Archive for the 'Hall of Fame' Category

Required reading material:

Who Are the “Inner-Circle” Hall of Famers? (Part I – Intro to Method)
Inner-Circle Hall of Famers: 1950s/1960s
Inner-Circle Hall of Famers: 1970s
Inner-Circle Hall of Famers: 1980s

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Required reading material:

Who Are the “Inner-Circle” Hall of Famers? (Part I – Intro to Method)
Inner-Circle Hall of Famers: 1950s/1960s
Inner-Circle Hall of Famers: 1970s

Read the rest of this entry »

Required reading material:

Who Are the “Inner-Circle” Hall of Famers? (Part I – Intro to Method)
Inner-Circle Hall of Famers: 1950s/1960s

Read the rest of this entry »

Per the methodology outlined here, I now present your Inner-Circle Hall of Famers from the 1950s and 1960s... But first, remember the rules: the player had to play 10 years combined in the NBA or ABA (with 1 exception, which I'll explain below) and had to rank as one of the 4 best players of their decade in terms of both "media" and "stats" points. By popular demand, I dropped the requirement that a player had to win a championship to be included in the "Inner Circle", instead requiring them to be the best player on an NBA Finalist. This small change allows for the inclusion of players like Elgin Baylor, a legitimate legend who did not technically win a title despite coming extraordinarily close on a number of occasions. Also, be forewarned that I gerrymandered the "decades" slightly to include the highest possible % of the top 20 overall players by 10-year percentage scores, so in this edition Bill Russell is listed in the 1950s even though the majority of his years came in the 60s, in order to include Baylor in the 1960s. This happened two times in the process: once in the 80s/90s, and once here, with Russell/Baylor.

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Whenever Hall of Fame arguments come up, especially in baseball, I have a tendency to tune out from the sheer tediousness of the typical debate. On one side, there's always an arrogant guy who saw many of Player X's games and "knows" he's a Hall of Famer, so he cites other, lesser players who are already in the Hall (as though that were somehow evidence Player X should be in), brings up a couple of memorable career moments, and generally fudges on borderline issues to make the player seem better than he actually was. On the opposing side, another equally narcissistic guy splits hairs about the "magic numbers" Player X failed to reach, denigrates his career because A) if he won titles, he didn't have enough individual honors; or B) if he had a lot of individual honors, he didn't win enough titles. Throw in a few unsubstantiated jabs at Player X's character and/or manhood, and then start the whole process over again -- how fun.

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Well, it's finally here: today's the big day when we induct BBR blog favorites John Stockton & David Robinson, in addition to Michael Jordan, the greatest who ever played the game, into the Hall of Fame. And what better topic for a post than to see where this year's star-studded class ranks among the great classes of all time. The metric we'll be using, of course, is Win Shares, which luckily enough have recently been expanded to include every NBA (and ABA) season since 1951-52, the first year minutes played were tracked. So we basically have all of modern pro basketball history at our disposal now to run lists like this, which is very cool and makes this kind of exercise possible. Oh, and another note before we move to the numbers -- like we did in this article, I'm valuing an ABA Win Share at 25% less than an NBA Win Share (the reasoning behind this is explained in that article as well).

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From NBA.com, the same folks who brought you the early David Robinson highlight reel, here are some Hall of Fame-worthy plays from a young Pasty Gangsta:

In honor of David Robinson's induction into the Hall of Fame next month, the NBA has been posting some of the Admiral's highlights to YouTube. Here are some choice plays from a young D-Rob: