Latrinsorm
08-10-2014, 02:33 PM
Mitch Richmond has been inducted to the basketball Hall of Fame, provoking quite a bit of scorn.
College - With Kansas State reached the Elite Eight in the NCAA tournament once, losing to Kansas. Has his #23 retired by the school. No national awards or recognition.
International - 4th best player on the 1988 bronze team, 7th best player on the 1996 gold team.
NBA - Rookie of the Year, six All Stars and one All Star MVP. No All-NBA first teams, never received more than one MVP vote, never started for a team that made the Conference Finals or higher, his teams managed 1 playoff appearance in the 7 years he was the best player on them.
.
Kevin Love has been traded to Cleveland for essentially Andrew Wiggins, provoking quite a bit of scorn.
College - With UCLA reached the Final Four in the NCAA tournament once, losing to Memphis (who later vacated that win). One All America 1st team.
International - 8th best player on the 2010 gold team, 3rd best player on the 2012 gold team.
NBA - Most Improved Player, three All Stars, finished 6th in 2012 MVP voting. No All-NBA first teams, his teams managed 0 playoff appearances in the 5 years he was the best player on them.
.
You would have to say I think that Kevin Love has a better record (even now) than Mitch Richmond, yet the latter is a Hall of Famer while the former must be defended against claims of being overrated. The obvious retort to this is that Mitch Richmond is not in truth a Hall of Famer, and that retort is well put. So let's fix the Hall of Fame!
.
.
First, let's just put aside all the college and international stuff and make an NBA Hall of Fame. There's no legit way to even compare the NBA across eras, trying to compare the international and college eras within themselves and all three to each other is ridiculous. Manu beat our pro team, how does that compare to those cheating Soviets beating our college guys, or Manu beating Detroit's pro team, or Kevin Love advancing to the national championship game by default? Forget it.
Next, we need some way that's at least slightly era-independent. Any counting stat is useless: pace and rules have changed way too much. Advanced stats that are set to a yearly average are slightly useful, but we still get into questions of career length: Horace Grant playing 17 years is impressive, but way less impressive than John Havlicek playing 16 years. The best way I can think of is to go by yearly ranks: if I want my Hall to include those among the best of all time, they ought to be among the best of their era.
Finally, we want team success to matter. It doesn't have to be a ring every year, but let's set the bar at Conference Finalist and see where that leads. Hopefully the longer careers for contemporary players is balanced out by there being dramatically more teams in the contemporary NBA. We don't want Monix making the cut either, so let's take players as follows...
Champion - top 3 Win Shares
Finals - top 2 Win Shares
Conference Finals - top 1 Win Shares
...for a total of 7 players per year with Famous Years. Conveniently we have 60 years in the shot clock era, so that gives us a total of 420 player-years. Obviously there are a lot of duplicates, and it turns out that a total of 173 players have at least one. If we demand that players need to have at least three FY, we get the following sums. Under hof, "1" denotes being in, "x" denotes not being in, "a" denotes still active or not yet eligible.
hof fy name
1 12 B Russell
1 10 J West
1 10 K Abdul-Jabbar
1 10 M Johnson
1 10 W Chamberlain
1 8 B Pettit
1 8 M Jordan
a 8 T Duncan
a 7 K Bryant
1 7 L Bird
1 7 S Jones
a 7 S O'Neal
a 6 C Billups
1 6 E Baylor
1 6 J Erving
1 6 J Havlicek
a 6 L James
a 6 T Parker
a 5 D Wade
1 5 J Worthy
1 5 K Malone
1 5 R Miller
1 5 S Pippen
1 5 W Frazier
1 4 B Cousy
x 4 B Dandridge
x 4 B Laimbeer
1 4 D Schayes
x 4 H Grant
1 4 K McHale
a 4 P Pierce
1 4 R Barry
x 4 R LaRusso
1 3 B Howell
1 3 B Sharman
a 3 C Bosh
1 3 C Drexler
1 3 C Hagan
1 3 C Walker
a 3 D Nowitzki
1 3 D Robinson
1 3 D Rodman
1 3 E Hayes
1 3 E Macauley
x 3 G Williams
1 3 G Yardley
1 3 H Olajuwon
a 3 J Kidd
a 3 K Durant
1 3 M Malone
1 3 O Robertson
1 3 R Parish
x 3 S Moncrief
1 3 T Heinsohn
x 3 T Porter
1 3 W Unseld
It's a lot, and it doesn't quite jive with who is already in the Hall. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but for now let's focus on who our metric is including:
5+ FY: 17 for 17, 4 definites (Duncan, Kobe, Shaq, LeBron), 3 very interesting cases (Billups, Parker, Wade). Each has a Finals MVP, each has a top-5 MVP finish, each has holes in the resume. Wade is definitely the closest: multiple rings, the only All-NBA 1st teams, the most All-Stars. Billups doesn't have the rings, Parker doesn't have the stats, neither have the accolades.
