We have a major update on our Notinhalloffame Basketball Hall of Fame Monitor, where we have now divided our Top 50 Active Players into five positional categories:

Point Guards
Shooting Guards
Small Forwards
Power Forwards
Centers

In each position, we utilize the average traditional and advanced statistics of the last five players who reached the Hall of Fame, but not their induction year, but rather the last five whose Peak Period occurred.  This means that no Senior induction will be part of the average.

The statistical bars we are looking at are:

Games Played
*All-NBA
All-Star
**MVP
***All-Defensive
**Defensive Player of the Year
Points per Game
****Peak Period Points per Game
Total Points
****Peak Period Total Points
Rebounds per Game
****Peak Period Rebounds per Game
Total Rebounds
****Peak Period Total Rebounds
Assists per Game
****Peak Period Assists per Game
Total Assists
****Peak Period Total Assists
Steals per Game
*****Peak Period Steals per Game
Total Steals
****Peak Period Total Steals
Blocks per Game
****Peak Period Blocks per Game
Total Blocks
****Peal Period Total Blocks
Playoff Games
PER
****Peak Period PER
Win Shares
****Peak Period Win Shares
VORP
****Peak Period VORP
Conference Championships
NBA Championships

*All-NBA have weighted points.  3 for the First Team, 2 for the Second Team, and 1 for the Third Team.

**MVP and Defensive Player of the Year have weighted points.  10 for 1^st Place, 9 for 2^nd Place, 8 for 3^rd Place, 7 for 4^th Place, 6 for 5^th Place, 5 for 6^th Place, 4 for 7^th Place, 3 for 8^th Place, 2 for 9^th Place and 1 for 10^th Place.

***All-Defensive have weighted points.  2 for the First Team, 1 for the Second Team.

****Peak Period is the best seven consecutive seasons by a player.

This will be updated at the end of the season.

We look forward to your input, and as always, we thank you for your support.

Today the 2023-24 NBA Regular Season begins and with that we are thrilled to announce that we have updated our Notinhalloffame.com Basketball Hall of Fame Monitor of active players based on their existent accomplishments.

You can see the complete list here, but we are presenting the Pre-2023-24 Top 10 Active Players immediately!

#1. LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers

#2. Kevin Durant, Phoenix Suns

#3. Steph Curry, Golden State Warriors

#4. Chris Paul, Golden State Warriors

#5. Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks

#6. Nikola Jokic, Denver Nuggets

#7. James Harden, Philadelphia 76ers

#8. Russell Westbrook, Los Angeles Clippers

#9. Anthony Davis, Los Angeles Lakers

#10. Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers

Look for many more lists, list revisions, podcasts and more content soon!

The complex history of James Harden had a brief stop in Brooklyn, where as tumultuous as he might be, “The Beard” was still one of the top performers in Basketball.

After years of All-Star seasons, all with growing frustration that his Houston Rockets could not make the Finals, Harden asked for a trade in the 2020 off-season. Eight Games into the year, Harden obtained his wish, traded to the East with the Brooklyn Nets, who formed a new “Big Three” with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant. The promise was there, but the results did not matriculate.

The trio were rarely on the floor together due to rotating injuries, but Harden always sparked for the Nets when he played.  An All-Star in 2021, Harden was still a potent scorer, averaging 24.4 Points per Game for Brooklyn over 36 Games.  The following year, Harden was still scoring well, with a 22.5 PPG in 44 Games, but Harden again was frustrated, and asked for a trade, with Philadelphia being his landing point.

Harden never had a full season for Brooklyn, but the game of Basketball is a star’s contest where the elite dominate. Even with under 100 Games as a Net, the numbers don’t lie, even though it was overall a failed experiment.

We here at Notinhalloffame.com are always looking to add new sections to our website.  Last month, we uploaded our top 100 active NFL players and how their Hall of Fame resumes stack up.  

We are doing the exact same thing with the NBA.

As opposed to 100 like we did in Football, we are going with only 50 in Basketball.  

We liked the idea that we used in Football with a modern “Modern Positional Average”, so we are doing something similar here.  With advanced analytics, we decided that we don’t have to isolate based on position so they are all on one list.

