Mullin didn't make it. In fact, no PLAYER did. Only a bunch of college and international coaches. Weird. John Hollinger actually writes an excellent blog on this today: <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">by: John Hollinger posted: Monday, April 2, 2007 When you're making up a list of great coaches, some of the names are so obvious. Phil Jackson, Roy Williams, Van Chancellor, Pedro Ferrandiz, Mirko Novosel ... I mean, once you say the first one, the other four just kind of roll off your tongue, don't they? Unfortunately, the announcement of the Zen Master's Hall of Fame induction today only highlights Springfield's ridiculously shoddy treatment of the NBA. It's bad enough that they elected five coaches and a referee but not a single player (Adrian Dantley and Chris Mullin were among those who didn't make the cut); what makes it worse is that they continue to select mediocre college coaches and anonymous international ones, at the expense of great pro ones like Dick Motta and Don Nelson. I don't mean to put down Roy Williams or the other three guys. But look at the voting patterns in recent years -- it's not the Basketball Hall of Fame, folks, it's the College Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame Plus a Few Other Guys. Over the past 10 years, the institution has inducted 25 coaches and nine contributors ... but only 20 players. Wait, it gets worse. Of those 25 coaches, do you know how many got in for succeeding in the NBA -- the game's highest level? FOUR!!! Are you kidding me? This is like going to Cooperstown and seeing miles of plaques dedicated to the best AAA managers. In the same span they inducted four NBA coaches (Jackson, Larry Brown, Alex Hannum and Bill Sharman) they've put in eight NCAA women's coaches, four international coaches and even one high school coach. It's not like the 20 players were all NBA guys either. Of those 20 players inducted in the past decade, four were ridiculous selections from the "international" group (Drazen Petrovic, Dino Meneghin, Drazen Dalipagic, Hortencia Marcari) and two were Harlem Globetrotters (Marques Haynes and Lynette Woodard). Which means they've inducted only 14 NBA players in that decade ... and 20 college coaches. They've inducted John Chaney ahead of Dick Motta, Roy Williams ahead of Adrian Dantley, and Dave Gavitt (commissioner of the Big East) ahead of David Stern (commissioner who saved the NBA). I've argued this for a long time, but it's long overdue for the league to set up its own Hall of Fame and ditch any link to Springfield. Better yet, the collegians have helped out by taking the first step. In October, doors will open at the College Basketball Hall of Fame in Kansas City, Missouri; though they say it's to honor players who weren't recognized by Springfield, it's pretty easy to see the boundaries expanding over time. That's just one more reason for the NBA to do the same thing. They could even operate it in stealth mode like the college guys are doing, starting out by inducting the Mottas and Dantleys of the world and then slowly stealing Springfield's thunder over time. Plus, the commish could use it to promote the league, too, and if they put it someplace like New York or Chicago it would be a likely money-maker (although if it were up to Stern he'd probably put it in Shanghai). But ultimately, it seems like separation is the only way to resolve this thing. Springfield's selections have become so absurd that they're hardly worth taking seriously anymore (seriously ... Mirko Novosel?), and now that the collegians have their own Hall of Fame they can honor as many Lon Krugers and Mike Montgomerys as they want and I won't be offended in the least. But perhaps the best argument deals with history. In the big picture, I've long felt that the NBA cared less about its historical legacy than any other sport, and it's high time they took better control of it. This would be one giant step in that direction.</div> Source This is a bit unsettling
Those sound like good ideas made in that blog. The only thing the NBA has done to honor the past, that I can remember, is when they came up with the 50 greatest basketball players, with that NBA at 50. A NBA Hall of Fame would be very intriguing to visit I'd think.
Man, I'm surprised Chris Mullin didn't make it in there. He was one of the players that proved if you could flat out shoot, foot speed wasn't a huge problem on offense. Today's players don't even come close to shooting like the throwback guys. It's really sad. It's a big reason IMO why we don't even win in international ball anymore, whereas before we could because guys could shoot and had a mostly all-around game as well. Oh and the comment about college coaches turning into the nba could be misleading. I figure some of them could have had pretty good nba careers if they had been chosen by franchises with good management and good players. I guess it depends on which teams they go to and get multiple chances with. Once the college coaches get into the pros, they ain't the GM no more like they were in college. They don't go and recruit whoever they wanted to, it's the GM's job. Money is involved and GMs/owners who have huge egos might be the real problem compared to any mediocre coaching of a bad team. Playing style and respect is also important. If there are guys who don't listen, they gotta be like Eric Musselman and get that respect through fear of punishing players for not listening. And they can't have coaches alienating the players just as well as the ownership not standing behind the coaching and then laying the blame on them for why the season didn't turn out that well. The example again is Eric Musselman. He just has a knack for inheriting teams that are young and inexperienced or teams that are rebuilding again... That just sucks for him. It's all about opportunities for coaches and sometimes they could be put in a losing situation. I feel bad for Muss right now. Montgomery I don't feel sorry for because he's getting paid to do nothing, just like Foyle. I hope the guys in charge of those two hires is learning the next time we have money resources available. Mullin has done some very good things to reverse his bad situation, but man if we don't find some rebounding, defense, and inside scoring, we could be like the Sonics or Clippers. We make the 8th seed one time and then we never return for a repeat.