4 FY: 4 for 8 (Dandridge, Laimbeer, Grant, LaRusso not in), the only active player is Paul Pierce who is in the Billups boat.
3 FY: 16 for 19 (Gus Williams, Moncrief, Terry Porter not in), Dirk's a lock, then Kidd Durant and Bosh. Obviously Durant has a long way to go but if he retired today citing mental and physical exhaustion I don't think he'd make it. Bosh and Kidd are both unlikely IMO.
.
It's a little weird that the % wouldn't go monotonically with FY, and a similar thing happens if we do the analysis by the players who led their teams in playoff WS. If we restrict ourselves to players with 3 FY in both, then we get some really good stuff:
hof fy name
1 21 B Russell
1 21 W Chamberlain
1 20 K Abdul-Jabbar
1 20 M Johnson
1 18 J West
a 17 T Duncan
1 16 M Jordan
a 14 K Bryant
a 14 S O'Neal
1 14 J Havlicek
1 13 B Pettit
1 13 E Baylor
1 12 L Bird
1 12 S Jones
a 12 C Billups
a 12 L James
1 10 J Erving
1 10 R Miller
1 10 S Pippen
1 10 W Frazier
1 10 K McHale
a 9 D Wade
1 9 J Worthy
1 9 K Malone
x 9 B Dandridge
1 8 D Schayes
1 8 C Hagan
x 7 H Grant
a 7 P Pierce
1 7 B Sharman
1 7 H Olajuwon
1 7 M Malone
1 7 W Unseld
1 6 B Howell
1 6 C Drexler
1 6 C Walker
a 6 D Nowitzki
1 6 D Robinson
x 6 G Williams
1 6 G Yardley
a 6 K Durant
1 6 O Robertson
1 6 T Heinsohn
x 6 T Porter
Much better. Now we have:
10+ FY: 16 for 16, the same 4 definites, Billups is the only question mark and I would say that question has been damn well answered.
7-9 FY: 8 for 10 (Dandridge, Grant not in), Wade is the question mark and I would say that question has been answered for all three: put 'em in.
6 FY: 7 for 9 (Gus Williams, Terry Porter not in), Durant is the question mark and Dirk is the lock, though from this perspective he's getting a little shaky.
The recency bias doesn't look too bad. By my rough estimates of PT the 2000s are only higher than the 1970s for full decades, so that's good.
.
If we say heck with it and put everyone in, that gives us 44 Hall of Famers, four of whom aren't in and one of whom might not be. But whom have we kicked out? There are 164 players in the Hall so it's going to be A LOT, but a huge number of inductees never or hardly played in the shot clock era of the NBA so we can narrow it down to 95, and the boot goes to:
Adrian Dantley
Alexander "Alex" English
Alonzo Mourning
Arnold D. "Arnie" Risen
Artis Gilmore
Arvydas Sabonis
Bernard King
Calvin J. Murphy
Charles Barkley
Chris Mullin
Clyde E. Lovellette
Cornelius L. "Connie" Hawkins
Daniel P. "Dan" Issel
David "Dave" Bing
David A. "Dave" DeBusschere
David O. Thompson
David W. "Dave" Cowens
Dennis Johnson
Dennis Rodman
Edward C. "Ed" Macauley
Elvin E. Hayes
Frank V. Ramsey
Gail C. Goodrich
Gary Payton
George Gervin
Gus Johnson
Guy Rodgers
Harold E. "Hal" Greer
Harry J. Gallatin
Isiah L. Thomas
Jacques Dominique Wilkins
Jamaal Wilkes
Jerry R. Lucas
Joe Dumars
John K. "Jack" Twyman
John Stockton
Joseph F. "Joe" Fulks
K.C. Jones
Leonard R. "Lenny" Wilkens
Maurice Stokes
Mitch Richmond
Nate Thurmond
Nathaniel "Nate" Archibald
Neil Johnston
Patrick Ewing
Paul J. Arizin
Peter P. "Pete" Maravich
Ralph Sampson
Richard F. "Rick" Barry
Richard J. "Dick" McGuire
Richie Guerin
Robert A. McAdoo
Robert J. "Bob" Cousy
Robert J. "Bob" Lanier
Robert L. Parish
Šarūnas Marčiulionis
Slater N. Martin
Thomas J. "Tom" Gola
Vernon "Earl" Monroe
Walter "Walt" Bellamy
William J. "Billy" Cunningham
William T. "Bill" Walton
William W. "Bill" Bradley
Willis Reed
A lot of these are safe drops, I think, but just going by MVP and FMVP we've lost...
