Basketball Hall of Fame keeps past stars waiting, but for some, it's too late

Reggie Miller’s credentials for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame were nearly impeccable from the moment he called it quits on his NBA career in 2005.

Naturally, when his name was announced as part of the Class of 2012 Monday in New Orleans, everybody’s first reaction was: What took him so long?

And he had only waited one year.

Imagine what Mel Daniels must have felt like, or Chet Walker. Wait, you don’t have to imagine.

“I’m 72 years old. I didn’t think it was going to happen when I was alive,” said Walker, a star for the 76ers and Bulls in the 1960s and ’70s. “That’s the scary part. Guys like Gus Johnson and Dennis Johnson passed away before they got in.”

Walker’s wait—highlighted when he was selected in February by a special veterans committee—was 32 years after first becoming eligible. “We don’t have 32 more years,” Daniels said, with a grin.

Daniels was pitching for other fellow ABA stars to be recognized—that was how he, a bedrock of the Indiana Pacers’ three championship teams, got his place in Springfield, through another special committee. The ABA, all but the four teams that moved to the NBA, expired in 1977.

In a nod to his fellow Pacers enshrinee, Daniels added: “It’s Miller time!”

— Reggie Miller leads 2012 Hall of Fame class

So in a way, Reggie Miller was lucky. But he’s still the norm. You have to be Michael, Magic, Larry and that ilk to make it to this Hall on the first try.

There are decades worth of mistakes, omissions, oversights and, yes, outright snubs that need reversing, possibly more than in any other major sports hall of fame. No such shrine was more divorced for rhyme, reason—and, worst of all, accountability—than this one.

The newest inductees say it’s getting better. That is, the newest who also happen to be the oldest, who had the longest waits. One Class of ’12 member, though, was not represented at Monday’s announcement: Don Barksdale, the first African-American on the U.S. Olympic basketball team and the first to play in the NBA All-Star Game, who died 19 years ago.

Chet Walker’s worst nightmare was experienced by that pioneer—who, yes, was another choice of a special committee.

These are all committees formed on the watch of Jerry Colangelo, who became chairman of the board of governors two years ago. Walker and Daniels praised Colangelo, who, as Walker put it, “created a system for people to get in where they didn’t have an opportunity to get in before.”

Part of the Hall of Fame announcement ceremony the last two years, in fact, has included a few words from Colangelo about how the Hall is trying to do better. He generally talks about the changes in the process and increasing “transparency.”

“This was a very important initiative that I undertook two years ago,” he said Monday before the new electees were introduced, “in a sense that there were many individuals who had slipped through the cracks, who really deserved to be recognized.”

Of course, whatever Colangelo was undertaking was undermined minutes later when Nike mogul Phil Knight walked across the stage.

While the process is improving, it still drags. As Miller was missing the finalist cut last year, the Hall finally got around to inducting the likes of Satch Sanders, Artis Gilmore, Goose Tatum and Tex Winter. Clearly, there’s an insane backlog. It only gets worse every year.

Case in point: the next thought most fans had after shaking their heads over Miller’s delayed induction, was, “No Bernard King?” He’s been retired since 1993.

Another case: Daniels was asked what other strictly-ABA names deserved to join him in Springfield—excluding players like Julius Erving and George Gervin, whose stardom continued in the NBA. One name he gave was former Pacers teammate Roger Brown, who everybody that saw him insists is the best small forward in the league’s history, Erving included.

“I know people think I’m crazy,’” Daniels said, “but he’s the closest person I’ve ever seen to Michael Jordan, and I was a scout for 20 years.”

You probably know how this story ends. It doesn’t end with Roger Brown in the Hall, decades of wrong finally righted.

It ended, for Brown, when he passed away in 1997.