Probably had something do with them also dominating on the court. When a team wins 9 championships in 10 years, it's hard to blame the media for recognizing that accomplishment. But, I do agree, a lot of Laker and Celtic players are in the Hall for simply being in the right place at the right time. They were role players on some great teams, but role players none-the-less. I think the ultimate being at the right place at the right time basketball Hall of Famer has to be K.C. Jones. In terms of winning, he had tremendous success everywhere he went, He was a two time NCAA men's basketball champion, won an Olympic gold medal and won NBA titles in each of his first 8 seasons in the league. But, then you realize, he never won anything without Bill Russell, his college, Olympic and NBA teammate. Jones was an excellent defender, but in 9 NBA seasons, he never averaged double figures in scoring and was never an all star. His career scoring average was 7.4 ppg on .387 FG% and .647 FT%. As a PG, he averaged 4.3 apg. His career PER was 10.4. And, unlike Worthy, he didn't exactly step it up in the playoffs. His career playoff averages were 6.4 ppg on .367 FG%, 3.8 apg and PER of 9.2. Jones was a solid role player on a great dynasty team, but in terms of individual greatness, he doesn't belong anywhere near the Hall of Fame and would not be there if he hadn't been Bill Russell's lifelong teammate. He also won two championships as head coach of the Celtics back in the 1980s, but he is in the Hall of Fame as a player, not as a coach. BNM
I wasn't arguing either. I always thought it funny he was drafted as a big time scorer and turned into a defense/rebounding beast. Obviously if the guy practiced, he might have been good.
Yeah, I gotta second this. If Mitch Richmond is a Hall of Famer, then guys like Joe Johnson and Antawn Jamison should be as well. Offense-first all stars on mediocre teams.
http://bkref.com/tiny/Vn1S1 They've got a chance to make it themselves, but Richmond appears to have been a cut above those other two statistically over his career. But the thing is, despite having made the hall, Richmond isn't really elevated in the public consciousness to the level of a legend. That's why I said Worthy in the OP--not only is he in the hall, but people venerate him as some amazing player, which I just don't see.
If you look at the list of the top 250 players for Hall of Fame Probability at basketball-reference.com, you will see that Murphy, at 246, with a Hall of Fame Probability of only 0.91% is indeed, very low on that list. But, if you then examine how they calculate Hall of Fame Probability, it actually shows that Murphy made the Hall in spite of the odds being stacked against him. It's a logistic regression used to determine what factors voters consider important when casting their votes for entry into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. Again, this is based on the voting for players that have actually been elected to the Hall of Fame and can then be used to predict future voting. It's not a measure of player performance, like PER, VORP, etc. It's simply a logistic regression based on past voting. Here's the 5 predictor factors they came up with: Height (in.) NBA Championships NBA Leaderboard Points NBA Peak Win Shares All-Star Game Selections Well, given that Murphy, at 5'9" is the shortest NBA player in the Hall of Fame and he won zero championships, he truly defied the odds. It also explains why K.C. Jones with his 8 NBA championships easily made the Hall in spite of zero all star game selections, very few leaderboard points and a much lower peak win shares is ranked much higher (128th, HoF probability of 28.65%) than Murphy. Back to a few others mentioned: Clyde Drexler is ranked 4oth with a HoF Probability of 99.78%, basically a lock to make the Hall James Worthy is ranked 78th with a H0F Probability of 90.77% Mitch Richmond is ranked 97th with a HoF Probability of 69.77% Yao Ming, is ranked 109th with a HoF Probability of 52.59%, but I'm sure his impact on the game internationally has at least as much to do with his election as his on court NBA performance Bill Walton is ranked 204th with a HoF Probability of 2.04%, but again, I think he's in the Hall at least as much for his college career as his NBA career BNM
In terms of HoF Probability, I already listed Richmond and Worthy, here's how Johnson and Jamison compare: James Worthy: HoF Probability Rank 78th, 90.77% Mitch Richmond: HoF Probability Rank 97th, 69.77% Joe Johnson: HoF Probability Rank 111th, 50.56% Antawn Jamison: HoF Probability Rank 269th, 0.60% So, based on past voting trends, Joe Johnson has a 50/50 chance of making the HoF, Antwan Jamison basically has no chance. BNM
