Reggie Miller is not one of the 2011 Hall of Fame nominees

Reggie probably would have made it if it wasnt for the atrocious job he has done broadcasting on TNT pretty sure he pissed off one too many people who vote

 

Reggie has to be upset. I wonder if Spike Lee had anything to do with it



Spike has a shank in his pocket

 

LOL.

You clearly haven't seen Reggie play in games.

 

Well, I'll say this for Reggie Miller…

…even in retirement, he still has a flair for the dramatic.

Before I begin here, I'll be clear about one thing: there were very few players in ANY era in the late stages of ANY game (regular season or postseason) more feared offensively than Reggie Miller as a player. And that's a testament to Miller's ability to get the most out of what mediocre ability as a player he had.

Miller, in an honest evaluation, is the prototype for will overriding skill.

Sometimes, it's very easy to overlook the fact that, for all the game fundamental expositions and complex statistical analyses we are privy to in this information age, this is still a game played by very human players.

And human beings are not as mechanical, robotic and predictable as we all like to think in a game so rife with emotion, from the players and the spectators to the commentators and team owners.

At the very end, what a player thinks or feels or believes can have just as much of an impact on a game (and even a player's reputation), as his ball handling or shot selection. A player is a part of the contest he participates in on as many levels as there are depths of human emotion and feeling.

It's as much of a reason why we're all fans as for any dunk or three-point, buzzer-beating, game-winning shot.

In Reggie Miller, most of us did get to see the equivalent of an average player, by a great many estimates, exceed himself time and again when the opportunities arose. Whatever Miller may have lacked in ability, he redoubled in savvy and discipline and guts.

Miller is as much a by-product of media saturation and nightly sports highlights as he is his own competitive drive and instinct. I don't know if that's unfortunate or not—as I said, much of what has transpired with Miller's premature induction into the Hall of Fame is directly the result of myth or hype or legend superceding truth.

The truth that Reggie Miller is a great player. A player you had to watch to appreciate, because looking at the numbers (or even at him directly) would deceive you. And any player so universally feared in spite of being relatively limited in his skill, is a player that deserves his measure of respect.

Whether or not Miller deserves induction into the Hall of Fame as a first ballot selection is debatable from a lot of perspectives. And with a great many Hall of Fame leagues these days, the ways that most of the games have evolved since their inception will never accurately reflect statistically the overall impact a player's presence has or had for his team or the opposition.

I bet if anybody had to choose ONE player in the last 20 years not named Michael Jordan to take a game winning shot, Reggie Miller would be on all those lists. And not that far away from Mr. Jordan, either.

It is still about winning the game at the end of the day. And Miller did his level best to win with whatever he had. The Indiana Pacers' success for Miller's time with them speaks directly to that.

And to Miller himself.

I wonder if somewhere, deep within that huge heart or overblown ego of Reggie Miller, there isn't still a little bit of a smile somewhere…

…Miller definitely belongs in the Hall of Fame. And it doesn't seem like there are all that many people happy about it.

Must be just like old times for him…

 

It's not even about Miller getting in the Hall or not, it's the fact that he didn't make the final ballot for voting. Ralph Sampson,Chris Mullin and Maurice Cheeks are nominees. Those guys are worthy but Miller isn't? I'm not seeing it.

 

Wow, are you seriously questioning whether Pippen should be a hall of famer? He is arguably the best player at his position during the 90's!

 

This. It's a slap in the face, really.

Very well put. It's hard to say that a great shooter is "limited in skill", though. Perhaps he was limited in athleticism compared to other HOF's, or ball-handling skill, but shooting is the first skill you learn when you pick up a basketball.


Think how great everyone would regard Kevin Martin if he became a go-to scorer in crunch time and led us to the WCF with our current squad (plus add in a watered down, healthier Yao, which is what Rik Smits was). That's essentially what Reggie did with the Pacers ... KM and Reggie are different players for sure, and the Pacers had a more veteran, savvy group, but we are as talented as those teams. Yet we are lottery bound because of the lack of that leadership and a go-to guy.

