About Borko Bariæ Expertise I am a big fan of NBA basketball, especially its history, so I have pretty good knowledge of the past players, teams and stats.
Experience You should have asked me 5 years ago. I was a real nut back then... :)
Question Saw an article by Dan Daly in the Washington Times (Washtimes.com) about QB Benny Friedman & the Hall of Fame. Leads me to the question -- who are the greatest not to make it into the Basketball Hall of Fame? What makes them great or worthy in your view? Could include any era, non-players, etc. etc. I teach a Pop Culture course in high school & hope to make the info. part of a lesson.
Thanks so much for your time!
Jim
Answer Well, there's always the question how to define greatness, not just in sports, but in other areas as well. Is it being extraordinary for a moment or two, or is it sustained excellence thru the number of years?
As far as I know, there are always some controversies regarding Hall of Fame inductions in baseball and football. Basketball, however, is pretty much spared from such conflicts. There is no "Pete Rose of basketball", a player who based on all merits should have been in, but for some reason isn't. More or less, everybody who should have been inducted is inducted. The greatest player who is not yet in is, in my oppinion, Artis Gilmore, who enjoyed a very succesful career in both NBA and ABA. He was nominated a few times, but the voters didn't seem to like him. As for the other worthy ones, most of them simply aren't eligible yet (there must be retired for 5 years), like Michael Jordan, Dominique Wilkins, Hakeem Olajuwon, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing etc.
Which leads us to a more difficult question: what makes any of them worthy? With certain players the debate is superflous, like Shaquille O'Neal, Tim Duncan, Allen Iverson, Kevin Garnett, who are truly the defining players of their era, and have both put up fantastic numbers and (most of them) won a significant number of ballgames. In most cases, those are the main criteria for induction, although there have been other cases, like with Bill Walton, who was injured for most of his professional carrer and played more than 65 games in an 82-games season ony 3 times, but was so brilliant in college and so supremely talented that the voters considered him worthy of induction.
With coaches, the criterium is much simpler: win a lot of ballgames thru a long period of time. That about locks it. Referees are rarely inducted, only 5 so far, the last being Earl Strom in 1994.
Contributors are either "the founding fathers" of the league, pioneers in one sense or the other (like Wayne Embry, the first african-american general manager, or Danny Biasone, the inventor of shot-clock), or simply people working in or associated with the NBA for a long time whose accomplishments were noted (like the 3 previous league comissioners Podoloff, Kennedy and O'Brien, or Jerry Colangelo, longtime Kansas City and Phoenix executive).
As for their connection to pop culture, there's always that disparity between popularity and quality, probably more now then ever before. Players become popular (and rich) based mostly on their ability to dunk or dazzle the crowd, rather than, say, shoot well from the middle-range or play excellent help-defense. However, that can also be attributed to human nature, since similar problems can be found in every walk of life. The players who have been both popular and successful have usually transcended basketball and became truly a part of pop culture, like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Wilt Chamberlain and the like.
I know I wasn't very concise, but I do hope I offered you some info on what you were looking for.
