Re: REDOING THE NBA HALL OF FAME (retired in 1975 or earlier)

[penbeast0]

BAA/NBA/ABA playing careers only; we are not including college, Olympic, foreign, etc. You can select up to 10 players (you do not HAVE to fill out your list). They do not have to be in order. The 10 players with the most votes make the HOF. Voting will stay open as long as there is active interest. We take the top 10 votegetters, in case of a tie, I will go back and ask everyone to vote on just the tied players, ranking them in order with just 1st place votes counting, then 2nd if 1st ties again, etc.

Wilt Chamberlain (all)
Oscar Robertson (all)
Jerry West (all)
Elgin Baylor (all)
Hal Greer (all)
Willis Reed (all)

Chet Walker (penbeast0, Narigo, Dutchball97, kipper34, trex_8063, 70sFan, Doctor MJ, Dr Positivity, Ryoga Hibiki, eminence)
Dave DeBusschere (penbeast0, Dutchball97, 70sFan, worldjbfree, kipper34, trex_8063, Doctor MJ, Dr Positivity, Ryoga Hibiki, eminence)

Jerry Lucas (penbeast0, Narigo, Dutchball97, 70sFan, worldjbfree, Ryoga Hibiki, eminence)
Zelmo Beaty (penbeast0, Narigo, Dutchball97, 70sFan, Doctor MJ, Dr Positivity, eminence)


RealGM PC Board 2020 HOF

Retired 1960 or before

Retired 1965 or before

Retired 1970 or before

[penbeast0]

Some candidates I’m considering who retired between 1971 and 1975

Wilt Chamberlain
Elgin Baylor
Oscar Robertson
Jerry West
Bailey Howell
Hal Greer
Walt Bellamy
Lenny Wilkens
Jerry Lucas
Chet Walker
Willis Reed
Gus Johnson
Zerlmo Beaty
Dave DeBusschere
Bill Bridges
Joe Caldwell
Roger Brown

I probably vote for Bill Bridges,Joe Caldwell or Roger Brown last vote. Neither will even get a vote here I predict. Expansion and the real era of the first modern superstars make this the first vote that really feels like a HOF vote and not a vote of the veterans committee.

[trex_8063]

Again just going to start with my initial brain-storming citing of names (edited multiple times 'cause I kept forgetting guys).....

First, the new ones who are so obvious it's like:

Spoiler:

Wilt Chamblerlain
Oscar Robertson
Jerry West
Elgin Baylor
Willis Reed (more or less)


And then there are 8 other newly eligible candidates from whom to choose the other 5:
Dave DeBusschere
Hal Greer
Chet Walker
Walt Bellamy
Bailey Howell
Jerry Lucas
Zelmo Beaty
Lenny Wilkens

I'm willing to hear arguments for one over the other (particularly among those bottom 3-5 [as it's likely three of them who will get bumped for me]).


The top HM's after that for me include (*indicating newly eligible candidates):

*Gus Johnson
*Bill Bridges
Guy Rodgers
Max Zaslofsky
Joe Fulks
*Happy Hairston
Maurice Stokes

Can't see supporting any of them now, though. The door has closed for them, as far as I'm concerned.

[penbeast0]

At the moment my top 10 are:

Wilt Chamblerlain
Oscar Robertson
Jerry West
Elgin Baylor

Dave DeBusschere -- dealing Walt Bellamy for DeBusschere seemed to be the move that made the Knicks turn the corner (as well as accepting that it was Frazier's team although Reed got the captaincy and the accolades).
Hal Greer -- most contemporaries saw him as the best off guard of the sixties over Sam Jones. Modern efficiency casts some shadow on that but supposedly his defense was outstanding as well.
Jerry Lucas -- Rainman. But his numbers are so outstanding in both rebounding, scoring efficiency, even good passing. NOt a rim protector (few PFs were) and the defensive numbers in Cincinnati weren't good but he was the other constant on those great Cincinnati offenses that were consistently near or top of the league and I saw him a lot in New York where he played good team defense even as an undersized center though his man defense in the post was not outstanding.
Willis Reed -- A bit injury prone but when playing, he was a legit great player and, as I have indicated so far, I care more about a few seasons of great play than a much longer prime of good play.