 

He is, and at one point or another, will be a Hall of Famer. No doubt in my mind. He impacted the game during his era, and his teams were successful with him as the LEADER. You can argue that his teammates were very good or not, but the matter of fact was that he was the unquestionable leader of that team.

 

It's one thing for him to not be picked, but to not even be a finalist is kinda ridiculous.

 

QUESTION: Does it matter if it is 1st ballot or not?

to me . . .if you make it on your 3rd ballot . . .
then you probably should have made it on your 1st

Rocket RIver

 

But he didn't even make the ballot

 

Haha

 

Ok, is it me? Or does no one know the exact answer as to why Reggie was left off of the ballet?

 

Well, again, DieHard Rocket....

...for Kevin Martin's part, I believe it would help him currently if, he is going to be a player in the long-term plans for the Rockets, to have a bit better complimentary team surrounding him, like Reggie Miller was fortunate enough to have had for the balance of his career.

Donnie Walsh is a legendary general manager in his own right, and was the architect for some of those great Indiana Pacers teams Miller was on.

Perhaps I misspoke in regards to Reggie Miller's skill—or lack thereof. I'm about the very last person on the planet (just before a dead body) who should be suggesting that Miller did not have any "skill"…or, the skill that created his legend is somehow not an important one.

They do still keep score of theses games, if I remember correctly.

I agree that there is no justifiable reason for Reggie Miller NOT being on the short list of first ballot Hall of Fame candidates—particularly in light of some of the selections ahead of him.

Which is precisely my point in regards to him as a player.

It's easier to somehow qualify what a player is or isn't by looking at what he does or doesn't do well, than it is to measure how he influences the flow and tenor of a game just by being on the court.

I watched Larry Bird play practically every year as a teenager myself, and could not understand for the life of me why he seemed to run roughshod over a league that was generally more athletic than he was—there were probably some senior citizens who were more athletic than Bird was.

But as my appreciation for the game grew and developed (not to mention my good-natured loathing of Bird and everything Boston Celtic), I began to watch not simply the game, but the way Bird played it—between his head as well as between the foul lines. He played with people's heads as often as he shot them out of a gym.

Great players—truly great players, of which I agree there are only a handful—play the opponent as well as the game. They pick your brain and your pocket. They take your best shot and then they take their shot. They play chicken with you and don't blink. They don't pick their spots so much as they pick you apart.

Little by little. Bit by bit. Like Chinese water torture.

Reggie Miller did that routinely. For 18 seasons.

I'm as much of a homer as the next Simpson around here, DieHard Rocket. But I see very little here presently that matches what the Indiana Pacers were able to field, particularly during the late '80s and through the '90s, regardless of how Kevin Martin does or does not resemble Miller.

Miller's mind and savvy and discipline is what separates him from Kevin Martin, in my opinion. Miller knew precisely what he could and couldn't do. And he stuck to what worked for him. Miller routine worked away from the spotlight in order to seize it when it finally settled on him, and he routinely worked the same way. If you leave him a wide open shot from the perimeter, he would make you regret it. You didn't regard shooting percentages with Miller. You didn't regard the game situation. You didn't regard the referees on the take or the rabid fanbase or even the drama of the moment.

What a great player can do (and can do over and over again until it seems like it's on demand), is tell you how the game is going to be played.

The even greater players tell you how you're going to lose.

Maybe Kevin Martin will approach that kind of influence for the Rockets.

But I wouldn't wait for it. And the Rockets may not wait too long, either.....

 

If Reggie Miller would have made it in the HOF with only 5 all star appearances and never winning a championship, then Tracy McGrady and Vince Carter are LOCKS.

 

How did I know someone around here would find some way to drag Tracy McGrady into this conversation (lol)!

……Probably the same way I knew that I'd jump right on the chance to say something about it if it happened…!

You're comment's probably of the tongue-in-cheek variety, shortfuse3. I can't imagine anybody right now (especially around here) seriously considering Tracy McGrady for induction into anything more notable than a coffin…

I've always maintained a generally positive review of Tracy McGrady myself, in spite of anything else negatively related to him. If only for the fact that he has, even now in a diminished capacity, the very ability to steer a basketball team and game to the finish line or off a cliff, that the Rockets are so desperately trying to find.

