All About the Basketball Hall of Fame and Why Allen Iverson Must Stay out of the Hood and Out of Trouble

We cap off “History Week” at Quest for the Ring (QFTR) with a Report on the Basketball Hall of Fame and just how difficult it is to get that ultimate recognition. Plus this one will remind readers that QFTR is obsessed with how many times that Allen Iverson has ended up with the short end of the stick in the media and also on the court despite the fact that he made many millions of dollars for many people as an historic, superstar guard and as a cultural icon. Specifically, QFTR is obsessed with whether and when Iverson will be admitted into the Hall of Fame.

QFTR is normally not all that interested in the Basketball Hall of Fame itself. For one thing, it is just one award of many that superstar and star basketball players can win. MVP is considered to be an equal award. QFTR is most interested, of course, in who wins Rings and why and who does not and why.

But there is one player who just retired who, if he were never admitted, would create a big problem, It would be fairly shocking and would in fact be a major scandal. Of course we are talking about Allen Iverson. There is a slight chance that Iverson will in fact be snubbed (never admitted). If so, it would not only be a scandal but it would prove that the committees that determine who is admitted are more focused on styles, personalities, and possibly even politics and less focused on basketball itself than we thought.

Due to this Iverson Hall of Fame question, which will be hanging out there uncertainly for a decade and probably more, we thought we would scope out the “Hall of Fame thing” carefully and in some detail with the assistance of the new Recognition Scores Report.

The new Recognition Scores just published two days ago here at QFTR can be used to some extent to correctly predict who will eventually be admitted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. As a very rough rule of thumb, players whose Recognition Scores are ten or more are extremely likely to eventually be admitted to the Hall of Fame. The odds for them approach 100%.

There has never been a player with a Score of ten or more who has not and clearly will never be admitted. If Iverson were not admitted, he would most likely be the first player ever with a very high Recognition Score who is not admitted.

I think the window in effect right now during which retired superstar players can be admitted runs from roughly five years after retirement to roughly 25 years after retirement, a 20 year period. If a former superstar becomes a manager or especially if he becomes a coach after he retires as a player, the 20 year clock may stop running, especially if the former player involved is not considered to be one who will inevitably be admitted sooner or later. In other words, it is possible that a superstar who would have been admitted had he never become a coach (had he immediately retired from basketball completely) is never admitted if for example he becomes an obscure coach and/or a coach who doesn’t do very well at coaching.

That means no coaching for you, Allen Iverson. But we didn’t have to worry about that, did we, given your views on practice, laugh out loud.

Personalities and styles are factors in how long it takes former superstar players to be admitted to the Hall of Fame and possibly, in certain cases, whether certain superstar players are ever admitted. This is so despite the fact that personalities and styles have little to do with what players did on the court.

The less smooth a superstar player's personality is, the longer that player has to wait to be admitted. The more a player is regarded as a “good citizen,” with a good personality, the less the former superstar player has to wait to be admitted.

Similarly, the more a player’s style “rubs many people the wrong way,” the longer the wait will be, and the greater the chance the former superstar player is snubbed by the Hall of Fame committees. The more a former superstar’s player’s style was a “crowd pleaser,” the quicker he will be admitted.

RETIRED SUPERSTARS IN THE LONG WAIT FOR THE HALL OF FAME TO LET THEM IN
Here is a list of retired players with Recognition scores greater than eight who have not yet been admitted to the Hall of Fame.

Gary Payton 17.35
Dennis Rodman 17.00
Dikembe Mutombo 15.95
Michael Cooper 13.20
Sidney Moncrief 11.85
Allen Iverson 10.90
Alonzo Mourning 9.55
Bruce Bowen 8.80
Mark Eaton 8.40

What about the long term prospects of these nine former players? Let’s start with the obvious: there is a 100% chance that Mutombo will be admitted.

Mutombo, Iverson, and Bowen are apparently newly retired as of the end of the 2009-10 season. It is far, far too early to be thinking about them soon going into the Hall of Fame. Since the committees that accept players into the Hall of Fame take their sweet time measured in years, newly retired players have to wait roughly five years at the very least before they are admitted even if it is inevitable that they will eventually be admitted. Michael Jordan, most likely the best basketball player of the modern era, was admitted just about as quickly as possible yet he was not admitted until six years after he retired as a NBA player.