Charles Barkley
Dave Cowens
Isiah Thomas
Joe Dumars
Rick Barry
Bob McAdoo
Bob Cousy
Bill Walton
Willis Reed
Plus we don't have...
Allen Iverson (not yet eligible)
Kevin Garnett (active)
Steve Nash (active)
And that's not even mentioning guys like Rodman, Wilkes, Stockton, Johnston, Parish.
.
Overall I think the method is overly conservative, and exceptions can be made... but at the same time, I think the burden of proof has to be on the exceptions. I don't think everyone on the three lists above should make it, and I can't think of anyone not on those three lists who does deserve to be in. I also think the burden of proof has to be on those who want to remove from the overly conservative method. Dandridge and Grant should just be in, and Billups should join them. You can't talk up team success for the Celtics and Lakers then ignore it for everyone else.
I certainly wouldn't begrudge people making an Archaic Hall for Mikan and all the NBL/BAA guys, or an International Hall for Ginobili and Sabonis, or a College Hall for whomever. Careers shortened by injury get sympathy from me, but Walton doesn't get the Hall because we assume he would have aged well otherwise. Reed does get in because his record stands on its own, no assumptions required. The ABA is always tricky, but we've got Julius just on his NBA performance so I'm not too worried about it.
Bottom line, this method is internally consistent. That's always the way to go.
.
Last bit of frivolity: what were the longest consecutive streaks of Famous Years using regular season stats?
12 B Russell
8 M Johnson
6 B Pettit
6 C Billups
6 J West
6 S Jones
6 W Chamberlain
5 J Havlicek
5 L Bird
5 M Jordan
5 W Frazier
4 B Laimbeer
4 J Erving
4 K Abdul-Jabbar
4 K McHale
4 L James
Pretty good list, and I think pretty telling on how much we underrate Magic and Billups. LeBron is obviously the only active player, and it's very plausible he gets up to the 6 range because he only has to get to the Conference Finals.
College - With Kansas State reached the Elite Eight in the NCAA tournament once, losing to Kansas. Has his #23 retired by the school. No national awards or recognition.
International - 4th best player on the 1988 bronze team, 7th best player on the 1996 gold team.
NBA - Rookie of the Year, six All Stars and one All Star MVP. No All-NBA first teams, never received more than one MVP vote, never started for a team that made the Conference Finals or higher, his teams managed 1 playoff appearance in the 7 years he was the best player on them.
.
Kevin Love has been traded to Cleveland for essentially Andrew Wiggins, provoking quite a bit of scorn.
College - With UCLA reached the Final Four in the NCAA tournament once, losing to Memphis (who later vacated that win). One All America 1st team.
International - 8th best player on the 2010 gold team, 3rd best player on the 2012 gold team.
NBA - Most Improved Player, three All Stars, finished 6th in 2012 MVP voting. No All-NBA first teams, his teams managed 0 playoff appearances in the 5 years he was the best player on them.
.
You would have to say I think that Kevin Love has a better record (even now) than Mitch Richmond, yet the latter is a Hall of Famer while the former must be defended against claims of being overrated. The obvious retort to this is that Mitch Richmond is not in truth a Hall of Famer, and that retort is well put. So let's fix the Hall of Fame!
.
.
First, let's just put aside all the college and international stuff and make an NBA Hall of Fame. There's no legit way to even compare the NBA across eras, trying to compare the international and college eras within themselves and all three to each other is ridiculous. Manu beat our pro team, how does that compare to those cheating Soviets beating our college guys, or Manu beating Detroit's pro team, or Kevin Love advancing to the national championship game by default? Forget it.
Next, we need some way that's at least slightly era-independent. Any counting stat is useless: pace and rules have changed way too much. Advanced stats that are set to a yearly average are slightly useful, but we still get into questions of career length: Horace Grant playing 17 years is impressive, but way less impressive than John Havlicek playing 16 years. The best way I can think of is to go by yearly ranks: if I want my Hall to include those among the best of all time, they ought to be among the best of their era.
