A unique case for the Hall of Fame: Isaiah Thomas

Isaiah Thomas may not seem like he has a typical NBA Hall of Fame resume, but he may have a much better chance at induction than you realize

I know what you’re thinking: “Isaiah Thomas? THAT Isaiah Thomas? Who made two All-Star teams and an All-NBA Second Team before injuring his hip and never being the same again? You’re trying to tell me that HE is going to the Hall of Fame?”

At first glance, this notion may seem ridiculous. It probably is a little ridiculous, but let me break down for you why it may not be quite as ridiculous as you think.

If you ever look at Basketball Reference’s Hall of Fame Probability formula, you’ll find one variable included in the formula that will probably make you scratch your head. The five variables are:

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NBA Championships (ok, we can all agree this makes sense)
NBA Leaderboard Points (as in, how often is a player in the top-10 in the league in a major statistical category…again, this makes a lot of sense)
NBA Peak Win Shares (this is to factor in how dominant a player was in his best season)
All-Star Game Selections (shows how long a player was considered “one of the best”)
Height in inches (wait, what?)

Unlike the rest of these criteria, height is given a negative multiplier as part of their formula, so the taller a player is, the lower their Hall of Fame Probability is, as determined by Basketball-Reference.

You’re probably wondering why on Earth they would include a player’s height as part of the formula. In the normal range of NBA heights (let’s loosely define that as 6-foot and above), I don’t believe a player’s height matters much in terms of Hall of Fame consideration. It’s on the extreme lower end of the NBA height spectrum at which a player’s height seems to have some influence.

The most glaring example of this is Calvin Murphy. If you’re under the age of 40 and haven’t closely studied NBA history, you probably have no idea who that is. Heck, even if you’re over the age of 40 and have only a casual interest in the game, you probably don’t know him either.

He had a nice career for himself back in the 70s and early 80s: one All-Star team, a well-decorated (but not otherworldly) collegiate career, one appearance in the NBA Finals as a starter on a runner-up, and just a shade under 18,000 points for his career.

That’s the kind of career of which most NBA players can only dream, but it doesn’t exactly scream “Hall of Famer,” does it? It’s a career that is more similar to the career of a guy like Michael Finley than to your average Hall of Famer’s career. For reference, Finley made 2 All-Star teams, won a championship as a starter, scored only around 600 fewer points than Murphy, and had no notable collegiate achievements

So why is it that Calvin Murphy was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame 10 years after his retirement while Michael Finley has never (and almost certainly will never) even come close to enshrinement? Do Murphy’s collegiate achievements (First-Team All-American twice, Second-Team once) and 600 or so extra points scored really outweigh Finley’s extra All-Star nod and championship ring to such a significant degree? Or is the answer simply the fact that Michael Finley stands at a healthy 6-foot-7 while Calvin Murphy stands at a lilliputian (by NBA standards) 5-foot-9?

This would not be the only example of the Hall of Fame voting committee showing favoritism toward some of the NBA’s more diminutive alums.

In case you are not familiar with the Hall of Fame voting process, it has three separate steps each year to narrow players down to the list of those who are inducted. First, a list of “eligible candidates” is released by the Hall of Fame. This list is then pared down to a more manageable list of “finalists” during NBA All-Star weekend each year. From that group of finalists, you are finally given the list of inductees, who are announced during the weekend of the NCAA Final Four.

The list of eligible candidates for induction in 2019 included 16 former NBA players. Each of these players had made at least one NBA All-Star team or were named NBA Defensive Player of the Year at least once during their careers, except for one player, who had no major awards or recognitions during his career: Muggsy Bogues, who, in case you are unfamiliar with him, stands at a minuscule 5-foot-3.

Let me preface this by saying that what Muggsy Bogues did during his NBA career is truly astounding. To be able to play as well as he did and for as long as he did with such a clear size disadvantage is incredible in a sport where height is such a critical factor.

However, if you simply take a look at his raw career numbers and achievements, Muggsy had a very similar career to a guy like Jose Calderon, who is not exactly someone who you would consider to have any shot at making the Hall of Fame.

Obviously, the guys who are announced as eligible candidates still have a long way to go before they are actually inducted into the Hall of Fame, but the fact that the voters took a look at all Hall-eligible NBA players, narrowed that list of thousands of names down to the 16 most worthy, and Muggsy Bogues was one of those 16 shows you that the voters for the Basketball Hall of Fame clearly value the achievements of players on the extreme lower end of the NBA height spectrum more greatly.

I’m not even saying this is the wrong way to view things. The sheer amount of energy, intelligence, and skill that it takes to be so successful in the NBA while being so undersized is pretty astonishing, and I don’t have a problem with wanting to recognize these players in some form.

That all brings us back to Isaiah Thomas. It doesn’t appear he’ll have the longevity that Calvin Murphy had, but he certainly had a higher peak. Murphy’s best season was when he averaged 25.6 points and 3.4 assists on a team that finished the season 28-54. Thomas’s peak was when he averaged 28.9 points and 5.9 assists on a team that finished 53-29 as the top seed in the Eastern Conference.

Given all that, I’d say Thomas has a fairly similar case to Calvin Murphy. If you value longevity more, you’ll give the edge to Murphy. If you value peak more, you’ll give the edge to Thomas.

Perhaps using Calvin Murphy as a comparison is a fool’s errand because he’s such an outlier, but I think there are enough signs here between both Murphy’s induction and Muggsy’s serious consideration that we have to at least consider the possibility that Isaiah Thomas will eventually be inducted.

I’m not sure if it will happen, and I’m not sure if it should happen. What I do know is that, despite the short-lived (no pun intended) nature of his excellence, Isaiah Thomas has a legitimate chance to make the Hall of Fame, given their voters’ record of leniency when evaluating the careers of some of the NBA’s sub-5-foot-10 greats.