I think there is roughly an 85% chance that Iverson will eventually be admitted. I used to think there was about a 95% chance that Iverson will be admitted, but that was before I found out very recently that it is even a little harder than I thought to get into the Hall of Fame. I still think that Iverson will eventually be admitted but it is most likely going to be many years before he is (ten, twenty, even thirty years). In the past even more so than today there were many players not admitted until they were in their 50’s or 60's or even older than that.

Gary Payton just retired about three years ago so it is still way too early for him to be admitted. Dennis Rodman retired about ten years ago so it is still early in the 5-25 years after retirement window for him to be admitted. Based on their extremely high recognition scores, you would have to say that both of these extremely recognized players are going to be admitted when the committees are good and ready to let them in.

Gary Payton is definitely eventually going to be admitted; although his personality and style are not the smoothest and most crowd pleasing ones ever, his sky high recognition score trumps that and ensures his admission.

But Dennis Rodmans' personality and style are roughly as "controversial" as Iversons' among the foolish people who think these things are important. Therefore we think that Rodman will have to wait an extra 5, 10 or even 20 years (on top of the standard 5 year wait) before he is admitted. Specifically, Rodman's window runs from roughly 2010 to 2025. Iversons' window runs 10 years later, from 2020 to 2035, mostly because he retired 10 years later.

But do we know absolutely for certain that Rodman will be admitted? No, we don't! If Rodman were snubbed, it would drastically increase the odds that Iverson would be snubbed by and never admitted to the Hall of Fame. In fact, if Rodman is never admitted, it will make it very likely that Iverson will never be admitted either. After all, Iverson's Recognition Score is substantially lower than Rodman's. Hopefully, it is going overboard to think that either Rodman or Iverson, because of their personalities and styles, will suffer anythink other than a long, long wait.

Michael Cooper and Sidney Moncrief are two players with Recognition Scores of 13.20 and 11.85 respectively but they have not yet been admitted even though it has been about twenty years since both of them played.

Michael Cooper retired 20 years ago as a NBA player but then he became a coach. For former superstars not considered to be automatic Hall of Famers, the window often (but not always) runs from when the superstar retires from basketball as a whole, so Cooper’s window has probably not even started yet. But incidentally, when someone retires from basketball entirely at an advanced age, the window is shorter and starts a year or two sooner than the usual five years after retirement. Because the committees want to get as many as possible into the Hall of Fame before they pass away rather than after. (At least there is one thing they speed things up for.) So Cooper can expect to be admitted between roughly three and twelve years after he completely retires from basketball.

Similarly, Sidney Moncrief retired as a NBA player almost twenty years ago but he is still working in basketball. In 2006, Moncrief returned to basketball as the head coach of the Fort Worth Flyers, a professional basketball team in the NBA D-League. He rejoined the NBA in October 2007 when he became the shooting coach for the Golden State Warriors. The odds are that when Moncrief completely retires from basketball, his window for being admitted to the Hall of Fame will start and that he will be admitted between about three and twelve years after that final retirement.

However, if either Cooper or Moncrief are never admitted, it would substantially increase the odds that Iverson will never be admitted, because they have similar Recognition Scores to Iverson (slightly higher, in fact). Therefore, Cooper and Moncrief have to be admitted for anyone worrying about Iverson to be able to have full confidence that Iverson will be admitted.

On the other hand, it is certainly possible that Iverson could be admitted even if one or both of Cooper and Moncrief are not admitted. After all, Cooper and Moncriefs' Recognition scores are only slightly higher than Iversons' and, also after all, the selection process is not entirely scientific or predictible.

Alonzo Mourning just retired two years ago so it is way too early for him to be admitted. I am thinking there is a 100% chance he will be admitted because his Recognition Score is just about 10 and I do believe his personality is considered a very good one by many people.

You know I cringe when I write that because personalities should not be significant factors but I know that they are factors, not only for the Hall of Fame but even for playing time on certain NBA teams. Yes, that would include you, Denver.

I think that defensive specialist Bruce Bowen is definitely going to be admitted. Such specialists appear to have a slightly easier time getting admitted to the Hall of Fame, which gets me just a little bit worried about Iverson again, because Iverson was definitely not a defensive specialist.