Chet Walker for 10. I'm shakier on him but he gives excellent two way play with good scoring efficiency and was a very strong player in Chicago during the early 70s as well as Philly in the late 60s.

Always liked Zelmo Beaty, sort of the 60s version of Clyde Lovellette in that he was a bit of a stretch 5 who had a rep for doing all the dirty, cheap trick stuff defensively. Another guy with knee problems; one reason he was so good in his ABA MVP season is taking a year off to rest the knees.

Bailey Howell may have been the best player on the last couple of Celtics champions offensively but I wasn't sold on his defense the way I am on Walker's and he doesn't seem to make much difference in Boston dropping off a cliff with Russell retiring (to be fair, neither did Havlicek). Earlier stints before Boston seem to be good but not great.

[eminence]

At the moment my top 10 are:

Wilt Chamblerlain
Oscar Robertson
Jerry West
Elgin Baylor

Dave DeBusschere -- dealing Walt Bellamy for DeBusschere seemed to be the move that made the Knicks turn the corner (as well as accepting that it was Frazier's team although Reed got the captaincy and the accolades).
Hal Greer -- most contemporaries saw him as the best off guard of the sixties over Sam Jones. Modern efficiency casts some shadow on that but supposedly his defense was outstanding as well.
Jerry Lucas -- Rainman. But his numbers are so outstanding in both rebounding, scoring efficiency, even good passing. NOt a rim protector (few PFs were) and the defensive numbers in Cincinnati weren't good but he was the other constant on those great Cincinnati offenses that were consistently near or top of the league and I saw him a lot in New York where he played good team defense even as an undersized center though his man defense in the post was not outstanding.
Willis Reed -- A bit injury prone but when playing, he was a legit great player and, as I have indicated so far, I care more about a few seasons of great play than a much longer prime of good play.

Chet Walker for 10. I'm shakier on him but he gives excellent two way play with good scoring efficiency and was a very strong player in Chicago during the early 70s as well as Philly in the late 60s.

Always liked Zelmo Beaty, sort of the 60s version of Clyde Lovellette in that he was a bit of a stretch 5 who had a rep for doing all the dirty, cheap trick stuff defensively. Another guy with knee problems; one reason he was so good in his ABA MVP season is taking a year off to rest the knees.

Bailey Howell may have been the best player on the last couple of Celtics champions offensively but I wasn't sold on his defense the way I am on Walker's and he doesn't seem to make much difference in Boston dropping off a cliff with Russell retiring (to be fair, neither did Havlicek). Earlier stints before Boston seem to be good but not great.

I only count 9 on your list if you want to squeeze one more in Pen

[eminence]

My initial picks.

Easy - all breeze in imo
Wilt
Oscar
West
Baylor
Reed
Greer

Not super easy, but still pretty clear decisions
Walker
Lucas

Trying to decide who should get the final two slots. DeBusschere is likely one, final one still up in the air. How do folks feel about Zelmo vs Bellamy? Those are probably the main contenders for those 2 slots.

[penbeast0]

Math, mmmmm. Have to think about #10, Beaty v. Bellamy, Howell or Gus Johnson, Lenny Wilkens might even get a look.

Looking at them it comes down to Beaty v. Howell.

[Narigo]

Wilt Chamberlain
Oscar Robertson
Jerry West
Elgin Baylor
Chet Walker
Willis Reed
Jerry Lucas
Bailey Howell
Hal Greer
Lenny Wilkens

[Dutchball97]

Wilt Chamberlain
Oscar Robertson
Jerry West
Elgin Baylor
Willis Reed
Hal Greer
Dave DeBusschere
Jerry Lucas
Chet Walker
Zelmo Beaty

The 10th spot was really difficult. I had Lenny Wilkens at first, then replaced him with Gus Johnson but honestly I think Beaty deserves it the most.

[70sFan]

For all people who pick Lucas over DeBusschere - could you elaborate that? I see Dave as clearly more impactful player based on what we've seen from both and his defense was key factor of Knicks dominance (Lucas wasn't a good defender).

