Let's Fix the Hall of Fame! (558 views)

[eric]

Let's award points to players from four teams from every year from 1978-present as follows:

3 points for the best player on a championship team
2 points for the second best on the champions or the best on the other Finals team
1 point for the third best on the champions, the second best on the other Finals team, or the best on either other Conference Finalist
In all cases determining best with Weighted Wins.

If we do that, here's how the point totals look:

fame name
23 Johnson, Magic
20 Jordan, Michael
14 Bird, Larry
14 Bryant, Kobe
14 O'Neal, Shaquille
13 Duncan, Tim
13 James, LeBron
11 Rodman, Dennis
8 Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem
8 Billups, Chauncey
8 Erving, Julius
8 Olajuwon, Hakeem
8 Pippen, Scottie
8 Wade, Dwyane
7 Laimbeer, Bill
6 Drexler, butt sex
6 Gasol, Pau
6 Ginobili, Manu
6 Grant, Horace
6 Malone, Moses
6 Miller, Reggie
6 Parker, Tony
5 Kidd, Jason
5 Malone, Karl
5 McHale, Kevin
5 Nowitzki, Dirk
5 Pierce, Paul
5 Robinson, David
5 Unseld, Wes
5 Wallace, Ben
5 Williams, Gus
4 Durant, Kevin
4 Garnett, Kevin
4 Leonard, Kawhi
4 Maxwell, Cedric
4 Parish, Robert
4 Worthy, James
3 Barkley, Charles
3 Bosh, Chris
3 Chandler, Tyson
3 Cheeks, Maurice
3 Ewing, Patrick
3 Hayes, Elvin
3 Howard, Dwight
3 Kemp, Shawn
3 Moncrief, Sidney
3 Odom, Lamar
3 Stockton, John
2 Allen, Ray
2 Dumars, Joe
2 Gervin, George
2 Green, A.C.
2 Hardaway, Anfernee
2 Haslem, Udonis
2 Horry, Robert
2 Iverson, Allen
2 Johnson, Kevin
2 Johnson, Larry
2 Marion, Shawn
2 Nance, Larry
2 Porter, Terry
2 Rondo, Rajon
2 Scott, Byron
2 Sikma, Jack
2 Smith, Kenny
2 Thorpe, Otis
2 Webster, Marvin
1 Belinelli, Marco
1 Boozer, Carlos
1 Christie, Doug
1 Cooper, Michael
1 Dandridge, Bob
1 Davis, Dale
1 Divac, Vlade
1 Elie, Mario
1 Ellis, Dale
1 Foster, Jeff
1 Gasol, Marc
1 George, Paul
1 Gilmore, Artis
1 Grant, Brian
1 Hardaway, Tim
1 Harden, James
1 Harper, Ron
1 Hill, George
1 Hornacek, Jeff
1 Houston, Allan
1 Jefferson, Richard
1 Johnson, Dennis
1 Jones, Eddie
1 King, Reggie
1 Kittles, Kerry
1 Kukoc, Toni
1 Lewis, Rashard
1 Lynch, George
1 Majerle, Dan
1 McCray, Rodney
1 Nash, Steve
1 Natt, Calvin
1 Nixon, Norm
1 Oakley, Charles
1 Payton, Gary
1 Prince, Tayshaun
1 Reid, Robert
1 Rice, Glen
1 Rose, Derrick
1 Smith, Steve
1 Splitter, Tiago
1 Tarpley, Roy
1 Terry, Jason
1 Thompson, David
1 Varejao, Anderson
1 Ward, Charlie
1 Westphal, Paul
1 Wilkes, Jamaal
This year, LeBron is the best player on the Cavs, Kawhi the best on the Spurs, and Duncan the second best on the Spurs.

Shaq, LeBron, and Duncan are in the Hall for sure. If we assume Kobe makes it too, then everyone above 8 fame is in, a perfect eight for eight. The rest of the values look like this:

fame in out ? n pct
9+ 8 0 0 8 1.00
8 4 0 2 6 1.00
7 0 1 0 1 0.00
6 4 1 2 7 0.80
5 4 1 4 9 0.80
4 2 1 3 6 0.67
3 4 3 4 11 0.57
2 2 12 5 19 0.14
1 5 30 13 48 0.14
I would further bin them as follows:

fame in out ? n pct
8+ 12 0 2 14 1.00
5-7 8 3 6 17 0.73
3-4 6 4 7 17 0.60
1-2 7 42 18 67 0.14
And it looks pretty easy.

Both of the 8+ not yet eligibles (Chauncey and Wade) are in.

There should be a really good reason not to take a 5-7 fame guy, and Bill Laimbeer being a pathetic weakling isn't one. Pau, Horace Grant, Tony Parker (ugh), Kidd, Dirk, Pierce, Ben Wallace, Gus Williams, all in.

