Giannis Antetokounmpo is a Hall of Famer.
Well, technically, not yet. But he will be.
But, Rob, you may be irrationally exuberant. I know you were involved with The Athletic’s “Built for This,” which is excellent by the way, and people should pick it up. But the Hall? For Giannis? Now?
OK, let’s try this again: Giannis Antetokounmpo is a future Hall of Famer. Even if the two-time NBA MVP and Finals MVP stunned everyone by calling a news conference for Sept. 13, 2021, and announced his decision to retire at the prime and tender age of 26, Antetokounmpo would be headed for a place in Springfield. Why? Because Antetokounmpo, fresh off a Finals MVP performance where he became the second player in history to score 50 points in a deciding game, has built a Hall of Fame CV in eight seasons with the Bucks. And while some may claim eight isn’t enough, there were two milestones Antetokounmpo reached this past season that put him squarely in the Hall of Fame conversation: NBA champion and Finals MVP, with the latter being more important for Hall chances than the former.
Advertisem*nt
Yet in August, it seems that there was irritation on the internet (Twitter’s not a place for nuanced discussion? Who knew?) when a couple of accounts tweeted out Basketball-Reference.com’s “NBA & ABA Leaders and Records for Hall of Fame Probability.” (Hilarity in the comments ensued.) You can argue with the list, which many did, and you can disagree with the methodology, which many didn’t bother to check, but there are career milestones that, when reached, practically guarantee entrance into the Naismith. And while basketball doesn’t have the nice round numbers that fans often associate with, say, the Baseball Hall of Fame (3,000 hits, 500 HRs, 300 wins), there are some counting stats that, uh, count.
Let’s look at some of them:
Regular-season MVP
Every single eligible regular-season NBA MVP is in the Hall of Fame. Every. Single. One. You win a regular-season MVP, and it’s a red carpet to the Hall. Dirk Nowitzki, who is retired but not yet eligible, will breeze because of this (and many other reasons). And nearly every active MVP will more than likely be selected, except for one. Maybe. (More on that outlier later.)
Finals MVP
Of the 32 players who have been named Finals MVP since 1969, when the award debuted, all but two Hall-eligible players — Cedric Maxwell and Chauncey Billups — are in Springfield. All other Finals MVPs are either active or, like Dwyane Wade or Nowitzki, outside of their enshrinement window of being retired for three years. Spoiler alert: D-Wade and Dirk will be in the Hall.
Top 50 Scoring, Career
Every player eligible for the Hall, except for two — Tom Chambers and Antawn Jamison — are in the Hall. Joe Johnson, who has 20,405 points, is eligible in 2022. Is he a Hall of Famer? Basketball-Reference says there’s a 50 percent chance.
Top 20 Rebounds, Career
Only one retiree in the top 20, Buck Williams, is not in the Hall. It gets dicey as you go through the top 50, though, as there are an additional 15 players who are eligible who are being boxed out of Springfield.
Advertisem*nt
Top 20 Assists, Career
This one is trickier. This is the only one of the big three counting stats where an eligible member of the top 10 — Mark Jackson — is not in the Hall. If you go through the top 50, a whopping 18 Hall-eligible players aren’t enshrined.
OK, Rob, you’re an old man. Those are the old ways of tallying greatness. What about—
Advanced stats? We got you there too:
Top 50 PER (Player Efficiency Rating), Career
This is an interesting one. There are 16 active players (Hello, DeMarcus Cousins! I see you there between Hall of Famers Moses Malone and Tracy McGrady) in the top 50, and everyone not named Amar’e Stoudemire is either in the Hall or outside of their eligibility window.
Top 50 Win Shares, Career
Here, there are only five active players on this list, and only three players — Billups, Williams and Horace Grant — have been eligible for the Hall and not made it (so far). Everyone else on the list is either in or has a great shot to get in.
Top 50 Win Shares/48, Career
This list has 12 active players, including Jonas Valanciunas(?) in the top 50. Of those 50, only Kevin Johnson isn’t in the Hall.
Top 50 VORP (Value Over Replacement Player), Career
Again, this list is chock full of Hall of Famers, and there are six active players, led by LeBron James, who grades out as the most valuable by a wide margin. (Yes, even over MJ.)
Box +/-
Here’s a fun one. This measures a player’s contribution when he’s on the floor using standard box scores, but it’s an advanced stat. (You got chocolate in my peanut butter…)
Oh, and two more: college and international. Remember, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame isn’t exclusive to NBA players. International, college and women’s basketball are all housed under one round roof, and in the case of some active and retired players, college and international success will help their HOF candidacy.