My list, clear picks:

Wilt Chamberlain
Oscar Robertson
Elgin Baylor
Jerry West
Willis Reed
Hal Greer

Then I think this is my final choice:

Dave DeBusschere
Zelmo Beaty
Jerry Lucas
EDIT: Walt Bellamy -> Chet Walker

I thought about Lenny Wilkens, Chet Walker and Bailey Howell. I can see one of them over Bellamy, but right now I'm comfortable with my list.

[penbeast0]

For all people who pick Lucas over DeBusschere - could you elaborate that? I see Dave as clearly more impactful player based on what we've seen from both and his defense was key factor of Knicks dominance (Lucas wasn't a good defender).

My list, clear picks:

Wilt Chamberlain
Oscar Robertson
Elgin Baylor
Jerry West
Willis Reed
Hal Greer

Then I think this is my final choice:

Dave DeBusschere
Zelmo Beaty
Jerry Lucas
Walt Bellamy

I thought about Lenny Wilkens, Chet Walker and Bailey Howell. I can see one of them over Bellamy, but right now I'm comfortable with my list.

Lucas was the best offensive PF after Pettit retired, much better than DeBusschere. Both had excellent range and were good passers, but Lucas was more efficient and had legitimately better range. Add to that, Lucas was the best rebounding 4 in the NBA as well. Looking at how much Lucas helped his teams in his prime years in Cincinnati, he was the #2 to Oscar in what was probably the decade's best offense. Then he went to the Knicks and, without any complaints, willingly took a 6th man role backing up Willis Reed.

DeBusschere was the best defensive PF in the league but his offense was appreciably below that of Lucas. I think both are pretty clearly top 10 in the league during this era. He does have one extra tidbit; DeBusschere was traded straight up for Bellamy so you can make a first cut estimate of their relative impacts on those particular teams.

[Doctor MJ]

Alright, this one should just be fun. I've looked some ahead and realize that there will be future classes that are weak, but this one seems legendary.

Hard locks:

Wilt Chamberlain
Oscar Robertson
Jerry West
Elgin Baylor
Willis Reed

Other guys I know I need to consider:
Walt Bellamy
Chet Walker
Lenny Wilkens
Happy Hairston
Bill Bridges
Zelmo Beaty
Dick Barnett
Dave Debusschere
Hal Greer
Johnny Green
Tom Sanders
Jerry Lucas
Gus Johnson
Bailey Howell

[Dutchball97]

Alright, this one should just be fun. I've looked some ahead and realize that there will be future classes that are weak, but this one seems legendary.

Hard locks:

Wilt Chamberlain
Oscar Robertson
Jerry West
Elgin Baylor
Willis Reed

Other guys I know I need to consider:
Walt Bellamy
Chet Walker
Lenny Wilkens
Happy Hairston
Bill Bridges
Zelmo Beaty
Dick Barnett
Dave Debusschere
Hal Greer
Johnny Green
Tom Sanders
Johnny Green
Gus Johnson
Bailey Howell

No love for Jerry Lucas?

[Doctor MJ]

No love for Jerry Lucas?

Fixed. Accidentally typed Johnny Green's name twice, and that's not cool because Lucas is clearly the stronger candidate.

I'll say though, I don't know if Lucas fans are going to be happy with how I see him.

[worldjbfree]

This is where it starts getting tough. Here is my list:

Elgin Baylor
Wilt Chamberlain
Dave DeBusschere
Hal Greer
Gus Johnson
Jerry Lucas
Willis Reed
Oscar Robertson
Jerry West
Lenny Wilkens

HM: Roger Brown - I really wanted to include him, as I believe he is the best player that never played in the NBA. He just missed out on my 10 with DeBusschere/Lucas edging him for the nods.

[Dr Positivity]

Locks are Wilt, Baylor, Oscar, West, Reed, DeBusschere, Greer for me. Leaning strongly towards Walker having one of the other spots. I’m gonna say Lucas years for Knicks pushes him slight over the edge as well.

