Monday, April 07, 2008

The Unofficial NBA Hall of Fame

Unlike Major League Baseball and the National Football League, the National Basketball Association does not have a hall of fame. Rather, the NBA is included with college, women, and international basketball in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in downtown Springfield, Massachusetts.

That's nice. But it's time for an NBA Hall of Fame. And since I'm not a basketball superstar or zillionaire or some sort of American celebrity with any kind of pull in or on the NBA, if I do decide to create a website (likely a blog) that functions as an NBA Hall of Fame, it will be the Unofficial National Basketball Association Hall of Fame.

First, I'm president of the Unofficial NBA HoF inductee committee (I may be the only guy in my circle of friends and family interested in this so I may be the committee as well). Since I only have my brother and a buddy at work who are qualified to be on the committee, this could be a very small committee.

We'll set up some sort of nomination process where only committee members can nominate potential HoF inductees. Any nomination would have to be backed by at least two committee members to get to the next level. All the nominees that get past the first two phases would then be voted upon by the committee members. Only those nominees that receive unanimous consent would then be inducted into the NBA HoF.

I would hope that the initial Hall of Fame class would include James Naismith (the guy who created basketball), Red Auerbach (the first great NBA coach), George Mikan (the first dominant player), Wilt Chamberlain (the greatest scorer and rebounder), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (the MVP king), Magic Johnson and Larry Bird (the two players who popularized the NBA), and, of course, Michael Jordan (the association's greatest player).

This is all very preliminary and may never come to fruition, but it would be a kick if I (and some buddies) could get this thing off the ground.

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