Basketball Hall of Fame Finalists for 2013

Richmond was better than the other three. Jamison is still playing and doing a good job with the Lakers. All were good not great players.

 

It's always been the Basketball Hall of Very Good.

 

Yeah, this isn't Canton or Cooperstown. There's also a lot fewer of them.

 

Here is one that is pretty damn close:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/m/mitchmi01.html

The most underrated scorer I have ever seen. Played for some brutal Cavs teams before leaving for San Antonio and putting up HUGE numbers for almost a decade. Loved Mike Mitchell.

 

And here is one that averaged over 20 for 10 years, over 30 one year, and never made the hall. World B. Free:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/f/freewo01.html

 

I'm stunned Free isn't in. That's a travesty.

 

Shoot, the Cavaliers haven't even retired his number and he's the only reason the Cavaliers did not move to Toronto in the 1980's. Free put fans in the stands in Cleveland at a time when they weren't drawing flies. The Cavs retired Nate Thurmond's number, a guy that played there for 1 1/2 years, and not World. It's a joke. Also retired Mark Price, Larry Nance and Brad Daugherty's numbers...guys that were great players, but really of those the only I think deserved it was Price. And Larry is a friend of mine. He doesn't deserve to have his number hanging from the rafters in Cleveland.

 

That's not what I said at all. I said Stackhouse and Richmond were similar. Richmond stayed on bad teams longer than Stackhouse.

 

Both were brutal defensively, so there's that. Richmond, if he played on the East Coast, would be in with no questions asked. Stack, I think, was a great player but was seen as a disappointment in the NBA because he was so dominant in college. He never lived up to the hype despite putting up solid numbers for a long time.

 

If Mitch Richmond played on the East Coast for his prime, he would have had better teammates. Even the Hornets and Hawks were better than the Kings.

A few reasons I don't think Richmond should go in:

1. Bad defense. There's no way to spin anything to suggest he was a good defender. In his best years, he was average.
2. Nothing but points. His 3.5 assists a game look OK on the surface, but he was dominating the ball for the Kings. His rebounding after his first couple seasons was flat-out bad.
3. Bad teams. NBA stars influence games more than others. Richmond's teams went 381-521 when he started.

That said, I don't think it would be bad to have in the Hall of Fame. The eligible 20,000-point scorer not in the Hall is Tom Chambers. I do think you're opening the door for guys like Antawn Jamison, who had better numbers for similarly bad teams and even contributed to more good teams, and guaranteeing a spot for Vince Carter by putting him in. That may be fine with you.

The Stackhouse and Latrell Sprewell comparisons were hyperbole. Richmond was better for longer than them. But it was close in their primes.

 

Hall of Fames induct way too many folks now. It seems like if you were even halfway stuck with a team you get nominated.

 

I think that because you can find so many comparisons for that type of "empty calorie scorer," it makes it tough to elect them, whether we're talking Mitch Richmond, Stackhouse, Glen Rice, the fun debates that will erupt when Vince Carter is eligible, etc. I think to separate yourself, you have to take it to the next level and average close to 30 points a couple seasons (Allen Iverson), or you have to be a solid NBA player for more than 10 years (Reggie Miller was a borderline guy to me, but in reflection, he was an above average guard / small forward for 15 years, which is very rare).

Also, while the NBA isn't as championship-heavy when it comes to its Hall as the NFL, its voters do seem to weigh it more than the MLB voters do. Joe Dumars probably gets in because of his championships as a player, along with the one he got as a GM. The common thread linking guys like Richmond is that they played on bad teams, and if they were on championship contenders, it was often when they were chasing a ring or just role players in their final years.