Hall of Fame

[skangles]

Saras, Vlade Divac and Oscar Schmidt are all on the Hall of Fame ballot. The American nominees are led by Gary Payton and Mitch Richmond.

[TeoTheGreek13]

Yeah, I saw it as well!

Here's the complete list.

I think that they should all three make it to the HoF this year (eventually, they'll all make it, there's no question). But if I had to choose one, I'd say Schmidt because he has an older career. He gets overlooked because he didn't play in big teams but he was a legendary scorer who really showed it in National teams competitions.

Of course Payton is the big name of the draft class and he's a lock IMO.

[stefans]

Vlade deserved He is true legend

[TeoTheGreek13]

NBA.com didn't have the name of Galis in the article...

So, yeah, I say Galis for sure!

In the voting of who has to make the HoF out of the internationals players (it can only be one), Galis has the 97.4% of the votes!

Daaamn!

Galis FTW! Greatest Greek basketball player ever and maybe greatest athlete!

[skangles]

I didnt even see Galis was up for it! He should be in for sure.

I agree that people forget how amazing Oscar Schmidt was in international play. From sheer numbers, hes the most dominant individual player in international play that I can recall. And he did this on a horse sh*t Brazilian team. Id love to have seen him on the current team with Nene, Splitter and Barbosa around him.

I dont understand how Saras is even eligible at this point. I thought there was a rule about needing to be retired for numerous years before youre up for nomination. Otherwise Jordan should have been in after his first retirement.

Vlade raised the bar for foreign players in the NBA. I think teams started taking foreign players seriously after Vlade.

Id vote for all four of these guys but I may wait on Saras because I feel he's way too young and shouldnt have been nominated yet.

[TeoTheGreek13]

I didnt even see Galis was up for it! He should be in for sure.

I agree that people forget how amazing Oscar Schmidt was in international play. From sheer numbers, hes the most dominant individual player in international play that I can recall. And he did this on a horse sh*t Brazilian team. Id love to have seen him on the current team with Nene, Splitter and Barbosa around him.

I dont understand how Saras is even eligible at this point. I thought there was a rule about needing to be retired for numerous years before youre up for nomination. Otherwise Jordan should have been in after his first retirement.

Vlade raised the bar for foreign players in the NBA. I think teams started taking foreign players seriously after Vlade.

Id vote for all four of these guys but I may wait on Saras because I feel he's way too young and shouldnt have been nominated yet.

By Saras they mean Marciulionis, not Jasikevicius.

And about Oscar, no question he was a beast, but the teammates argument can work both ways. On the one hand he had no players to take defense's attention off of him a bit and on the other hand, the fact that he didn't have great teammates means that he had the opportunity to take many shots and generally have coaches permission to shoot whenever he thinks he should.

I think Galis and Schmidt were the best scorers of their time outside the NBA.

In 1986 World Championship, Galis was the top scorer with 33.5 average to Oscar's 31 who was a close second! Oscar won the scoring title in the next (1990) World Cup where he averaged 34.6!

[skangles]

Spot on with your assessment on schmidt. You could put a guy like Durant on the 84 Brazil team and he'd have a fair shot at Schmidt's 42 ppg record. But of course thats just theory whilst Oscar went out and actually achieved it. No doubt Oscar's numbers would drop on today's Brazilian team but they would be a formidable force to compete with the US and Spain.

Thanks for the clarification on Marciulionis. That makes a hell of a lot more sense. He definitely gets my vote as he was my first introduction to Lithuania. I had never heard of Lithuania before Marciulionis. I didnt know anything about Sabas as I only had access to the NbA in the states. Too bad Marciulionis couldnt stay healthy.