Inspired by Jay Jaffe’s JAWS statistic that looks at the best seven-year stretch of a baseball player according to bWAR, we are doing the same with current basketball players.  Specifically, we compiled the average PER, Win Shares and VORP for each of the past Hall of Famers based on their best seven-year period.  The additional thinking behind this is that in Basketball, there is an additional focus on periods of greatness as opposed to sports like Baseball, where compiling statistics is more glorified.

To keep everything modern, the average we used is the last 14 inductees, but only the ones who were Modern Era Inductees.  This excludes Direct-Elect Candidates (contributors, Early African-American Pioneers, International and Veterans).  The only exception is Vlade Divac, who was chosen via the International Committee, but has a healthy NBA career to draw upon.

As of this writing, the 14 players from the last four induction classes who we are using for the composite averages are:

Ray Allen, Maurice Cheeks, Vlade Divac, Bobby Jones, Grant Hill, Allen Iverson, Jason Kidd, Tracy McGrady, Yao Ming, Sidney Moncrief, Steve Nash, Shaquille O’Neal, Jack Sikma and Paul Westphal. 

While we are not looking at traditional statistics, we are averaging out All-Star Games and All-NBA Selections.  With the latter, we are looking at this in weighted fashion.  In terms of Third Team All-NBA Selections, one point will be assigned, Second Team All-NBA Selections will have two points will be granted, and First Team All-NBA Selections will have three points.  

Here are the averages:

Based on their elite seven-year stretch the average PER of the last 14 Modern Era Hall of Famers is 21.5.

Based on their elite seven-year stretch, the average Win Shares of the last 14 Modern Era Hall of Famers is 65.1.

Based on their elite seven-year stretch, the average VORP of the last 14 Modern Era Hall of Famers is 27.8.

With All-Star and All-NBA Selections, we look at the entire career of the player.  

The average All-Star Selections of the last 14 Modern Era Hall of Famers is 7.4.

The average All-Pro Selections (based on the pointed average of one for a Third Team, two for a Second Team and three for a First Team Selection) is 9.8.

We are also adding NBA Championships. Often,  players in this team sport more than any other (except for NFL Quarterbacks) are judged by the number of rings they have.  Perhaps, that shouldn't be as regarded as it is, considering the average amount of titles of our last 14 Modern Era Hall of Famers is less than 1.  Specifically, it is 0.79.

Wrapping this up in a bow, the six variables we are looking at Elite Period PER, Elite Period Win Shares, Elite Period VORP, All-Star Games, Weighted All-Pro Selections, NBA Championships.

This will be a regular feature on Notinhalloffame.com, and we will be updating this at the end of the season.

You can find our new section HERE.

As always, we here at Notinhalloffame.com thank all of you for your support!

Pre-2019-20 Rank #4, Pre-2020-21 Rank: #3, Pre-2021-22 Rank: #4, Pre-2022-23 Rank: #4, Pre-2023-24 Rank: #7.

*Positional Note:  Harden plays more at Point Guard these days, but at his peak, he was more of a Shooting Guard.

*Peak Period: 2013-14 to 2019-20.

Hmmm…

James Harden has a very intriguing Hall of Fame case, though based on the bar that Springfield had set, you could argue that he has already met the requirements.

“The Beard” is a former NBA MVP and a three-time scoring champion, but he never won an NBA Title. His best years were in Houston, but he could not lead them to the Finals while he was a Rocket.  Willing his way out of Texas, he went to Brooklyn, but his reunion with Kevin Durant in Brooklyn netted nothing for either party.  Harden then joined Philadelphia, but it was the same result, as it was another super team that could not make the Finals.

Harden is currently with the Los Angeles Clippers, and with all due respect to the star, his best years are behind him.  We have seen his body of work, which is explosive scoring and lackadaisical defense, but he is a player who should quickly enter the Hall.  Harden would love to do it as an NBA Champion, but it won’t happen as a Clipper, and this won’t be his last NBA team.

 

It seems like a lifetime ago doesn’t it?

James Harden was the third overall pick in the 2009 Draft and the first ever pick for the Oklahoma City Thunder.  In his third year, Harden would a beast off of the bench and essentially formed a young “big three” with Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook.  This unit was so good that they took OKC to the NBA Finals and while they lost the 2012 Finals there was reason to believe that this triumvirate would take them to the Finals again and win.