RealGM

Bill Simmons had a great idea years ago about the NBA should have its own Hall of Fame (of course, this won't happen) and make it a pyramid-with 5 levels. Then, all inductees would be slotted into a tier, based on their greatness.
So, if we had this idea in realty-which would be AWESOME for all of us hardcore fans to endless argue about-what would it look like and where would current players fall?

A twist-I say all current HoF players and select, respected media types each get votes. Each tier would have a limited number of places, and when voting, they would only have 3 votes for the GOAT tier, 10 votes for the Legend Tier, and so on. They would vote on criteria like greatness, peak, longevity, impact on the game-the debates would be ENDLESS
You could also have Coaches in these tiers (1 in the GOAT tier, 2 in the Legends Tier and so on)

The 5 Tiers would be-with who would fall there (how I would vote)

GOAT Tier-LBJ, MJ, KAJ (3 places)
Legend Tier-Hakeem, Magic, Bird, Shaq, Duncan, Wilt, Russell. Kobe, Dr. J and KG (10 places)
Superstar Tier-Guys like Ewing, DRob, Dirk, Petit, Pippen, Barkley, West, Mikan, The Big O. Stockton, Malone and others (25 places)
All Star Tier-guys who come to mind are Melo, Gasol, Drexler-this one would be like 40 places
Star Tier-this is for the Mitch Richmond, Joe Dumars types. Quality players for sure, but never were really big stars

The competition would be fierce and would help keep the history of the game alive. One issue would be how older and dead players are treated-since their times would be largely forgotten

Then, you would have to think of where the current players would end up.
I would say Giannis has the best chance to crack the Legend Tier, then KD/Curry and maybe Jokic. With a limited number of spots in the top 3 tiers, it would be interesting to see if players protect/promote their legacies more. FOR SURE, many players would get upset who were not put in the right tier-but that would part of the beauty of it.

Thoughts?

is a fun exercise but i would hate an actual hof like this one

hof are about celebrating the greats, everyone else can rank them however they want

in other words we already know jordan is greater/better thsn drexler, no need to have a plaque in clyde spot saying "here is clyde drexler, he is a third rate hall of famer"

An idea like that is fine for a book but not for a hof. You can already see what a horrible job the nba just did with the most recent top 75 list.

pipfan wrote:...

I agree it wouldn't be ideal for the real HOF (though I would put veterans committee, ABA committee, etc. tags on people who are in due to one of the committees rather than the normal voting process).

In terms of your tiers:

Russell is a given in GOAT tier, whichever of the other 3 you need to drop. I'd call it a 5 person tier and add Wilt too. He was the most dominant player in NBA history and while you can call the 60s a weaker era, the only way to drop him below those guys is if you are a time machine person or if you value stats over impact on winning.

In a similar vein, Mikan should be in Legends, he was easily the best in the league for a reasonable stretch, drop a guy like Garnett who never was the league's best player.