Advertisem*nt
So, this weekend as the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame welcomes its 62nd class with 16 enshrinees, including six NBA players, let’s use counting stats, advanced stats and some subjectivity to look at the active and recently retired players who are more than likely headed for enshrinement. (Or, let’s gather AlL oF My bAd TAkeS in one place.) Let’s have some fun.
(Editor’s note: All of the players in each section are listed in alphabetical order.)
Active locks: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Carmelo Anthony, Stephen Curry, Anthony Davis, Kevin Durant, James Harden, Dwight Howard, LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook
Let’s start with the most obvious Hall of Famer here: LeBron James. Not only is a lock for Springfield, but also, whether you like it or not, he’s in the NBA’s GOAT conversation, and you wouldn’t be wrong if you think he’s the greatest player in NBA history with four MVPs, four Finals MVPs, four titles with three different teams, eight consecutive trips to the Finals, and 10 in all. He’s third all-time in career points (35,367), 42nd in rebounding, eighth in assists, and just for kicks, 13th in steals. He has the second-best PER, third in win shares behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain, sixth in win shares/48 and leads VORP by a mile. Add in all the playoff points, records, and … holy crap, why are we still here? You know this. Lock.
Giannis is far down the Basketball-Reference Hall of Fame probability index (BBRHOFPI), but as we noted above, the regular-season MVPs and Finals MVP make him a certainty. Antetokounmpo is one of 14 players in NBA history to win two MVPs. He’s five-time All-NBA (with likely more to come) and a five-time All-Star (with more to come). Add a Defensive Player of the Year in 2020 (one of three players, MJ and Hakeem Olajuwon being the others, to win DPoY and MVP in the same season) onto that pile, and you have one of the best players in history. Yes, already. Everything from here is icing.
Melo also is a lock because of his one great skill: putting the basketball in the hole. Currently, he’s 10th all-time with 27,370 points and is 40 points shy of passing Moses Malone for ninth place. He’s also 1,226 points shy of Shaquille O’Neal, giving himself an outside shot (see what I did there?) of moving into eighth. Here are two other factors that will get him into the Hall, and this is the fun one: Every player who has ever led the NBA in single-season scoring is in the Hall, except for Max Zaslofsky. You come for the Hall, you best not miss (too much), and Melo led the NBA in scoring 2012-13. Finally, two other things that will help Melo: The 2003 NCAA title with Syracuse and three Olympic golds will seal the deal.
Remember what we said about multiple-MVP winners? That brings us to Curry, who is one of 14 players to win more than one MVP, and, and, and, he’s the only one to be named a unanimous MVP. Not MJ, not Magic, not Bird, no one. That alone makes Curry a Hall of Famer. Add to that he’s the greatest shooter in NBA history, who is well on his way to 20,000 points and will likely reach that this season, vaulting him into the top 50; that he will shatter every 3-point record, including becoming the all-time leader at some point this season; that he’s led the league in scoring twice; that he’s seven-time All-NBA and a three-time NBA champ; and let’s throw in a league-leading 2.1 steals per game in 2016, the year he was named unanimous MVP. Unanimous! And an unparalleled career.
Advertisem*nt
AD may be the easiest lock to nitpick on this list, because, in this examination, he doesn’t have the hardware that others do, and he’s light on league-leading black ink (the bold font Sports-Reference sites use to denote a league leader in a category). But, he’s led the league in blocks three times, he’s four-time All-NBA First Team, an eight-time All-Star, and, finally, an NBA champion. Also, as a modern big who can stretch the floor, advanced stats love him. He’s third all-time in PER behind MJ and Bron and ahead of other Hall of Fame bigs such as Shaq, Wilt and David Robinson. He’s also 15th in win shares/48 and he’s 12th in career Box +/-. While injuries have hampered him throughout his career, AD’s career has been Hall of Fame worthy.
Next to LeBron, KD is the lockiest of locks on this list. His personal list is stupendous: NBA MVP, two-time Finals MVP, two-time NBA champ, four-time scoring champ, nine-time All-NBA, 11-time All-Star. He needs 1,741 points to pass Hall of Famer Alex English to reach the all-time top 20. The advanced stats are nice too: top 25 in win shares, 12th in win shares/48, top 20 in VORP, eighth all-time in PER and 10th for Box +/-. Let’s throw in his three gold medals for good measure, and the greatest scorer of his generation will be giving a Hall of Fame speech soon after he retires.