[eminence]

I probably need to look at some of the ABA guys a bit closer, Brown and Jones jump out, anybody else anyone would strongly recommend? Daniels would be obvious but had a brief NBA stint in '77.

[Doctor MJ]

Okay, this post is going to refine where I am by one step.

Before I begin I think it's important for me to emphasize that it's important for me to see how you and your role work out on great teams and against top competition. This has guided me to some of my more unpopular decisions before, and while I'm still making decisions now, it's why a guy who seems like he should be a lock is a bit less clear in my book.

I've already said that my first 5 are locks (Wilt, West, Oscar, Baylor, Reed). I think that doesn't require any elaboration. That leaves 5 more spots, here are the guys who are making it, or making me think:

Hal Greer - obvious choice based on accolades, and very clearly the #2 guy on the '67 76ers, the GOAT candidate team. Yeah, hard to imagine not voting for him.

Dave Debusschere - I think the clear #3 guy of the Holzman era Knicks, but also realistically the #2 guy as Reed's health cripples him. To me this is the team core of the decade, and someone as vital as Debusschere is hard to leave off.

Now it starts getting harder.

Chet Walker was the #3 man on the '67 76ers, would continue to be a vital part of that team as they overachieved after Wilt ditched them, and would go on to all-star success on his new team. His game and athleticism seems like something that would scale to tough situations then and now.

Bailey Howell - typically efficient scorer, was an all-star on 3 teams, and was a major part of offenses that were actually good on all 3 teams - including an Boston team that always had bad offenses...except when Bailey showed up. And granted it only happened the once and it wasn't super-elite, but this was a team that was barely hanging on and needed a shot in the arm. In those final 2 championships, I think you can make a case for Howell being the 3rd most valuable player on the team. He's really big in the 1968 Finals against a Laker team that was WAY better than people realize - new offense is incredible when West plays, but he's out for a major chunk of the year - quite literally, that team played better than the '69 team. Seems like someone who be a good fit in a wide variety of circumstances.

Jerry Lucas - I'd imagine you were wondering when I'd get to him. He's obviously a bigger star than some of the guys above. He was supposed to be an MVP level player. I always wonder what he'd have become if he wasn't drafted on to Oscar's team, but he was, and as an offensive star, Lucas' contribution his first year was to lower his the team's ORtg. Oscar did not need him to run the best offense in the league, Oscar did need help on defense. The defense got better that first year, but that was an aberration, and Lucas has never been known for defense. My general take is that Lucas was considerably less valuable on Cincinnati than I first thought. he then goes to the Warriors and never really makes a dent. The team's bad offense actually gets better when he leaves. Then he goes to the Knicks.

Lucas on the Knicks is something I'm trying to understand. He's finally on a great team, what happens? Unfair to do before/after comparisons due to Reed's injury, but what we see in the first year is him playing a huge role on a team that gets to the finals. That's not nothing, but how big of a deal is it? We know the defense is going to be worse without Reed, but you'd hope that Lucas would have a huge impact on offense. He helps to help some in this big role, but he took a much smaller role on the next team and the offense seemed better for it. Come playoff time in the championship season, it seems to be a legit question of whether he's more able to contribute value than Phil Jackson who is nowhere near a HOF type guy (as a player).

I've obviously got skepticism toward Lucas, and maybe could have myself steered in a more positive direction, but I should say: This isn't so much me grouping Lucas in with a bias I have against big man scorers who aren't great on defense, as it is that Lucas helped shape that viewpoint. Before we did the serious deep dives in projects on this board, I was arguing that Oscar might be overrated because he had Lucas, a pro prospect of very close to the same level. The fact that it turns out Oscar was the common thread in those elite offenses, and that Lucas ends up a bit of a weird-fit role player on his most successful team is one of the events that made me start thinking about how much you really get out of offensively focused bigs. (Bellamy was another guy like this, and of course Wilt's the ultimate example where his big impact pre-76ers came on defense. Wilt doesn't appear to have huge offensive impact until he takes on a different role that these other offensive bigs never take on. Might Lucas have been able to do the same? I wonder about this, but in the roles he actually played, I'm not really seeing it.)

