly ahead of the 2013-14 San Antonio Spurs and this year’s triumphant United States women’s soccer team.

However, according to FOX NBA analyst Chris Broussard, it is the 2016-17 Warriors, featuring a newly-arrived Kevin Durant, that should be regarded as the finest team we’ve seen of late.

“The 2016-17 Warriors are the team of the decade,” Broussard told me via text message. “Best shooting team ever. They went 16-1 in the playoffs. Unstoppable backcourt scorer in Steph Curry. Unstoppable frontcourt scorer in KD. Best backcourt of all time.”

This year’s U.S. women’s soccer stars are a powerful top seed that will take some stopping, while WWE fans may mobilize behind the star-studded stable of The Shield (2014), featuring Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose, all former world champions in their own right. In Boston, there could be a serious conflict of interest in the second round, as the 2018 Red Sox, who won 108 games and didn’t lose two games in a single playoff series, take on the 2014-15 Patriots — you know, the team that sealed its Super Bowl win on Malcolm Butler’s epic interception.

The idea for this cyber-competition came off the back of FOX’s hugely popular “Best NFL Fan Base” bracket from a year ago, which saw 2.6 million votes, engagements from 100 NFL players, 26 teams, two head coaches, and crowned the Cleveland Browns as having the best support.

The Golden State Warriors have been named ‘Franchise of the Decade’ across all professional sports teams by @sbjsbd

» https://t.co/5SNVWnyRkA pic.twitter.com/7pfcgbg56V

— Golden State Warriors (@warriors) December 16, 2019

So far this year, FOX Sports director of social and short form Nick Rago tells me, more than 500,000 votes have been cast for the top team of the 2010s.

Guess what: America likes remembering its great teams. If this bracket is anything to go by, and for all everyone else’s attempts to get to the summit of sports, we are seeing more dominance than ever.

Last year on The Herd, Colin Cowherd tried to explain why.

“Sports parity is a myth,” Cowherd said. “Parity in life is a myth. (There has) always been a rich and there has always been a poor. And the rich are gaining. There is a reason for it: dominance is unavoidable because so few people are great at anything.”

The best thing about dominance is that you don’t usually see it coming, especially in regard to teams and franchises. Back at the start of the 2010s, the Patriots were already being written off as past their prime. Alabama? Three defeats in 2010. As for the U.S. women, they were supposedly about to find the rest of the world catching up to them.

Part of modern sports is that we get to see greatness, live through it, and anoint it. Voting on such things is all about personal preference, figuring out what these teams and moments meant to us.

Let’s be honest: comparing teams from different years and eras is the most inexact of all sporting sciences. Accurately assessing the respective legacies from teams in different sports is probably impossible.

But trying to do so — that’s what makes it fun.

The Warriors or Patriots might be the most popular answer for “Team of the Decade”, but @nrarmour says there’s not a doubt in her mind that distinction belongs to the dominant #USWNT. pic.twitter.com/UXFX2kolOK

— USA TODAY Sports (@usatodaysports) December 20, 2019