Who Is Your Most Likely Hall of Famer? (Southeast Division)

by Harlan Schreiber

Our inquiry into who the next Hall of Famer should be for each franchise now turns to the newish Southeast Division.  The division didn’t exist before 2004-05 and most of its teams didn’t exist before 1988 (Miami and Orlando came into being in 1988 and 1989 respectively and Charlotte in 2004-05).  Still, most of the new teams have surprisingly deep rosters and histories and so we should have some interesting players to look at here.  Before we go to the franchises, our standard of review for this article series can be found here.

1.    Atlanta Hawks: Of all the original NBA teams, the Hawks might be the least connected to their past.  Sure, the Hawks were very good in the 1950s and 1960s but they have moved multiple times.  Yhe Hawks of the early Atlanta Era are primarily remembered for Pete Maravich but they were a competitive group immediately upon arrival to Atlanta in the 1968-79, making the Conference Finals those first two years.  The Hawks didn’t have Maravich yet in either year but were able to win their first round series each time before getting smoked by the Wilt/Jerry West Lakers.  The core of this solid team was Bill Bridges, Lou Hudson, and Zelmo Beaty (who was only a key player in 1968-69 before jumping to the ABA).  Maravich came along in 1970-71 and the Hawks fell to a .500ish team for his tenure in Atlanta (though this was not Maravich’s fault).

In any event, Hudson could be a serious Hall candidate.  He played nearly 900 games in his NBA career and scored 20.2 ppg and had a 17.4 PER.  Hudson was nice scorer at shooting guard/small forward and even maxed out at 25-27 ppg from 1969-70 until 1974-75, though his PER never exceeded 20.3 in a full season.  Still, Hudson was never considered a serious star.  He only received an MVP vote once and made second team All-NBA only once too (but did play in six All-Star games).  In short, he was a very good player but a second-tier star.  When he played with Maravich, there were reports that Hudson resented Maravich’s publicity and Hudson had a point, since he was as good a player and ended up having a much longer NBA career.  As a Hall of Fame candidate, Hudson is pretty borderline but there are worse guys. Continue reading Who Is Your Most Likely Hall of Famer? (Southeast Division)…

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