It’s kind of crazy Harden has a 99.97 percent chance to make the Hall according to BBRHOFPI, but based on mine, he’s 100 percent. (I added that 0.03 percent, if that’s OK. Thanks!) A savant on offense, Harden has led the league in scoring three times in a row, assists once and was the 2018 MVP. His 36.1 points per game in 2019 is the seventh-best scoring average in league history behind some dudes name Chamberlain and Jordan. He’s 33rd in career points and 42nd in assists, and if he has a monster season, he can be on the cusp of the top 25 in each. His advanced metrics are great too: 30th in win shares, eighth in win shares/48, 10th in PER, 20th in VORP and sixth in Box +/-. If the Nets win the title this season, as they are one of the favorites, you can add that to the list. But he won’t need it. Harden’s already a HOFer.
Dwight Howard? Yes, Dwight Howard. I once made the mistake on Twitter (where most mistakes are made these days) of suggesting the latter part of Howard’s Hall of Fame career was desultory and could cause some to think Howard wasn’t a Hall of Famer. That did not go well. But why is Howard a Hall of Famer? Because in his prime, he was a force on the boards and on defense. From 2008 to 2013, he won five of six rebounding titles, led the league in blocked shots twice and was named Defensive Player of the Year for three straight seasons starting in 2008-09, made five consecutive All-NBA First Teams and reached an NBA Finals as the centerpiece of the 2009 Magic. With 14,271 career rebounds, he’s 11th on the list. He needs 391 to pass Kevin Garnett for ninth. He’s also 32nd in all-time win shares with 138.21. Every eligible player ahead of him in that category is in the Hall. He hasn’t been dominant for a while as he does the once-great center tour of the NBA that older centers often do (which added a ring to his resume in 2020), but his early dominance will put him in Springfield.
There have been only three players in NBA history who have won Finals MVP with different franchises. LeBron is one, and he’s done it with three. Kareem is another, winning with the Bucks in 1971 and the Lakers in 1985. The other? Kawhi Leonard, winning Finals MVP with the Spurs in 2014 and with the Raptors in 2019. That’s elite company. You can’t question the impact he’s had on leading two NBA franchises to titles. He also has two Defensive Player of the Year awards and has been All-NBA First Team three times. He’s also 11th in win shares/48 behind Rudy Gobert(!), eighth in Box +/- and 23rd in all-time PER. He’s also the subject of one of the greatest oral histories of all time. (Rob, what does that have to do with the Hall of Fame? Nothing, it’s just such a good story, and this is an excuse to link to it.) At 77.69 percent on the BBRHOFPI, Kawhi has the lowest percentage on the lock list, but I can’t see The Klaw losing his grip on a spot in the HOF. I can see how people would make an argument against his candidacy. Still, his body of work, his two-way ability (and on occasion, dominance) and his two Finals MVPs should put him in the Hall. Plus, hey, hey, hey, who doesn’t want to hear Kawhi’s induction speech?
If you feel queasy about Kawhi’s lock status, no need to feel nervous about Chris Paul, “The Point God.” He’s at 100 percent on the BBRHOFPI, and with the exception of winning a title or regular-season MVP, CP3 has done just about everything a superstar point guard should do in the NBA. Lead the league in assists? Yes, four times. He’s 60 assists from fourth place and 61 from third. He could get that by the third week of this season. Steals? Uh, yeah, six times, which is three seasons more than any player in NBA history. He’s fifth all-time there too. Points? Good there too. He needs 22 points to become the 47th player to reach 20,000. And advanced stats? Hoo boy, CP3 is a killer there: 10th in win shares, fifth in win shares/48, ninth in PER, seventh in VORP, fifth in Box +/-. You could argue he’s one of the top-three point guards of all time.
Westbrook’s Hall of Fame candidacy is built on his MVP season of 2016-17, his being a two-time scoring champ and that he’s averaged a triple-double in four different seasons, including his MVP season, which was the start of an amazing three-year run of averaging a triple-double each season. Oscar Robertson, the only other player to average a triple-double in a season — in 1961-62, when everyone in the league was putting up insane digits — put up 30.3 points, 10.4 rebounds and 10.6 assists per game over his first five seasons. Westbrook is averaging 26.0/10.3/10.1 over his last five seasons. Not too shabby. He’s also led the league in assists three times and he’s been named First or Second Team All-NBA seven times. He’s top 25 in PER and top 30 in VORP. Regardless of how you feel about Westbrook, he’s headed for the Hall.
(And, in case you hadn’t noticed, the Lakers have five locks on their roster this season, where the Nets have two, and a near-lock.)
