Quantity or Quality? When it Comes to the Hall of Fame, the NBA Doesn’t Seem to Know the Difference.

What makes for a successful career in sports? A championship? A record-setting contract? A statue? While most pros would probably gladly take all three (but only that last one as long as it wasn’t made out of balsa wood), the real pinnacle of success comes with Hall of Fame enshrinement. This tells the world that you’ve made it to the top, that you’re truly the best of the best at what you did.

Any sports Hall of Fame should – rightfully – be tough to get into. It does seem, however, that the gates can be closed a little too tightly at times, as NFL voters recently proved, keeping a coach out (temporarily) who has the most playoff wins and Super Bowl victories. MLB is another league that doesn’t always make it easy to get to Cooperstown, as it refuses to induct the best defensive first baseman of all time.

Then there’s the NBA. While it’s hard to argue that this league doesn’t employ the premier athletes in all of sports, it’s also hard to dispute the fact that it’s the most lenient when it comes to Hall of Fame criteria.

Look at Bill Walton (who, incidentally, has a massive sculpture of just his head in Springfield; it’s one of the few things I remember from the visit). Thanks in large part to extensive injuries, he only had a few dominant seasons in the NBA. While he does have a couple of championships, one was as a reserve for the Celtics late in his career. His lone MVP award came in a season in which he only played 58 games, which, by today’s league standards, he wouldn’t have even qualified for. Walton did have a fantastic four-year stint at UCLA, and the NBA has some cover here as its Hall of Fame isn’t strictly for pros.

Now let’s take someone who makes Walton look like LeBron: Dennis Rodman. Yes, he was a phenomenal rebounder, but that’s kind of all he did. In 14 seasons, he averaged just 7.3 points per game. Areas where he did stand out, however, include technical fouls (fifth all-time) and ejections (tied for eighth all-time).

This leads me to the soon-to-be-inducted Doc Rivers. As a player, his numbers are pretty pedestrian. In his 13 years, he averaged about 11 points and 5.5 assists per game, with one All-Star selection. It’s safe to say that the only reason he’s getting a Hall nod is due to his time as a coach. After 27 years on the bench, he’s fourth all-time in games coached and sixth in regular-season wins. And while those numbers look great on the surface, they seem to be much more indicative of longevity rather than real success.

Coaches make a name for themselves when the regular season ends, and here, Rivers has been less than stellar. While he has taken every team he’s helmed to the playoffs, his overall record is just 114-112, which puts him at 49th on the all-time winning percentage list.

With the Sixers, he compiled a record of 154-82 but never took them past the second round of the playoffs. He was a gaudy 356-208 with the Clippers but couldn’t make it out of the semifinals. Of course he had his most success with Boston, winning the title in 2008. But even there he seemed to underachieve, with the team only reaching the 50-win mark in four of his nine years. Underachievement was certainly a theme with the Bucks as well, as the team’s two trips to the playoffs in his three seasons resulted in opening-round losses.

A long list of accomplishments, yes, but not a particularly impressive one. Surely not one you would use to try to motivate your team after yet another blowout, right? Well, that’s exactly what Rivers did after a loss in March, telling his team to Google him so they could look at his résumé and see that he “took teams to the playoffs and championship that weren’t supposed to be there.” Apparently, players were underwhelmed, and it’s not too surprising that Rivers now finds himself out in Milwaukee.

Forty-plus years in any industry – especially as one as high-pressure as the NBA – is certainly nothing to sneeze at. But, when it comes to the Hall of Fame, shouldn’t the standards be loftier? Should people get rewarded just because they’ve managed to stick around for a while? Ultimately, should NBA stand for Not Bad, Actually?