Basketball Hall of Fame 2009

Sorry for the lack of recent posts, folks. Big Cee has been away on Realness Tour '09 and the rest of us need to pick up the slack.

Anyway, this year's class of Basketball Hall of Fame inductees could not have been any bigger if you grew up in the NBA's golden era like me. I don't think I really need to say much about Michael Jordan except that he's the greatest ever to pick up a basketball. Every other great NBA dynasty has had a dominant big man, and I mean DOMINANT. It's a big man's game after all. Jordan won six chips playing with such centers as Bill Cartwright, Will Perdue, Bill Wennington and Luc Longley. I own the Ultimate Jordan DVD boxset and the Chicago Bulls Dynasty boxset and regularly watch both over a mug of warm milk before bed. Sayin'.

But this year's class wasn't just big because of MJ. The other inductees were "The Admiral" David Robinson (shown below being dunked on by Lil Bow Wow, would have been one of the greatest players never to win a championship if Tim Duncan didn't land in his lap in '97), John Stockton (was one of the greatest players never to win a championship, being the all-time leader in both assists and steals), Jerry Sloan (perhaps the greatest coach never to win a championship). Hey it ain't their fault Jordan was playing at the same time. Legendary women's coach C. Vivian Stringer, who took three different college teams to the Final Four, was also inducted.