The NBA is doing better than anyone and that includes the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame – with Sunday’s induction night sure to be filled with viral moments, laughter and tears. Vince Carter, Chauncey Billups, the late Walter Davis and Michael Cooper are the headliners in this year’s class – along with the recently deceased Jerry West who is being honored in the contributor category.
But does anyone know exactly how the inductees are selected, and who does it?
It’s too important an event to be shrouded under the veil of secrecy, and it’s an important event because of the work the NBA has done to revive it – led by Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Chairman Jerry Colangelo, whose basketball resume is never…end. You feel like you’re walking into a basketball shrine in Springfield, Massachusetts, from all the shoes, basketballs and jerseys of the greats to exhibits on the evolution of the rims themselves.
The Hall got that part right because the NBA wanted it to, and the league knew it was lagging behind in making the weekend as glorious as possible compared to other professional sports.
But if you look at the classes in the room, there are some inconsistencies in the selections – even if most of them are no-brainers. All we know is that the media will receive an email from the Hall sometime in February announcing the finalists and the class will be revealed before the NCAA Final Four.
It’s cute and neat, but the transparency is lacking.
This is a league that listens and responds, and is very sensitive to the belief that things are not as clear as they should be, in full view of the public. The draft lottery – although done in a room where media and team personnel are not allowed to bring phones or video equipment into the building to ensure integrity – is currently being shown to everyone. The media can actually touch the ping pong balls and feel that they weigh no different than the others, and everyone there can touch the actual machine into which the ping pong balls are launched, so we can see that there is no funny business going on.
It has become a TV moment during the conference finals, a half-hour show in which the lucky ones are sequestered, unable to communicate with the outside world as they watch the process of unveiling large envelopes with team logos.
It’s nerve-wracking and annoying, but in a way it’s also fun, and while you assume that anything can happen to achieve a certain result, we at least feel like the competition is doing its part by to indulge the conspiracy theorists and show that everything is fine. line.
The NBA season awards process, while turning into a bit of X-groupthink, lets every voter know that their selection will be made public as each award is revealed. There is responsibility for the voter, and while this can lead to influences that try to tilt the balance, it is usually a process that feels very genuine.
There have been few random MVP votes in the decade since the NBA instituted this policy, and while there are arguments against it, it has done more good than harm.
And even from a historical perspective, the NBA told the world exactly who was part of the voting committee for the top 75 (actually 76) player list for its 75th anniversary – another moment filled with all the spectacle the NBA wants to soak in. , with most of the top 76 in a room together to reminisce and connect in a way that will be captured forever.
That committee was filled with basketball royalty, and even if you want to question the qualifications of some voters, the NBA was largely right.
But that process has not extended to the place where basketball figures will be forever immortalized: the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Baseball voters will tell you exactly who they voted for, why Barry Bonds isn’t there and are rooting for it. We can see who reaches the 75 percent threshold, how close some are to finally getting in, while others are far, far away.
In football it feels even more intimate. The writers get into a room and openly discuss and make arguments for candidates to get in. That can feel a little tortuous because the media-player relationship is often portrayed as adversarial, but when it comes to sheer athletic excellence, those minor grievances, if they exist, can be put away because of merit. In this case, it could be a TV moment, but for the sake of process, we’re just imagining how these discussions play out.
None of this happens in basketball, and it’s frustrating. Is it just a popularity contest? What are the criteria? Who’s in the room? Hell, is Is there a room? According to a 2022 report from ESPN, final ballots are being destroyed.
This isn’t meant to attack Michael Cooper, an integral player for the Showtime Lakers in their five NBA championships during their greatest period of growth and popularity outside of the NBA, but in what world is he a true Hall? from Famer?
He wasn’t a starter, played behind Norm Nixon and then Byron Scott, averaged double figures only twice in his career and never made an All-Star team. Now the offense is half the floor space and the NBA has started devaluing the defense, so it’s refreshing in a way to see Cooper honored considering he was a Defensive Player of the Year and an eight-time All-Defensive member. Team.
But did we look at Cooper while he was playing and say, “That’s a Hall of Famer?” If anyone did, please raise your hand and come to the front of the room.
When you think of the Showtime Lakers, you think of Magic Johnson, then Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, then maybe James Worthy – and maybe Bob McAdoo, Jamaal Wilkes and a few others.
If you have to look long and hard at a player, is he really a Hall of Famer or just someone of note, someone you’ve dealt with?
There is an assumption that there is an exclusivity that comes with being in the Hall. Unfortunately, some good players who left their mark on the game have to stay on the outside looking in – that shows how special it is, how hard it is to get in.
It seems easier to get into the Hall than to make an All-Star team, and without the transparency we have no way of knowing how much weight is placed on Cooper’s coaching career in the WNBA compared to his career on the floor. career that ended in 1990, or whether we as a collective basketball community have changed our minds about how important some players are compared to the conventional thinking of the past.
Maybe that’s the case. And if so, it needs to be explained instead of letting the public assume why a player is getting in – because there are certainly a few others who have had great things, but we never hear them discussed even tangentially, and that feels like a disservice. .
There is no basic set of rules that define a Hall of Famer. It’s in the eyes of the fans and the media. Some crowed when Tracy McGrady stepped in, a scoring champion who never seemed to realize his enormous potential – some of it due to bad luck. Actually it was mostly bad luck.
The same went for Ben Wallace, another one-way player whose style defined a generation with his record four Defensive Player of the Year awards. There’s not much discussion about those guys from here, but it’s understandable if those with higher standards had questions that needed answering, if the Hall would be extremely difficult to get into.
Billups was a catalyst for a good team that turned into a great team in Detroit, winning a Finals MVP in 2004 and helping the Denver Nuggets to their best success before the recent run backed by Nikola Jokić. Basketball-Reference.com has him listed as an 84.4 percent likely Hall of Famer, higher than recent inductee Tim Hardaway, higher than Joe Dumars (2006 inductee) and Dennis Rodman.
Carter’s basketball credentials probability is even higher, at 94.5 percent – higher than those of Kawhi Leonard, Tony Parker and James Worthy. Carter didn’t have unique playoff success, but he had franchises and was a leading face for a decade – with his play deserving of all the attention. He wasn’t just a highlight reel, he was a superstar player.
And again, if McGrady is a model, Carter rates favorably even before he began his career as a trusted bench vet or spot starter. And that’s not even taking into account his stellar career at the University of North Carolina.
Cooper’s probability? 0.9 percent.
The Basketball-Reference model isn’t perfect, and it needs context beyond just the numbers, so he has more arguments. But a Hall case, an untouchable one?
This does not mean the NBA should secede from the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. It’s a great event that tells stories of integral figures at all levels – from international, to the women’s side, to the contributors and coaches who helped shape this beautiful game.
It would just feel a little better if we knew who made the selections, why the selections were made and the arguments for them.
The players deserve that, and the hall itself deserves it.
