Basketball HOF Still Lowering the Bar for Foreign Players

[AHF]

Sorry this is a long-term gripe of mine that is about why the basketball hall of fame cares more about ticking boxes than recognizing the greatest players in NBA history.

Toni Kukoc was elected to the HOF this week.  I'm sure you remember him as the 4th wheel from some great Bulls teams.  He is the guy who never made an All-Star team and averaged 11.6 ppg, 4.2 rpg and 3.7 apg over 13 seasons in the NBA.  

I'm not sure how this standard doesn't guarantee Stephon Marbury a chance to punch his ticket for his work in China but since he wasn't born in Croatia or South America, etc. I'm guessing Marbury won't get to enjoy that sweet low bar for foreign born players.

You might remember some of the Americans who still haven't been admitted to the HOF because they don't credit their success as measuring up to what Kukoc did while starring for the lower level competition outside of the US:

Lou Hudson - 6x All-Star, 2nd Team All-NBA for the Hawks who averaged 22 points, 4.9 rebounds, 2.9 assists over his 11 years with the team

Tim Hardaway - 5x All-Star, 5x All-NBA to go with a career line of 18 points, 8 assists and 3 rebounds should have him in there easily over the Croatian Sensation

Kevin Johnson - Very similar case to TH.  5x All-Star, 5x All-NBA while putting up 19 & 9.  6th in NBA history in APG.

Ben Wallace - 4x DPOY, 4x All-Star, 6x All-NBA Defense and 5x All-NBA can't compare to Kukoc's 1-time 6th Man of the Year award I guess

Shawn Kemp - 6x All-Star, 3x All-NBA with a string of ~20/10 type seasons to go with his legendary dunking flair

Tom Chambers - 4x All-Star, 2x All-NBA scored over 10,000 more points (and more than double his total) than Kukoc

There are more than this and probably literally hundreds of players who were All-Stars and will never even enter the discussion because they didn't dominate in Europe or Asia, etc. when they were in their early 20's.  

 

Anyway, every time some decent foreign NBA player who couldn't even make a single All-Star game gets into the Naismith HOF it bothers the **** out of me.  If they made a special institution like the College Hall of Fame to cover non-NBA contributions to the game then I would cheer Kukoc on.  But when Sweet Lou can't get considered by Kukoc waltzes in it feels to me like we have lowered the bar and disrespected some of the game's much more worthy candidates.

Foreign players should need to have NBA success worthy of entrance to make the list, imo.  Everything other than the NBA is the minor leagues and nobody is giving Joe Bauman a ticket to the baseball HOF despite having hit .400 in a season, 72 home runs in a season (setting the then record for all levels of professional baseball) and even hit a crazy 224 RBIs in a single season.  (Yes that was two hundred twenty four).  https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=bauman001joe  

The baseball HOF doesn't give a **** because it wasn't against MLB competition.  A thoughtful degree of discounting for non-NBA achievements should likewise apply to Kukoc's Italian League and Euro League success, imo.  

[Spud2nique]

F the waiter.  

Agree others on the list should be in. Watched Timmy his whole career. He should be in without question, KJ too. Kemp also, then again I’m biased to that era I grew up in.

But F Kukoc 

[AHF]

18 hours ago, Spud2nique said:

F the waiter.  

Agree others on the list should be in. Watched Timmy his whole career. He should be in without question, KJ too. Kemp also, then again I’m biased to that era I grew up in.

But F Kukoc 

Kukoc was a fine player but is his NBA really different than someone like Tayshaun Prince, Corey Maggette or Mike Miller?  

Nobody would consider those guys for the HOF.  Just because he played in Yugoslavian and Italian leagues before coming to the NBA why should that transform him from someone like Mike Miller who just was a nice NBA player who won a single 6th Man of the Year award into a HOFer?  Nobody cares about how great Christian Laettner or Tyler Hansborough or Shane Battier or Sheldon Williams were in college as far as the case for the Naismith HOF.  Nobody should care about being College Basketball POY or Euroleague MVP either.

[kg01]

There should be an NBA Hall ......... and somewhere over in Europe, they can have a "Basketball Hall" for all these folks we never heard of.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure Oscar Schmidt (I think that's his name) is really good among his peers.  But if we're talking about the greatest to ever do it, you have to grade on a curve that results in mostly NBA players making it in.  For better or worse, it's the best league in the world.  Making it there should mean more than playing ok in a foreign league.

[Atlantaholic]

Yup, absolutely not deserving of the Hall of Fame. Great player, important player in the history of the league for sure, but Hall of famer? Sorry, but absolutely not, not when there are dozens if not hundreds of more deserving players that have not made it and won't make it. 

[Spud2nique]

8 hours ago, kg01 said:

I'm sure Oscar Schmidt (I think that's his name)

U think? Get out!