I have a 4-year old daughter I have, well, "trained" to answer the question "who is the best?" with "KOBE BRYANT!" every time you ask her. She doesn't even know what basketball is really, but it's good to start them young!
I like Sachin Tendulkar the most. He has carried the hopes of an entire nation for almost 2 Decades single handedly & also because he is a true sportsman.
Very obscure here but Chris White. He is an archer and is the UK's number 1 compound archer. The dedication of the guy is amazing. He works as a builder and for the last 5 years has repeatedly turned down promotions to management positions purely because the work he does keeps him in good shape, and if he stopped doing the manual labour then he wouldn't be able to spend enough time in the gym to keep in the same shape and his performances would suffer. If he had taken the promotions he would be earning almost double what he currently does by now but he has repeatedly declined it purely becaue it would have a negative effect on his performance.