Hall of Fame aiming for transparency, fan voting

Just in case you haven't got your fill of fan voting with the All-Star starters, dunk contest participants and now the MVP award, it looks like the Basketball Hall of Fame is going the same route:

The basketball Hall of Fame is close to announcing a major change to the election process and is working on a revolutionary alteration as chairman Jerry Colangelo pushes forward with his pledge to increase transparency and fan interest.

For the first time, vote totals are expected to be released when the Class of 2010 is revealed next Monday in Indianapolis in conjunction with the Final Four. The class is expecetd to be headed by locks Karl Malone and Scottie Pippen.

Colangelo is hopeful the new plan, expected to be formalized within days, will lead to greater conversation about the merits of a candidacy, similar to the debate that often surrounds the baseball Hall of Fame. That, in turn, would lead to greater interest in the Springfield, Mass., museum of professional and amateur basketball. He also believes the changes will lead to an increased understanding of the nomination process, the subsequent campaign (which includes review by two separate boards) and the actual selection.

Fan involvement may begin as soon as next season with the groundbreaking move to include public balloting. That may spark an emotional connection that didn't exist before, but it will come at the risk of turning off insiders worried that the Hall of Fame will turn into a popularity contest.

I think the transparency is a good idea, at the very least it would be interesting to see which way the votes go and which players are unanimous selections for induction. Fan voting...well, it seems a lot of people don't have a high opinion of the Hall of Fame anyway and we can already speculate on the politics that are keeping certain players from being inducted so I suppose many people would say it's not like it's ruining a good thing. For the most part the Hall honours individuals who deserve to be recognised and I don't think fan voting is going to mess that up, like the MVP voting it's probably only going to count for one vote so few worthy inductees are going to get snubbed so in that respect I don't think it's a problem. On one hand it's a good move to increase fan interest but having said that I think for a lot of people it's going to prove their point in their disdain for the Hall of Fame and weaken its credibility.

I'm totally against this one too lol, but it's because there are already guys that don't get voted in by sports writers and other people who are constantly paying attention to the game, but when a popular player with a so-so resume gets up versus a guy who has HoF credentials, but wasn't in a big market or a fan favorite will be a problem, albeit a small one.

On ESPN I heard someone say the Basketball Hall of Fame doesn't have credibility because guys who coach in other countries or players form Europe get in over NBA guys. It's the bias of America because people think since the Pro Football Hall of Fame consists of mostly guys from the NFL that the NBA should dominate the basketball hall. I mean, basketball is huge all over the world and their are a helluva lot of influences and HoF people that have either played or impacted the game of basketball, not the NBA, all around the world.

Fuck fan voting

I'm not completely against it per se, if fan voting is limited to counting for just one vote I don't think it's going to have a big enough impact to ruin things (or make them even worse, depending on your point of view). I do think the approach of having strict quotas each year does hurt the Hall of Fame a bit by constantly snubbing certain individuals though, I'd like to see them make exceptions and induct at least a couple more candidates when appropriate. There's a reasonable backlog of viable candidates yet to be inducted, so I don't think inducting an extra person here or there to avoid prominent snubs wouldn't hurt the present class or future classes.