Retired locks: Vince Carter, Pau Gasol*, Manu Ginobili, Dirk Nowitzki, Tony Parker, Dwyane Wade
Is Gasol* retired? If he’s active, we could move him up making the active locks a dynamic dozen. If he’s not, he belongs here. Two NBA titles and being one of the featured players of Spain’s golden generation will make him a lock. He’s top 30 in win shares and VORP, top 50 in PER. … VC played in 1,541 games, third-most in history. He was a dynamic wing and was an All-Star nine of his first 10 seasons while averaging 24.1 points per game. And while the following won’t get him into the Hall of Fame, he was the greatest in-game dunker in NBA history. He stole other players’ souls and fans’ hearts. … GINOBILI! started only one-third of the 1,057 games he played in his NBA career, he played in only two All-Star Games, but he was a key cog in four of the five Spurs’ NBA titles and he won gold in 2004 with Argentina. Being 2008’s Sixth Man of the Year doesn’t hurt either. … Dirk has the MVP double-double with a regular-season award in 2006 and the Finals’ in 2011. He’s sixth all-time in points (31,560), fourth in games played (1,522), was named to 12 All-NBA, eighth in win shares and 31st in career PER. Hell, the Spurs even made a tribute video for him. When your greatest rival does that, I mean … Parker and Wade each have Finals MVPs to their credit, giving them one major award on their respective Hall of Fame resumes. Parker has four titles and was All-NBA four times; Wade has three titles and seven All-NBA appearances. He’s also 21st in all-time PER and is one of the top shooting guards of all time. Fun note: Dirk, Parker and Wade are eligible in 2023.
With Harden, Irving and Durant, the Nets have three potential future Hall of Famers on the roster. (Brad Penner / USA Today)
Active, near-locks: Draymond Green, Kyrie Irving, Damian Lillard, Nikola Jokic, Kyle Lowry, Klay Thompson
Based on the MVP metric, Jokic should be a lock, correct? Correct. But if he retired today, would he be in the Hall? More than likely, yet the difference between him and say any other one-time MVP is sustained excellence. Jokic doesn’t need to have another MVP season to be a Hall of Famer, but he needs to continue to be in the MVP conversation and adds All-NBA nods and All-Star Games to the mix in the next few seasons to be a lock-lock. Plus, if he plays 15 seasons and accumulates the counting stats, he’ll be in Springfield, no doubt.
Advertisem*nt
Draymond, Kyrie, Lowry and Klay all have titles to their credit, which should help as they all played pivotal roles on their respective championship teams. What they lack is individual hardware and black ink, but a combination of winning championships, accumulation stats, All-Star appearances and advanced metrics should help each of them. Klay is one of the greatest shooters in NBA history and is in the top 20 for 3-pointers made; Draymond doesn’t have the numbers but was critical to the Warriors’ dynasty on both ends of the floor (and as a recruiter); Kyrie, who may be the best ballhandler of all time and one of the best finishers for his size in NBA history, is top 30 in VORP and Box +/-; and Lowry has an 85.7 percent chance of making the Hall according to the BBRHOFPI. Lowry also has Win Share similarity scores to Allen Iverson, Lenny Wilkens, Sam Jones and Joe Dumars, all Hall of Famers.
Lillard has carved out a wonderful career for himself in the Pacific Northwest, making six All-NBA teams and six All-Star teams. He doesn’t have the hardware and he doesn’t have a title, but he has numbers. He’s averaging 24.7 points for his career and 27.6 points his last five seasons on .505/.379/.908 shooting. That’s pretty good. Of the players on this list, Lillard has the highest BBRHOFPI at 90.6 percent.
Active, in the mix: Bradley Beal, Jimmy Butler, DeMar DeRozan, Joel Embiid, Marc Gasol, Paul George, Rudy Gobert, Rajon Rondo, Ben Simmons
This is an interesting group that I based on comments from others (Beal, DeRozan and Simmons) and other metrics we’ve used above.
Embiid is a force on both ends of the floor and one of the top players in the NBA right now, finishing second in MVP voting to Jokic in 2021. He missed his first two seasons because of injuries, and that’s always the worry with Embiid. He has four All-Star appearances in five seasons. If he continues to be in the MVP mix and stays healthy enough to build up the counting stats and lead his team to playoff success, Embiid could be headed to Springfield.
Let’s pivot to Sim— Gobert. His BBRHOFPI is a minuscule 6.2 percent, but those three Defensive Player of the Year awards loom large in his legacy — and his Hall of Fame chances. Ten players have won multiple DPoYs, and four have won three or more, Gobert being one of them. Dikembe Mutombo and Ben Wallace are in the Hall. Dwight Howard is on his way. If form holds, Gobert should be in, especially if you factor in his impact with the French national team. Coincidentally, and apologies Jazz fans, there’s only one Hall-eligible multi-DPoY winner who is not in the Hall: Mark Eaton.
