>particularly when you are bringing them up as an example of
>weakened HOF standards.

we've been posting here for 15 years and i have brought those guys up as guys that should be in over other potential HOF'ers several times. what i said was that now that the standards are falling the HOF *has* to go back and right any wrongs or borderline wrongs. never said they were undeserving in any way.

>

>that's a whole other bag of worms. not sure who all these
>suspect selections in recent years are who are so much worse
>than guys who have gotten in before even without playing on
>big time winning teams though (aside from ABA/international
>guys, which is a different issue)

i don't harp on the international thing, the one guy i thought was iffy was sarunas but i was happy for him anyway.


>so who would get it over him? cuz as of yet none of the guys
>you mentioned are better than Dwight in his prime.

having a longer prime. i think i have been pretty clear on that, the issue is that his prime was too short and while injuries have limited him, they haven't debilitated him. his injuries were also in some part because he took his genetics for granted. this is a guy who was eating about two dozen candy bars a day for much of his career. he also never refined his offensive game. in the end his game was based so much on being 100% physically that he couldn't adjust. think about guys like antonio mcdyess and grant hill who had even more severe injuries, they were able to adjust because they had game between their ears. howard never did.


>you don't think he merits it though, which is not consistent
>with what has historically merited HOF induction.

well the established standards and what i consider standards for the basketball HOF are not congruous, so that's hardly surprising. basketball is a game where you can put up empty numbers or dominate for a while. the guys who are HOF'ers should be the guys who put up substantive numbers and do it for a long time.