Finally, we want team success to matter. It doesn't have to be a ring every year, but let's set the bar at Conference Finalist and see where that leads. Hopefully the longer careers for contemporary players is balanced out by there being dramatically more teams in the contemporary NBA. We don't want Monix making the cut either, so let's take players as follows...
Champion - top 3 Win Shares
Finals - top 2 Win Shares
Conference Finals - top 1 Win Shares
...for a total of 7 players per year with Famous Years. Conveniently we have 60 years in the shot clock era, so that gives us a total of 420 player-years. Obviously there are a lot of duplicates, and it turns out that a total of 173 players have at least one. If we demand that players need to have at least three FY, we get the following sums. Under hof, "1" denotes being in, "x" denotes not being in, "a" denotes still active or not yet eligible.
hof fy name
1 12 B Russell
1 10 J West
1 10 K Abdul-Jabbar
1 10 M Johnson
1 10 W Chamberlain
1 8 B Pettit
1 8 M Jordan
a 8 T Duncan
a 7 K Bryant
1 7 L Bird
1 7 S Jones
a 7 S O'Neal
a 6 C Billups
1 6 E Baylor
1 6 J Erving
1 6 J Havlicek
a 6 L James
a 6 T Parker
a 5 D Wade
1 5 J Worthy
1 5 K Malone
1 5 R Miller
1 5 S Pippen
1 5 W Frazier
1 4 B Cousy
x 4 B Dandridge
x 4 B Laimbeer
1 4 D Schayes
x 4 H Grant
1 4 K McHale
a 4 P Pierce
1 4 R Barry
x 4 R LaRusso
1 3 B Howell
1 3 B Sharman
a 3 C Bosh
1 3 C Drexler
1 3 C Hagan
1 3 C Walker
a 3 D Nowitzki
1 3 D Robinson
1 3 D Rodman
1 3 E Hayes
1 3 E Macauley
x 3 G Williams
1 3 G Yardley
1 3 H Olajuwon
a 3 J Kidd
a 3 K Durant
1 3 M Malone
1 3 O Robertson
1 3 R Parish
x 3 S Moncrief
1 3 T Heinsohn
x 3 T Porter
1 3 W Unseld
It's a lot, and it doesn't quite jive with who is already in the Hall. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but for now let's focus on who our metric is including:
5+ FY: 17 for 17, 4 definites (Duncan, Kobe, Shaq, LeBron), 3 very interesting cases (Billups, Parker, Wade). Each has a Finals MVP, each has a top-5 MVP finish, each has holes in the resume. Wade is definitely the closest: multiple rings, the only All-NBA 1st teams, the most All-Stars. Billups doesn't have the rings, Parker doesn't have the stats, neither have the accolades.
4 FY: 4 for 8 (Dandridge, Laimbeer, Grant, LaRusso not in), the only active player is Paul Pierce who is in the Billups boat.
3 FY: 16 for 19 (Gus Williams, Moncrief, Terry Porter not in), Dirk's a lock, then Kidd Durant and Bosh. Obviously Durant has a long way to go but if he retired today citing mental and physical exhaustion I don't think he'd make it. Bosh and Kidd are both unlikely IMO.
.
It's a little weird that the % wouldn't go monotonically with FY, and a similar thing happens if we do the analysis by the players who led their teams in playoff WS. If we restrict ourselves to players with 3 FY in both, then we get some really good stuff:
hof fy name
1 21 B Russell
1 21 W Chamberlain
1 20 K Abdul-Jabbar
1 20 M Johnson
1 18 J West
a 17 T Duncan
1 16 M Jordan
a 14 K Bryant
a 14 S O'Neal
1 14 J Havlicek
1 13 B Pettit
1 13 E Baylor
1 12 L Bird
1 12 S Jones
a 12 C Billups
a 12 L James
1 10 J Erving
1 10 R Miller
1 10 S Pippen
1 10 W Frazier
1 10 K McHale
a 9 D Wade
1 9 J Worthy
1 9 K Malone
x 9 B Dandridge
1 8 D Schayes
1 8 C Hagan
x 7 H Grant
a 7 P Pierce
1 7 B Sharman
1 7 H Olajuwon
1 7 M Malone
1 7 W Unseld
1 6 B Howell
1 6 C Drexler
1 6 C Walker
a 6 D Nowitzki
1 6 D Robinson
x 6 G Williams
1 6 G Yardley
a 6 K Durant
1 6 O Robertson
1 6 T Heinsohn
x 6 T Porter
Much better. Now we have:
10+ FY: 16 for 16, the same 4 definites, Billups is the only question mark and I would say that question has been damn well answered.