As for Simmons, it may seem crazy, especially with the drama in Philly this offseason. But why is he in the mix? As Zach Harper pointed out, Simmons is on pace for 16K points, 8K rebounds and 8K assists. Do you know who’s done that in NBA history? LeBron James and Jason Kidd. OK, then. If Simmons plays another 10 to 11 seasons, he could hit those milestones. If you think 11 more seasons is a lot, Simmons is 24. He has time. And regardless of how you feel about his offense, that’s elite company. He’s also a terror on defense, having made First Team All-Defense the past two seasons, leading the league in steals in 2020.
Advertisem*nt
Beal, as suggested by our Jason Jones, is working his way up the scoring chart. He has 13,303 points, 9,345 of which have come in the last five years at 26.2 points per game. If he stays healthy and averages 21.2 points for the next five seasons, he’ll pass Hall of Famer Bob Pettit. Beal’s career average 22.0 per game. It’s doable.
I’m going to lump PG13, Butler and DeRozan in the same group, though one of the things people pointed out in August on Twitter was George had a higher BBRHOFPI at 84.1 percent than Kawhi’s 77.69 despite Kawhi’s two Finals MVPs. But that metric doesn’t take Finals MVPs into account and this article does. Still, PG13 has made six All-NBA teams, four NBA All-Defensive teams, seven All-Star teams, led the league in steals in 2019 and has averaged close to 24 points per game in the last six seasons. If he stays healthy, he could be headed to the Hall. Butler has four All-NBA nods and four All-Defensive nods in his career. He also led the NBA in steals this past season. He’s also top 60 in PER, 26th in win shares/48 all time and top 40 in Box +/-. His BBRHOFPI is under 50 at 46.8 percent. DeRozan’s BBRHOFPI is the smallest of this group at 6.8 percent, but he does have 17,751 career points. A few more solid seasons could vault him into the top 40 all-time. But is solid Hall of Fame worthy? We’ll see.
I’ve seen chatter about Rondo‘s candidacy, and you’ll get passionate arguments for and against. He has been a part of two title teams, has four All-Defensive nods, including two First Team appearances, led the league in steals in 2010 and is 14th all-time in total assists. At 60.6 percent on the BBRHOFPI, he’s more of a candidate than some people think.
Marc Gasol has an NBA title under his belt with Toronto in 2019, was Defensive Player of the Year in 2013 and First Team All-NBA in 2015. He’s 64th all-time in Box +/- and 70th in VORP. Add in his international play with Spain, and there’s a possibility there will be two Gasols in the Hall.
Active, Nets frontcourt edition: LaMarcus Aldridge, Blake Griffin
Griffin and Aldridge are hovering around the 50-plus percent range on the BBRHOFPI. Lack of hardware, as individuals and with their teams, could hurt their chances. They both have made five All-NBA teams but never a First Team All-NBA. Griffin did win Rookie of the Year in 2011. Aldridge has some counting stats in his favor (he’s 49 points from 20,000) and Griffin is top 50 in career PER, but will either be enough? A title with the Nets this season could help them.
Will Trae Young and Luka Doncic bump into each other in the Hall of Fame some day? (Jerome Miron / USA Today)
Active, haven’t seen enough yet: Bam Adebayo, Devin Booker, Luka Doncic, Donovan Mitchell, Jayson Tatum, Zion Williamson, Trae Young
All of these guys have Hall of Fame talent, but it’s far too soon to make a call on whether or not they’re headed for the Hall. It’s also not hard to imagine more than a few MVPs, Finals MVPs and champions will eventually spring from this group.
Advertisem*nt
Active, was on his way, but…: Kevin Love
Love’s BBRHOFPI is 73.74 percent, and he’s in the top 50 in PER. He was amazing in Minnesota, a stretch four who gobbled up rebounds and was a key part of the Cavs’ 2016 title, but the second half of his career hasn’t been as dynamic as the first, making his Hall case more tenuous. That said, it wouldn’t surprise me to see him in Springfield one day.
The Derrick Rose MVP exception: Derrick Rose
In 2011, at age 22, Rose was the youngest player to win MVP, which came two years after he won Rookie of the Year. In the span of three years, he earned two major awards and seemingly had a Hall of Fame career in front of him. But two devastating knee injuries, one in 2012 and another in 2013, robbed him of his explosiveness, and his game and the impact he had on it hasn’t been the same since. Unless he can resurrect his career as Grant Hill did after injury, it looks as if Rose will be the first MVP not to make the Hall.
(Top photo: Stacy Revere / Getty Images)