There should be a really good reason TO take a 3-4 fame guy. Durant, Garnett, Kawhi, Cornbread, Barkley, Tyson Chandler, Dwight all have an MVP, FMVP, or DPOY, they're all in. That leaves Parish, Worthy, Bosh, Mo Cheeks, Ewing, Hayes, Kemp, Moncrief, Odom, Stockton. If we look at All-NBA selections we get 2 2 1 0 7 6 3 5 0 11. If we look at just the 5+ guys and look at All-NBA Firsts, we get Ewing 1, Hayes 3, Moncrief 1, Stockton 2. Seems fair to take those four and not the others.

There should be a SUPER WOW reason to take a 1-2 (or less) fame guy. Here are the names for the 1-2 ins and the guys who are in for their pro career (78-now) but don't have any fame:Dumars, Joe
Gervin, George
Gilmore, Artis
Johnson, Dennis
Payton, Gary
Thompson, David
Wilkes, Jamaal

Dantley, Adrian
English, Alex
King, Bernard
Mourning, Alonzo
Mullin, Chris
Richmond, Mitch
Thomas, Isiah
Wilkins, DominiqueGervin has the best argument, he's one of only twenty-five players ever with 5 All-NBA 1sts and a decent chunk of his career was pre-78. Isiah's got 3 and an FMVP, but I'm not feeling it. The other hardware guys (DJ and Dumars FMVP, Payton DPOY) are even worse. The 1-2 guys not yet eligible include Nash and Iverson, and I wouldn't mind neither getting in but you could talk me into Nash.

.

That gives us a Hall of Fame (78-present) that looks like this:

First Tier

Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem
Billups, Chauncey
Bird, Larry
Bryant, Kobe
Duncan, Tim
Erving, Julius
James, LeBron
Johnson, Magic
Jordan, Michael
Olajuwon, Hakeem
O'Neal, Shaquille
Pippen, Scottie
Rodman, Dennis
Wade, Dwyane
Second Tier

Drexler, butt sex
Gasol, Pau
Ginobili, Manu
Grant, Horace
Kidd, Jason
Laimbeer, Bill
Malone, Karl
Malone, Moses
McHale, Kevin
Miller, Reggie
Nowitzki, Dirk
Parker, Tony
Pierce, Paul
Robinson, David
Unseld, Wes
Wallace, Ben
Williams, Gus
Third Tier
Barkley, Charles
Chandler, Tyson
Durant, Kevin
Ewing, Patrick
Garnett, Kevin
Hayes, Elvin
Howard, Dwight
Leonard, Kawhi
Maxwell, Cedric
Moncrief, Sidney
Stockton, John
Fourth Tier

Gervin, George
Nash, Steve
14 + 17 + 11 + 2 = 44 over 46 years. Seems like a good ratio to me! In the next post I'll go back to the first 29 years of the NBA with Win Shares and hopefully find 29 guys there. My guess is that Kareem is going to be a First Tier guy in both epochs, which is amazing. On that note it's also worth reiterating that no ABA performance was considered, so Julius Erving for example got First Tier solely on the merits of his NBA career.

[Druce]

nice read

[KwYawnza]

Dennis Rodman is an outlier imo

[eric]

Apr 24, 2015 14:56:39 GMT -6 KwYawnza said:

Dennis Rodman is an outlier imo

It looks bad when he's between Kareem and LeBron, but if you think of him as slightly better than Chauncey or Pippen it works. Five rings, two DPOY, two All-NBA. The only other multi-DPOYs with rings at all are Ben Wallace (4 DPOY 1 ring) and Hakeem Olajuwon (2 each). He's the poster child for the problems with Wins Produced, a secondary but still important factor in Weighted Wins, but he does pretty well in Win Shares too. Like Barkley his personality is so enormous that it's hard to remember anything else, unlike Barkley his teams had an enormous amount of success.

[MJ]

Basketball hall of fame is such a joke. Wish there was a NBA hall of fame all on it's own. Basketball hall of fame is the exact opposite of Baseball

[ANK1990]

Laughed hard at:

Drexler, butt sex

[eric]

As promised, the 1955-1978 values, calculated only with Win Shares because the other advanced stats aren't available. (Technically Win Shares aren't available either, the values pre-1978 are estimates.)

25 B Russell
17 W Chamberlain
15 J West
14 J Havlicek
11 S Jones
10 W Frazier
9 B Pettit
8 E Baylor
8 F Ramsey
7 C Hagan
7 K Abdul-Jabbar
6 D Schayes
5 B Sharman
5 D Cowens
5 G Yardley
4 B Howell
4 C Walker
4 O Robertson
4 P Arizin
4 R Barry
4 T Heinsohn
4 W Unseld
3 B Dandridge
3 D Nelson
3 G Goodrich
3 M Lucas
3 P Silas
3 W Reed
2 B Cousy
2 B Walton
2 C Ray
2 D Barnett
2 E Monroe
2 J Erving
2 K Jones
2 L Foust
2 N Johnston
2 N Thurmond
2 P Westphal
2 R Rocha
1 A Adams
1 B Bridges
1 B Gross
1 C Lee
1 C Lovellette
1 C Share
1 D Collins
1 D Garmaker
1 D Ohl
1 E Hayes
1 E Kalafet
1 E Macauley
1 G King
1 H Greer
1 H Hairston
1 J Brewer
1 J Lucas
1 J Marin
1 J Mullins
1 J White
1 J Wilkes
1 L Costello
1 L Hudson
1 L Wilkens
1 M Malone
1 P Jackson
1 P Smith
1 R Guerin
1 T Gola
1 T Meschery
1 W Bellamy
Bill Russell is on top by a wide margin. That's always a good sign. The rules we established for the modern scorekeeping era were...
1. Eight or more fame years = in.
2. Accept about one player per year.
3. Five to seven fame years have to be proven unworthy.
4. Three to four fame years have to be proven worthy.
5. Anything less needs a grand slam reason to get in.

