The Basketball Hall Of Fame Continues To Screw Things Up By Inducting The Dream Team This Year

Once again, the Basketball Hall of Fame has managed to screw things up.

But what can you expect from an institution that didn’t consider Dominique Wilkins to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer, made Adrian Dantley wait 17 years after his retirement to get in and is just now inducting Dennis Johnson posthumously, even though DJ retired in 1990 and Larry Bird has forever called him “the best player I ever played with”?

The screw up this time?

Inducting the entire 1992 Olympic Dream Team in 2010.

I have no problem seeing the Dream Team get inducted, and frankly, they should get inducted. But not a mere 18 years after securing the gold medal in Barcelona. The Dream Team has no business being inducted this year. It will inevitably rain on the parade of deserving inductees Scottie Pippen, Karl Malone and Johnson, and steal the thunder from the entire 1960 Olympic Team, also being inducted this year. Not to mention inducting the Dream Team now will be somewhat embarrassing for Dream Teamer Chris Mullin, who was eligible for induction alongside Pippen and Malone but got passed over.

Conversely, inducting the 1960 Olympic team -- a squad that featured all-time greats Jerry West and Oscar Robertson in addition to Hall of Famers Walt Bellamy and Jerry Lucas -- this year makes perfect sense. It’s the 50th anniversary of their incredible accomplishment in Rome when they beat the Soviet Union, Brazil, Italy and everyone else en route to the gold medal. Moreover, too many of today’s basketball fans have no knowledge or appreciation for that team, so inducting them together now gives us all a much needed history lesson.

The Dream Team induction, on the other hand, should either be saved for their 50th anniversary or for a “thin” induction year at the hall. For example, in 2005 the Hall of Fame inducted Jim Boeheim, Hubie Brown, Jim Calhoun, Sue Gunter (a woman’s college basketball coach) and Hortenciade Fatima Marcari -- a standout women’s player from Brazil. That’s the type of year where you squeeze in the Dream Team.

I probably shouldn’t feel bad for guys like Pippen and Malone who stuck around long enough to reap the rewards of max contracts (according to basketball-reference.com, both players made over $100 million during their NBA careers). But on their signature day to close out their fantastic basketball lives, it has to be disappointing to share the spotlight with the same guys they had to share it with for their entire careers. Just when Pippen and Malone were about to have the opportunity to shine without Michael Jordan and John Stockton, respectively, hogging the spotlight alongside them, the Hall of Fame is forcing them to play second -- and in some cases, third -- fiddle yet again. And thus I don’t blame Malone for skipping the obligatory Hall of Fame induction announcement during the Final Four this past weekend.

Inducting the Dream Team is a great idea. It’s just 32 years too soon.

(Postscript: Among die-hard sports fans who argue about things like “what Hall of Fame is the toughest to get into?”, the basketball Hall of Fame – for a hoops junkie like me – is indefensible. Who gets in and who is shut out makes absolutely no sense at all, and hasn’t since the institution’s inception. After all, how can Dennis Johnson be denied entry for nearly two decades while a Brazilian women’s player gets in just nine years after her career is concluded? I bet the Mascot Hall of Fame has more consistency in regards to who gets inducted than the esteemed hall that resides in Springfield, Massachusetts.

And even the induction ceremony itself at the basketball Hall of Fame is a bit bizarre. Unlike the baseball or football Halls of Fame whose inductees are introduced properly by a person of their choosing which generally warms up the crowd, the basketball Hall of Fame mandates that an inductee’s “presenter” simply walk the inductee up the steps to the podium and then stand uncomfortably while the inductee speaks.)