Finally, Mark Eaton retired about seventeen years ago and so it is starting to get to the later part of the window where he is most likely to be admitted. But there is still at least eight years left in Eaton’s window. In this case the committees are probably showing just how slow they can be in the case of a “less inevitable admission,” or in other words a more marginal admission.

JUST HOW LONG IS IT GOING TO TAKE FOR IVERSON TO BE ADMITTED TO THE HALL OF FAME?
I am thinking the committees will string Iverson along not so much because he is not considered to be inevitable but rather because of the personality and also the style stuff. The fact that Iverson was moved to the wrong position (from point guard to shooting guard) which backfired and made a style issue worse rather than better, will probably cost Iverson another year or two or three of waiting on top of an already long wait due to his strong and colorful personality. My bottom line is that I think it will be ten to twenty years before Iverson is admitted to the Basketball Hall of Fame. He will very probably be admitted sometime between 2020 and 2030.

However, if Iverson unexpectedly gets into legal trouble again then all bets are off. He had better stay out the hood. Invite the hood homies out the suburbs, Allen!

(Given these gargantuan time lines I had at least five years to get this Report out but I decided to make my deadline by a record margin, laugh out loud.)

CURRENT PLAYERS EXTREMELY LIKELY TO EVENTUALLY BE IN THE HALL OF FAME
This would be current players who have Recognition Scores of ten or more:

Tim Duncan 33.30
Kobe Bryant 26.10
Shaquille O'Neal 22.45
Kevin Garnett 21.25
Ben Wallace 18.45
LeBron James 15.25
Jason Kidd 14.10
Steve Nash 11.50
Dirk Nowitzki 11.00
Dwight Howard 10.90

Iverson’s score is 10.90 for comparison.

In general the odds that a former superstar basketball player will get into the Hall of Fame are in the vicinity of 100% when his Recognition Score is ten or more. But again, those with controversial personalities and styles need higher scores to absolutely guarantee admission. An absolute guarantee for a superstar widely claimed to have a "bad personality" and/or a "bad style" would require a Recognition Score of fifteen or even twenty. Unfortunately (and to me this is a scandal) Iversons' score does not absolutely guarantee he will be admitted.

Moreover, if a former superstar were to commit a crime and/or be involved in a major media scandal after he retires and before he is admitted, it could conceivably ruin his chances regardless of Recognition Score.

Those with scores between eight and ten are not almost automatic but are very, very likely to eventually be Hall of Famers. Right now, all of the players in this range are retired and we just discussed them above.

As a rough approximation, if you multiply the Recognition score by ten, you have a rough approximation of the odds that the player will eventually be in the Hall of Fame. For example, if a player has a score of 5, the odds are roughly 50% that he will eventually be admitted into the Hall of Fame.

Out of the 39 former superstar NBA players in the Hall of Fame, sixteen have Recognition Scores between three and five. However, it will be more difficult to get into the Hall of Fame with a score in this range in the future because there are more available awards now than there were back in the 1980’s and 1970’s. Also, the Hall of Fame committees seem intent on arbitrarily limiting the number of players who can be admitted each year despite the fact that there are more NBA teams and more superstars now than there were back when they determined this arbitrary limit.

No player has ever reached the Hall of Fame with a Recognition Score less than three and almost certainly none ever will.

Now that you know exactly how to do it, see the Report “Most Recognized High Impact Pro Basketball Players 1980-2010” to find out the Hall of Fame chances for various NBA superstars.

SHAME ON THE AMATEUR PERSONALITY, CULTURE, AND STYLE JUDGES
To close this out let’s face the truth: having a strong personality, having strong beliefs, being a member of a racial minority, being a member of a cultural minority, having an unusual style that for one obscure reason or another fails to please the crowd, and things such as these, are often held against you (often secretly of course) in American society. Resulting damage to both society and those being discriminated against varies radically from one case to another.

Shame on everyone who discriminates based on personality, race, culture, style, things of this nature. One of the main reasons I do sports instead of politics or something like that is because all sports are supposed to be free of these kinds of discriminations. But sports including basketball are not completely free of these biases. Evaluate basketball players on basketball and leave all the other extraneous stuff out of it or shame on you.