7-9 FY: 8 for 10 (Dandridge, Grant not in), Wade is the question mark and I would say that question has been answered for all three: put 'em in.
6 FY: 7 for 9 (Gus Williams, Terry Porter not in), Durant is the question mark and Dirk is the lock, though from this perspective he's getting a little shaky.
The recency bias doesn't look too bad. By my rough estimates of PT the 2000s are only higher than the 1970s for full decades, so that's good.
.
If we say heck with it and put everyone in, that gives us 44 Hall of Famers, four of whom aren't in and one of whom might not be. But whom have we kicked out? There are 164 players in the Hall so it's going to be A LOT, but a huge number of inductees never or hardly played in the shot clock era of the NBA so we can narrow it down to 95, and the boot goes to:
Adrian Dantley
Alexander "Alex" English
Alonzo Mourning
Arnold D. "Arnie" Risen
Artis Gilmore
Arvydas Sabonis
Bernard King
Calvin J. Murphy
Charles Barkley
Chris Mullin
Clyde E. Lovellette
Cornelius L. "Connie" Hawkins
Daniel P. "Dan" Issel
David "Dave" Bing
David A. "Dave" DeBusschere
David O. Thompson
David W. "Dave" Cowens
Dennis Johnson
Dennis Rodman
Edward C. "Ed" Macauley
Elvin E. Hayes
Frank V. Ramsey
Gail C. Goodrich
Gary Payton
George Gervin
Gus Johnson
Guy Rodgers
Harold E. "Hal" Greer
Harry J. Gallatin
Isiah L. Thomas
Jacques Dominique Wilkins
Jamaal Wilkes
Jerry R. Lucas
Joe Dumars
John K. "Jack" Twyman
John Stockton
Joseph F. "Joe" Fulks
K.C. Jones
Leonard R. "Lenny" Wilkens
Maurice Stokes
Mitch Richmond
Nate Thurmond
Nathaniel "Nate" Archibald
Neil Johnston
Patrick Ewing
Paul J. Arizin
Peter P. "Pete" Maravich
Ralph Sampson
Richard F. "Rick" Barry
Richard J. "Dick" McGuire
Richie Guerin
Robert A. McAdoo
Robert J. "Bob" Cousy
Robert J. "Bob" Lanier
Robert L. Parish
Šarūnas Marčiulionis
Slater N. Martin
Thomas J. "Tom" Gola
Vernon "Earl" Monroe
Walter "Walt" Bellamy
William J. "Billy" Cunningham
William T. "Bill" Walton
William W. "Bill" Bradley
Willis Reed
A lot of these are safe drops, I think, but just going by MVP and FMVP we've lost...
Charles Barkley
Dave Cowens
Isiah Thomas
Joe Dumars
Rick Barry
Bob McAdoo
Bob Cousy
Bill Walton
Willis Reed
Plus we don't have...
Allen Iverson (not yet eligible)
Kevin Garnett (active)
Steve Nash (active)
And that's not even mentioning guys like Rodman, Wilkes, Stockton, Johnston, Parish.
.
Overall I think the method is overly conservative, and exceptions can be made... but at the same time, I think the burden of proof has to be on the exceptions. I don't think everyone on the three lists above should make it, and I can't think of anyone not on those three lists who does deserve to be in. I also think the burden of proof has to be on those who want to remove from the overly conservative method. Dandridge and Grant should just be in, and Billups should join them. You can't talk up team success for the Celtics and Lakers then ignore it for everyone else.
I certainly wouldn't begrudge people making an Archaic Hall for Mikan and all the NBL/BAA guys, or an International Hall for Ginobili and Sabonis, or a College Hall for whomever. Careers shortened by injury get sympathy from me, but Walton doesn't get the Hall because we assume he would have aged well otherwise. Reed does get in because his record stands on its own, no assumptions required. The ABA is always tricky, but we've got Julius just on his NBA performance so I'm not too worried about it.
Bottom line, this method is internally consistent. That's always the way to go.
.
Last bit of frivolity: what were the longest consecutive streaks of Famous Years using regular season stats?
12 B Russell
8 M Johnson
6 B Pettit
6 C Billups
6 J West
6 S Jones
6 W Chamberlain
5 J Havlicek
5 L Bird
5 M Jordan
5 W Frazier
4 B Laimbeer
4 J Erving
4 K Abdul-Jabbar
4 K McHale
4 L James
Pretty good list, and I think pretty telling on how much we underrate Magic and Billups. LeBron is obviously the only active player, and it's very plausible he gets up to the 6 range because he only has to get to the Conference Finals.