Just like any aspect of popular culture, sports and athletes don’t always trend the way we think they will. Teams fall apart. Players don’t work out. Scandals derail everything. It’s the way of the world.
That’s why we cherish Sports Illustrated covers so much, because they are snapshots of a time in sports that has likely faded from memory, or existed only for a brief instant before our illusions were shattered. They preserve a moment in history that we’ve often otherwise forgotten, or retold so many times that the story itself has been reshaped entirely.