It's easy to rattle off top-shelf talents such as Chris Paul, LeBron James, Kevin Durant and say they're future Hall of Famers.
But what about the guys who are just on the fringe? After all, as I wrote earlier this year, Reggie Miller was a no-brainer at this year's induction, but the inclusion of Jamaal Wilkes and Ralph Sampson were head-scratchers.
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One of those fringe players is Dallas Mavericks forward Shawn Marion. Is he a Hall of Famer?
We will try to answer that question today in our first edition of "Hall Monitor." It's based on the Keltner List, a tried-and-true staple of sabermetric-type analysis ever since Bill James introduced it way back in the 1985 Baseball Abstract.
The format is simple: It's an inventory of yes-or-no questions designed to assess whether a player deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. It's not numerical, nor is it strictly objective, but after going through the list, you typically get a pretty good feel for the player's Hall of Fame worthiness.
Marion, Steve Nash's longtime running mate, reinvented himself as an important, versatile cog with the 2010-11 champion Dallas Mavericks. With Marion's Mavs taking on the Celtics tonight, now is a good time to evaluate his Hall worthiness … Does he deserve the nod from Springfield?
Questions
1. Was he ever regarded as the best player in basketball?
Did anybody, while he was active, ever suggest that he was the best player in basketball? No; Marion never graded higher than third-team All-NBA at any point in his career. In fact, it wasn't even widely suggested that Marion was the league's top defensive player during his prime -- he never finished higher than fourth in Defensive Player of the Year voting, garnering only seven of 130 first-place votes in 2006-07, his best season.
2. Was he the best player on his team?
Before the Suns reacquired Nash, yes. After that? Probably not. Although advanced stats were actually split at the time between Marion, Nash and Amar'e Stoudemire, the trio's performance in subsequent seasons has somewhat decisively confirmed that Nash was the primary driver of Phoenix's success during the "Seven Seconds or Less" era.
Vitals: Shawn Marion
Position: Small Forward
Weighted Career EWA: 119.8 (Avg. HoFer=128)
Weighted Career Win Shares Above Replacement: 75.4 (Avg. HoFer=78)
Weighted Career VORP: 42.4 (Avg. HoFer=42)
3. Was he the best player in basketball at his position?
Probably not, although briefly he was close. Consider him a small forward, and Marion's window here is extremely small; after all, LeBron James began his unassailable stranglehold on the position as early as 2004-05. (Even before that, Marion faced stiff competition from the likes of Paul Pierce and Peja Stojakovic, who was fourth in MVP balloting in 2003-04.)
Define him as a power forward, and the case gets even harder -- either Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan or Dirk Nowitzki had the top spot at the 4 pretty well locked down throughout the mid-2000s. Marion's versatility allowed him to be classified at multiple positions, but it's unlikely he was the best at any of them.
4. Did he have an impact on a number of NBA Finals or conference finals?
To some extent. Marion flopped badly in his first conference finals appearance in 2005, scoring only 7.8 PPG on 39 percent shooting in a five-game loss to San Antonio, but he bounced back to play well the following spring despite Phoenix losing the series to Dallas. Fast forward five years, and Marion helped the Mavericks' title run immensely with his efficient scoring and defensive versatility (his stellar D against James in the Finals proved crucial, in fact). That's not as impressive a postseason profile as many Hall of Famers can boast, but it isn't exactly horrible, either.
5. Was he good enough that he could play regularly after passing his prime?
Yes. Marion is 34 and hasn't been at peak form in at least five seasons, but he still logs nearly 30 minutes a night for Dallas. Since 2008-09, only 19 forwards -- most of whom are much younger than Marion -- have played more total minutes.
6. Will he at some point be the very best basketball player in history who is not in the Hall of Fame?
No. The no-brainers in front of him (such as Nash, Shaquille O'Neal, Gary Payton, Jason Kidd, Ray Allen, Allen Iverson, Duncan and Garnett) probably will get cleared off the ballot quickly, but Marion will be eligible for the first time alongside players such as Kobe Bryant, Nowitzki and Pierce, whose résumés are light years ahead of his. Marion is probably better than those who will be left over -- players like Tim Hardaway, Dikembe Mutombo, Larry Nance, Jeff Hornacek, Kevin Johnson, Jack Sikma, Chris Webber, Elton Brand and Horace Grant -- but those names are unlikely to be called to Springfield.
7. Are most players who have comparable statistics in the Hall of Fame?
Not really. Marion's statistical profile is somewhat unique (16 PPG, 9 RPG, 54 percent True Shooting, 101 individual defensive rating), but those in the ballpark are not always bound for the Hall. Robert Parish, Kevin McHale and Artis Gilmore are in, but Sikma, Nance, Shawn Kemp and Alvan Adams have virtually no shot, and it's unlikely that fellow active players such as Brand or Carlos Boozer will ever sniff the honor.
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Glenn James/NBAE/Getty Images
Marion has a lot of people in front of him before he gets to the doors of the Hall.
