Introducing the NBA Wall of Fame
There has long been talk about building an NBA-specific Hall of Fame. What about something a little different?
Good morning. Let’s get through another week.
Starry Night, Vincent Van Gogh
There are a couple of times every year where NBA fans bemoan the fact that the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame admits high school coaches, international stars, some entire teams and more than anything lots and lots of college basketball figures. I used to be a real partisan on these matters, but I’ve softened over the years. I’m good with an inclusive, broad Hall of Fame. Frankly, I don’t want to go to a global basketball museum that doesn’t mention, say, Pat Summitt.
But an NBA-specific Hall of Fame, even if it’s not a distinct physical space but, say, a wall at Springfield’s Naismith Hall, is still a worthwhile enterprise. So, like, an NBA Wall of Fame. And if you’re going to go about creating that as a subset of the bigger Basketball Hall of Fame, you can take the opportunity to really focus on criteria. The 1960 men’s United States basketball team can get inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, but doesn’t necessarily to be reflected in choices for the NBA Wall of Fame. Christian Laettner’s college excellence need not apply on the NBA Wall. NBA coaches? They can go in the Basketball Hall of Fame more generally, if they deserve it.
If you’re going to have strong criteria and high standards, you need to set a target for what share of the NBA fraternity should be honored.
So here’s the idea: set a target percentage of all NBA players ever and keep the Wall of Fame at that level. There have been 4,489 players in NBA history. (This includes the BAA years.) If you determine that the best 5% of all NBA players ever should be honored on the Wall of Fame, then the cap based on the current all-time player list would be 224 players. (This isn’t technically accurate per the rules I’m laying out because there are roughly 600-700 of those 4,489 players who wouldn’t meet eligibility requirements on account of being currently active and very recently retired.) That cap would have grown over the years: back when there had only been 1,000 players ever, there’d be only 50 on the Wall of Fame.
So each year, you’d add more players to the league’s historic ledger, and the Wall of Fame would grow a representative amount. Say you have 60 new eligible players in a given year. You can add three retired players (5% on the additional player count) to the Wall of Fame. But you have a Wall of Fame class like 2018 that has Ray Allen, Steve Nash, Jason Kidd and Grant Hill. Should all four be in? Maybe! But that’s too bad. The one who doesn’t get in defers their dream until the following year.
You should keep a buffer between retirement and eligibility because you can’t have active players on the Wall of Fame. The current five years is awful long. Is three years better? Probably. So let’s say three years.
We need to be sure that we pick the right percentage, too. It’s all about how exclusive you want this thing. Take this under consideration: if you retroactively created this Wall of Fame in 1966 — the 20-year anniversary of the founding of the BAA, which became the NBA — there would have been a grand total of 56 eligible players (those who had retired in 1963 or earlier). A 5% criteria would give you 2.8 slots. So I’d say two slots are up for grabs in that first class with the 0.8 inductees rolling over to the future.
You’d end up adding one more inductee in 1967 as 5% of the total eligible base would be 3.1 players. This is extremely limiting! This means that you’re probably leaving Bob Cousy and Paul Arizin off of the Wall of Fame. To get around this, you could also institute a rule by which there is a minimum of one slot every year after a certain point in the league’s history (10 years?), which would prevent you from leaving players out for an extra year or two just because the player base is growing too slowly. This ceases becoming an issue when we get to the expansion age.
What’s a good comparison to what 5% of the eternal player base looks like? In the 2018-19, a total of 530 players got NBA minutes. 5% of that player base is 26.5 — pretty close to the number of players selected for the All-Star Game. So “All-Star level for their career” becomes the comparison point. Too loose? Too strict? Should you go to 2.5%, which means you’d only have 112 players on the Wall of Fame all-time, and would definitely prevent you from the “minimum one addition a year” rule because it would skew the Wall early? I think 2.5%, which comes out closer to All-NBA level, is just too strict to have a meaningful Wall of Fame. 10% seems too lose. So I’m settling on 5%.
We’ll continue work on this in upcoming issues of Good Morning It’s Quarantine. Stay tuned.
All Hail Starbury
Stephon Marbury, Coney Island’s finest, is working on delivering 10 million N95 masks from China to New York’s hospitals. It sounds like it’s not a slam dunk that this will happen, though, based on some confusion among the various officials in charge of the response in New York.
Marbury can lead a mayor to masks, but he can’t make them skip the gym and wear them.
Starbury spent basically his entire career as a villain and somewhat of a pariah, after leaving Kevin Garnett to chase fame and fortune and then never quite measuring up to the hype. His Knicks years were super weird and potentially dangerous. And now look at him! He’s a legit basketball hero in China and working on becoming a legit hero (finally) in New York.
As his old friend from the Wolves might say, anything is possible.
In honor of Starbury’s effort, here’s the top 10 plays of his career, per ESPN a few years ago.
Links
Brian Windhorst on what the NBA can and has learned from failed efforts to restart the Chinese Basketball Association. I mostly enjoyed this for the fact that someone is apparently suggesting the NBA reconvene all teams in the Bahamas.
Two more big-name NBA personalities who came down with coronavirus: Doris Burke and James Dolan. Plus, 61-year-old Pistons scout Maury Hanks is in a Tennessee ICU with COVID-19. Highest hopes with them all.
Carmelo Anthony talks about when LeBron saved him from drowning in the Bahamas.
40 classic moments and games to watch during quarantine.
Henry Abbott reviews The Scheme, an HBO doc on college sports corruption.
Lindsay Gibbs talks to women athletes about how coronavirus is affecting them.
Henry Abbott on Mark Cuban and why screaming is not leading. Blistering good piece.
Mac McClung is going to test the waters. Tyler Bey is in. And Herbert Jones.
Brutal piece by John Branch and Marc Stein on a small NYC basketball fraternity who had a March 14 party that turned into a nexus point for coronavirus, leaving two dead and others sick. Similar story with a Seattle-area choir practice.
Terry Cummings, the power forward preacher man.
Dr. Anthony Fauci was a point guard. ($)
Examining Pharrell Williams’ sneaker history.
Kurt Streeter profile on Sabrina Ionescu. ($)
Thanks for your support. Be excellent to each other.
I feel that it's more accurate to say that the coronavirus is suffering from James Dolan.