Doctor MJ wrote:Wolveswin wrote:Doctor MJ wrote:
No, it literally can't. These are two different purposes, and there's absolutely no reason to think you can optimize for both simultaneously.
This isn't me saying "So Horry should be in the Hall" because I voted no, but the HOF is not a GOAT list, it's a physical museum that charges for admission and does things like advertising that it's a great place for student trips and children's birthday parties.
And you literally think they can’t have simultaneously their physical hall of tourist attraction AND have their hall of basketball fame? Please.
Players being voted in should be elite (and this has nothing to do with Horry). Generational talent, the most rarefied air of which a player can be voted into. Watering it down (not the tourist attraction) does no one a good service.
There's so much you're assuming in the words you're using. Look at the way you just separated "hall of tourist attraction" and "hall of basketball fame" with the clear implication that you think a "hall of basketball fame" is synonymous with an elite GOAT list. It isn't.
Hall of Fames were not invented for sports or competitions - they are museums - and note that "fame" doesn't mean "competitive greatness".
Let's also note that it is called the basketball HOF, not the NBA. The NBA is just the modern cherry-on-top of the ice cream sundae that is the phenomenon of basketball, and quite a lot of the stuff they focus on is about how the game rose to become what it has...which for the most part really isn't about individual players. The individual players are focused on because they help communicate the story of basketball, not because it was deemed of vital importance to create a super-elite list of basketball players.
So it's not a matter of whether they can achieve your notion of a GOAT list and sell tickets at the same time, it's a matter that there is no actual reason for them to be focusing on your GOAT list approach at all as if it is a goal, and thus the players they select are bound to disagree with your notions of elite purity.
Now, as I say all that: It's not just you that's thinking like this, and some who think similar to you probably have HOF votes. I don't mean to deny that there's been actual drift in people's understanding of what the priority of the HOF is, because if that hadn't occurred, you wouldn't be advocating for what you are.
What I object to though is the umbrage that people take at the idea that it's effectively ruining the HOF to include players below a certain threshold of greatness that basically looks to avoid exposing people to knowledge that's most in danger of being forgotten. I've said it before and I've said it again:
If you don't know tons about basketball history to the point that you can have a knowledgeable opinion about the vast majority of the people in the Hall, then you shouldn't be putting yourself out there as the judge of what deserves to pass through these gates, you should be looking to learn.
That's what the Hall is there for, and that's why I'm telling you you've missed the point.