8. Do the player's numbers meet Hall of Fame standards?
No. According to Basketball-Reference's Hall of Fame Probability metric, Marion currently has only a 32.7 percent chance of induction, which would be in the bottom 13 percent of existing Hall members. On the other hand, his advanced stats do meet the Hall's standards -- he's actually near the average of all post-merger Hall of Famers in terms of the weighted career numbers listed at the beginning of this post. (A player's weighted career total is simply 100 percent of his best season, plus 95 percent of his second-best season, and so forth.) However, those aren't the metrics that have traditionally defined the Hall of Fame's standards, and it's tough to make Marion's case using the numbers that voters do tend to look at.
9. Is there any evidence to suggest that the player was significantly better or worse than is suggested by his basic statistics?
Yes. Marion's basic numbers say little about his defense, which has consistently been excellent (particularly during his prime with the Suns). Along the same lines, they also badly shortchange the overall impact of his versatility, which was a major reason why Mike D'Antoni's system flourished in Phoenix. In 2005-06 and 2006-07, the Suns were somehow an above-average defensive team despite giving big minutes to Nash, Stoudemire and Leandro Barbosa, three of the biggest defensive liabilities of the past decade.
Marion covered up many of their flaws with his ability to effectively defend both perimeter players and big men, allowing D'Antoni to slot one-dimensional offensive players into the lineup alongside him and craft arguably the most-efficient scoring attack in NBA history without having to pay too much at the defensive end.
10. Will he at some point be the best player at his position who is eligible for the Hall of Fame?
There's a chance. As mentioned in No. 6, Pierce is the same age as Marion and they may very well debut on the ballot together. But after Pierce gets in, Marion could arguably be the best small forward out of a group that will include Tracy McGrady, Vince Carter, Grant Hill, Shane Battier and Antawn Jamison, in addition to holdovers such as Detlef Schrempf (an international pioneer who may still get the call in between), Bernard King, Marques Johnson and Glen Rice.
The next wave of eligible small forwards -- the best of which are Andrei Kirilenko and Andre Iguodala -- isn't especially notable (and won't be eligible for three to five years after Marion's ballot debut anyway), so Marion could be the best player on the ballot at his position someday.
11. How many MVP-type seasons did he have? Did he ever win an MVP award? If not, how many times was he close?
Marion never cracked the top 10 in MVP voting, never posted a PER greater than 23.6 (the most charitable definition for an MVP-type season starts at 25.0), and was at best a fringe top-five player during his peak. The closest he came was probably 2005-06, when he averaged 22 points and 12 rebounds on 53 percent shooting with great defense. It'd be a stretch to characterize any of his other seasons as an "MVP-type" season.
12. How many All-Star-type seasons did he have? How many All-Star Games did he play in? Did most of the players who played in this many All-Star Games go into the Hall of Fame?
Marion was a four-time All-Star, and that's how many All-Star-type seasons he had -- no more, no less. Of the 40 players to make four NBA All-Star Games, only 11 (27.5 percent) made the Hall of Fame. Some of those 11, such as George Mikan and Billy Cunningham, were no-doubt Hall of Famers, but the overall trend doesn't bode well for Marion's chances.
Stephen Dunn/Getty Images
It would be a stretch to suggest Marion's best seasons were MVP caliber.
13. If this player were the best on his team, would it be likely the team could win an NBA title?
No. The teams on which Marion was the undisputed best player (notably the pre-Nash Suns) topped out as first-round losers, if they made the playoffs at all.
And even if you think Marion was actually Phoenix's best player all those seasons, the Suns never made the NBA Finals and lost their conference finals by a combined eight games to three. You can forever debate how far the 2007 Suns would have gone without the infamous suspensions to Stoudemire and Boris Diaw, but it remains unlikely that a definitively Marion-led team would win a title.
14. What impact did the player have on basketball history? Was he responsible for any rule changes? Did he introduce any new equipment? Did he change the game in any way? Was his college and/or international career especially noteworthy?
As mentioned in No. 9, Marion is a historical rarity -- a natural small forward who could credibly defend 2s, 3s, 4s and 5s -- which enabled Nash and Stoudemire to shine in one of the all-time great offenses. Don Nelson pioneered modern small-ball long before "Seven Seconds or Less," but Marion's versatility helped D'Antoni make it a viable title-contending strategy.
The Verdict: When all is said and done, Marion probably will not make it into the Hall of Fame. While nobody denies he was a highly productive player during his prime, and a key role player for an NBA championship team, the conventional wisdom is that Nash -- not Marion -- was largely responsible for the Suns' success those years.
Further complicating Marion's legacy is the way he exited Phoenix, the perception being that he broke up the beloved "Seven Seconds or Less" core out of a selfish desire to be "The Man" elsewhere. Most damning was his performance immediately after leaving Phoenix; he did himself no favors when his stats dropped like a rock during his year-and-a-half sojourn through Miami and Toronto.
I would be inclined to say he deserves serious consideration because of his entire body of work, including the pre-Nash Phoenix years and his important contribution to Dallas' 2011 title run. In each of the advanced stats mentioned at the beginning of this article, Marion is at or near the post-merger average for existing Hall of Famers. In a vacuum, that should earn him a long look from Hall voters, but I believe external considerations will ultimately leave Marion on the outside looking in.