I look at Lucas compared to the guys above, and find myself thinking the other guys seem more easily able to fit and thrive on great teams.

2 more:

Lenny Wilkens - able to do his thing forever. No one doubts he was smart as a whip, focused on defender. He lacks the All-NBA accolades of Lucas, people were also primed to anoint Lucas as a star in a way they weren't with Wilkens. Lucas makes 2nd team his first year was the offense gets worse than the year before. Lucas makes 1st team the year after taking on a bigger primacy...while both the offense and defense get worse, and the year the Royals would see an end to their 5-season in a row best ORtg that they'd had in Oscar's first 5 years. Not looking to advocate for others deserving the All-NBA spots per se, just saying, the Royals did NOT take any obvious leap forward on offense with Lucas in these years, so was he really more valuable than Wilkens playing a less scoring primacy role facilitating others and with a good defensive rep?

Zelmo Beaty - hope we have some good discussion about him. Very hard to rate in an apples-to-apples comparison because of his move to the ABA. He obviously had huge success in the ABA, and while it's important not to get too excited about that, I don't think it makes sense to say he should have done more in those years. This was a very solid player who might be able to win arguments against some of the guys above even before you consider the historical noteworthiness of being a big part of the ABA. (Folks can of course choose not to care about that at all, from my perspective, the ABA is basically responsible for pushing the NBA in the direction that would make it better to watch and eventually lead to 2010's pace & space. I don't intend to go wild with ABA guys, but it's something that is certainly not a negative for me.)

Those are the 12 guys I'm seriously considering right now.

ftr, yes, the competition is considerably harder this time around. I think you can debate Frank Ramsey vs KC Jones vs Tom Sanders, but Ramsey got in, KC wasn't quite there, and Sanders doesn't even seem like a serious candidate. That's competition advancement in a nutshell.

(Last note, someone might be able to sway me on Gus Johnson. I won't deny that I'd look at Johnson's achievement very differently if he'd been healthy in the '69 playoffs and the Bullets had lived up to their regular season record. You can use the fact they didn't to argue how valuable Johnson was, but I find myself looking at his career and feeling it doesn't quite add up to enough to get on this exclusive list.)

[Doctor MJ]

I probably need to look at some of the ABA guys a bit closer, Brown and Jones jump out, anybody else anyone would strongly recommend? Daniels would be obvious but had a brief NBA stint in '77.

If you're thinking of Jimmy Jones, he retired in 1977.

As for Roger Brown, it's hard for me to put him ahead of Zelmo. Zelmo is 3 years older, comes right in an leads a team to a tile at a time when Brown is no loner the best on his team (Daniels), and continues playing well at an older age.

I think the ABA is a really big deal and players should be celebrated for it, but the biggest guys aren't eligible yet, and the guy who seems most worthy of a nudge this time around is Zelmo to me.

[Owly]

I probably need to look at some of the ABA guys a bit closer, Brown and Jones jump out, anybody else anyone would strongly recommend? Daniels would be obvious but had a brief NBA stint in '77.

If you're thinking of Jimmy Jones, he retired in 1977.

As for Roger Brown, it's hard for me to put him ahead of Zelmo. Zelmo is 3 years older, comes right in an leads a team to a tile at a time when Brown is no loner the best on his team (Daniels), and continues playing well at an older age.

I think the ABA is a really big deal and players should be celebrated for it, but the biggest guys aren't eligible yet, and the guy who seems most worthy of a nudge this time around is Zelmo to me.

Guess would be Larry Jones (just on timeline). Both peaked in a weak league, wouldn't be on my radar ... but we'll find out.

[Greer] very clearly the #2 guy on the '67 76ers

Box composites, RS and playoffs, don't exactly agree, and Walker actually seems a purer shooter for his position. Even accounting for position the WS/48 gap is very big (RS or playoffs). Greer has minutes, tertiary playmaking (though this is attempted to be accounted for in the box, but an advantage) and a slightly better defensive rep, I think (and weaker backup for value within context/explanation of minutes). Doesn't seem that clear cut, imo.


RE; Lucas he has some bad wowy data for the 60s.

Might be out on this for some time. Stay safe you guys.