What year was Clyde Drexler the best SG in the NBA? How about Murphy? Hall of Fame is based on performance, it shouldn't matter if you played at the same time as other great players. If Shaq retired tomorrow, then Yao is the best player at his position, but he's hardly Hall of Fame worthy yet.
Did someone just compare Shawn Kemp to Kevin Mchale? I think someone needs to watch some ESPN Classic!!!
If you could combine Kemp's athleticism with McHale's post-moves... Well, you'd get Hakeem Olajuwon, a definate Hall-of-Famer. That said, I've always thought that McHale (and James Worthy) never should have made the top-50 players list.
According to BBReference he gets a 104 rating and a player needs 135 or around there to get into the Hall. http://www.basketballreference.com/players/playerpage.htm?ilkid=KEMPSH01
Mourning and Kemp are two different cases. Mourning was the heir apparent to Olajuwon as the pre-eminent defensive force in the game, and won the DPOY a number of times before his Kidney Ailment(injury-shortened career exception). Kemp was on his way to being a dominant power forward, then the lockout hit - and he spent his contract money stuffing his face till he was on the wrong side of 300. Self Inflicted downfall.
I'm not meaning to nitpick here, since I actually agree with your point 100% (ex: is Ewing not a HOFer?), but who was much better than Clyde in 1993-94?
so basically anyone that played SG when Jordan was playing as a Bull is not making it to the Hall. If you have to be the best at your position for a year or you have to make it to the finals then the list is going to be way too small compared to other sports.
I'm sure there are a good number of guys that are in the Hall and will be in the Hall that never made it to the big game. In the 80s and 90s the Finals were dominated by the Celts, Lakers, Sixers, Rockets, Bulls, Detroit dominated. There are probably a good number of worthy hall of famers that weren't on those teams. If KG never makes it to the finals does he not make the Hall? Also, who was better than Jordan at SG when he was on the Bulls? Does that mean all the SGs of that era shouldn't make it to the Hall?
There really aren't a lot of players in the HOF who haven't at least made it to the Finals. Alex English and Dave Bing are the only ones that I can think of off the top of my head. There were a lot of peole in 1992 who were saying that Clyde should have been the MVP, and that he was better than Michael. Than MJ destroyed him in the Finals, but there was a time when people were at least arguing that he was the best. In my mind, if you're not the best player at your position AND if your team doesn't make it to the Finals, it would be difficult to put you in the Hall. If your team makes it to the Finals, you may not be the best player in the league, but at least you're part of one of the best teams in the league. If you look at it purely by stats, a guy like Adrian Dantley should make the HOF before a guy like James Worthy.
It's not a matter of being "much better". The original statement was that you shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame if you weren't the best at your position for at least a single year. Here's the guards from the All-NBA team from '93-94 First Team John Stockton, Utah Latrell Sprewell, Golden State Second Team Mitch Richmond, Sacramento Kevin Johnson, Phoenix Third Team Gary Payton, Seattle Mark Price, Cleveland Drexler clearly wasn't the best shooting guard in the league that season. How much better were Sprewell and Richmond that season? That's totally irrelevant to the discussion.
To the best of my recollection, none of these HOFers ever played in the finals: Connie Hawkins George Gervin Bob Lanier David Thompson Nate Thurman
Good list... Hawk definately would have been to the Finals if he had be allowed to enter the league earlier, I think. What a sad story that was. He did win the ABA Title, though. Nate Thurmond went to the Finals in '64 with the Warriors, I believe. Like Hawkins, I think David Thompson was in the ABA Finals, Nuggets4 can correct me if I'm mistaken. Bob Lanier definately never made the Finals, I forgot him.
Cowens was a multiple year regular season MVPer... how is that possible if he never made the all NBA 1st team?
Well... I should have just looked this up. Cowens was MVP in 1973 (the only year he won the award) but interestingly, he was only named to the all NBA 2nd team that year.... pretty odd.
He was only the MVP one year, in 1973. 1972-73 FIRST TEAM John Havlicek, Boston Spencer Haywood, Seattle Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Milwaukee Nate Archibald, Kansas City-Omaha Jerry West, Los Angeles SECOND TEAM Elvin Hayes, Baltimore Rick Barry, Golden State Dave Cowens, Boston Walt Frazier, New York Pete Maravich, Atlanta Cowens was a center, not a PF. So you really couldn't put Kareem and him on the same All-NBA team. That year Abdul-Jabbar averaged 30ppg, 16rpg, and 5apg, to Cowens' 20ppg, 16rpg, and 4apg. Cowens was the better defender, and his team finished with a better record (68-14) than Milwaukee did (60-22).