I suppose, however, given McGrady's accident record in Houston, that maybe somebody should have taken the keys from him once or twice...

Most people have always taken something McGrady has said about the way he played for the Rockets and used it as a way to hide what was always true about McGrady himself—he always looked to make what amounted to the best basketball play for the Rockets—which was essentially his job as the team's primary (and more often than not, sole) offensive playmaker.

McGrady had matured as player in Houston into a guy that would make the correct play regardless of the situation or the teammates he played with—so much so that, whether he truly understood it or not, the smartest thing he could ever have done for the Rockets was to miss those shots himself that he gave to teammates to miss.

When you are the best player on your team or on the floor, that is when the object of the game—to score more points than your opponent by the end—is the factor that trumps all other considerations.

Most of us wanted the Tracy McGrady who snatched victory away from San Antonio in half a minute—an admittedly lucky half-minute, to be sure, but still…

…what we got was the Tracy McGrady who was passing to Rafer Alston or Luther Head or Shane Battier or even (God help me) and aging Bobby Jackson without blinking.....

Tracy McGrady never had any excuse for not seizing the offensive responsibility of MAKING SURE HIS TEAM SCORED (meaning that, either he put the ball in the basket or nobody else would)—not simply making sure his teammates got a good chance to score....

The reason McGrady always gave us for this was that his teammates weren't good enough. Of course they weren't good enough. They never were good enough and they never were supposed to be good enough. That much has been borne out in less time than it took for McGrady to fall off the face of the Earth…

Off all the basketball players I've been lucky enough to watch play at the pro level, there are only perhaps TWO perimeter players I would honestly say have a better mix of skills than Tracy McGrady:

Earvin "Magic" Johnson and Michael Jordan.

LeBron James is approaching that conversation himself.

Nobody handles the ball, passes and manages a team offense and game the way Tracy McGrady could at his peak. There are any number of experienced professionals who would swear to this. To say McGrady was a complete offensive weapon was putting the man's skills mildly.

And I still talk like McGrady's been stuffed and mounted over someone's fireplace.

The hardest thing to do, for someone who could literally do anything he wants on the court, must be to simply do ONE thing for his team. He can do everything else so much better than his teammates, then there's no need to bother with them at all...

...at least, if you want to get away with poor team management or ham-fisted maneuvering and politicking, it helps to have a guy on tap to cover your backside....

...until he's gone. Like Dan Gilbert is finding out in Cleveland.

Oscar Robertson was legendary in his insistence that nobody touched the basketball until he was good and ready for them to. It didn't matter if it took weeks…particularly if "The Big O" figured he was better off playing by himself than with whatever passed for teammates...

At the end of the day, Tracy McGrady could not simply make the best play for his team because HE was the ONLY chance (not simply the best chance) his team had. McGrady's nature or approach was to facilitate. His talent and ability said that he should do the thing that all good teams try to minimize as often as possible—scoring points.

Strangely, McGrady seems to be in a sweet spot of sorts…he can be the playmaker and facilitator and score on occasion, which is what he always seems more comfortable doing as a player, without the demand of overwhelming talentAll it took, it seems, was hubris and injury to get anybody to see and accept it...

If McGrady can play without any more serious health problems for three or four more seasons with a decent amount of minutes, he'll score 20,000 career points easily. Those aren't hall of fame credentials though.

If what we're currently witnessing with Reggie Miller is any indication, even some success in a team setting (postseason success) would do little, if any, good for a hall of fame campaign for McGrady.

It helps a heck of a lot, it seems, if people like you enough....

 

tmac is a lock for sure... at prime he was one of the best players in the game... something miller never even got close to.

 

To be fair, Vince Carter for 2-3 years were pretty damn good

Overall he's a lot more well rounded than Miller

As a side note, I didn't realize how long Miller played in the league, geez 18 years with like 25k points, very impresssive

 

Tmac is a lock for the hall of fame. I want you to say that out loud and not laugh.

 

It's Miller time!

Spoiler

Not.