We have nine 8+ guys, seven of whom are absolute locks: Russell, Chamberlain, West, Havlicek, Frazier, Pettit, Baylor. It's hard to say for sure but I think Sam Jones would have gotten at least one FMVP had they been awarded during the Celtics death march of the 60s. On merit it should have gone to Russell every time, but you know how voters are. They could have talked themselves into Sam in 63, 64, or 65. He should be in, clearly. Ramsey is a much harder sell, especially since he was a sixth man for much of his career, but seven rings is seven rings, and he's in the real life Hall of Fame anyways.

We have only six 5-7 guys, an interesting inversion of the monotonic decline of the modern era, and one of them is Kareem who's already in anyway. I'm not entirely convinced Dolph Schayes ever existed, because he's a caricature: a 6'7" white center, trademark shot was a two handed set shot, led a team from Syracuse to the NBA championship, name has the same root as Adolf. Keep him in, why not. Cowens has an MVP and two rings (and is one of only four players to lead his team in points rebounds assists steals and blocks along with Pippen, Garnett, and LeBron), he's in. The interesting ones are...

Bill Sharman (yet another Russell coat-tail rider)
George Yardley (the Original Bird)
Cliff Hagan (second banana for Bob Pettit)

All three are in the current Hall of Fame. Yardley has an All-NBA First that Hagan doesn't, but Hagan has a ring that Yardley doesn't. Sharman has four All-NBA 1sts and four rings, sometimes we're stuck with Celtics. I'd keep Sharman and Hagan and show Yardley the door.

We have thirteen 3-4 guys, and this is where the rubber meets the road.
-Unseld is already in.
-Oscar and Reed are in easily, but keep in mind how lousy Oscar's teams did when he wasn't playing with Kareem.
-Barry is in, FMVP.
-Bobby Dandridge is pretty interesting because he's got one fame year in the modern era too, two rings. He's a third banana, he needs more. Out.
-The Celtics (Howell, Heinsohn, Nelson) are all out.
-Chet the Jet Walker was the #2/#3 guy on Wilt's 1967 champion 76ers. I'm not impressed. Out.
-Pitchin' Paul Arizin was a star player on the Warriors before Wilt showed up and took all the shots, but he has four All-NBA 1sts and a ring. In.
-Goodrich, Lucas, and Silas are out.

That gives us only 4 of 12, a much lower % than the 3-4 modern group, but with that figure we're at 17 players for 22 years, so we're already pretty close to where we want to be, and a lot of these years had eight teams playing to getting to the round of four loses a little cache.

The 1-2 guys who stand out: Cousy, Walton, Jo Jo White (FMVP). Cousy should be in. The "ohhhh he got hurt whine cry bur hur hur" routine with Walton really annoys me, but I'll begrudgingly let him in. White no. That gives us 19 in 22, plus 44 in 46 gives 53 in 58. That works for me. Updated membership, and because the first tier is getting a little crowded, let's do a 0th tier of 12+ fame years...:

Zeroth Tier

Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem
Bird, Larry
Bryant, Kobe
Chamberlain, Wilt
Duncan, Tim
Havlicek, John
James, LeBron
Johnson, Magic
Jordan, Michael
O'Neal, Shaquille
Russell, Bill
West, Jerry
First Tier

Baylor, Elgin
Billups, Chauncey
Erving, Julius
Frazier, Walt
Jones, Sam
Olajuwon, Hakeem
Pettit, Bob
Pippen, Scottie
Ramsey, Frank
Rodman, Dennis
Wade, Dwyane
Second Tier

Cowens, Dave
Drexler, Clyde
Gasol, Pau
Ginobili, Manu
Grant, Horace
Hagan, Cliff
Kidd, Jason
Laimbeer, Bill
Malone, Karl
Malone, Moses
McHale, Kevin
Miller, Reggie
Nowitzki, Dirk
Parker, Tony
Pierce, Paul
Robinson, David
Schayes, Dolph
Sharman, Bill
Unseld, Wes
Wallace, Ben
Williams, Gus
Third Tier
Arizin, Paul
Barkley, Charles
Barry, Rick
Chandler, Tyson
Durant, Kevin
Ewing, Patrick
Garnett, Kevin
Hayes, Elvin
Howard, Dwight
Leonard, Kawhi
Maxwell, Cedric
Moncrief, Sidney
Robertson, Oscar
Stockton, John
Unseld, Wes
Fourth Tier

Cousy, Bob
Gervin, George
Nash, Steve
Walton, Bill