Regular visitors of Notinhalloffame.com know that we are slowly working on the top 50 of every major team in the NHL, NBA, NFL, and MLB. Once that is done, we will examine how each team honors its past players, coaches, and executives. As such, it is important to us that the Toronto Raptors will be retiring the number 15 of Vince Carter.

The event will take place when the Raptors host Sacramento on November 2.

Carter joined the Raptors via a draft-day trade in 1998 and immediately brought eyeballs to the struggling expansion team.  Carter easily won the Rookie of the Year, and the man christened “Half-Man Half-Amazing” electrified the league with his dunks and scoring acumen.  He easily won the 2000 Slam Dunk competition and became one of the most known basketball players in the world.

From 1999-00 to 2003-04, Carter was a perennial All-Star and was a Third Team All-NBA selection in 99/00 and Second Team All-NBA in 2001.  He averaged 23.4 Points per Game as a Raptor, but it was a very acrimonious departure from Toronto, as Carter became frustrated with team management, became a malcontent in 2004, and wanted out.  He received his wish, but for the next ten years, Carter was the most hated man in Toronto, mercilessly booed with every appearance regardless of the team he was on.  It softened eventually, especially after Toronto won the NBA Championship in 2019.

Carter becomes the first player to have his number retired by the Raptors.  It is believed that the delay in this retirement might come from some higher-ups in Raptor management who thought that Kyle Lowry, who led them to their lone title in 2019, should be the first, but Carter put the team on the map.

This will be a special year for Carter, who will also have his number retired by the Nets this year.  On October 13, he will headline the 2024 Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Class.

We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to congratulate Vince Carter for his impending honor.

1967 PRELIMINARY RESULTS:

Thank you to all who participated in the Pro Football Hall of Fame Revisited Project. If you are still determining what that is, we acted like the PFHOF had its first class in January 1946.

We have completed the first 21 years thus far.

For “1967,” a Preliminary Vote with close to 100 players whose playing career ended by 1959. We are also following the structure in that players have 20 years of eligibility, and if they do not make it into the Hall, they are relegated to the Senior Pool.

Each voter was asked to select 25 names from the preliminary list, and the top 25 vote-getters were named Semi-Finalists.

A week later, the voters will be asked to pick 15 names from the 25 Semi-Finalists, and next after, they will pick five from the remaining 15. We will continue this process weekly until we catch up to the current year.

Please note that a significant change occurred “years ago,” allowing voters to submit less than the allotted spots. 

40 Votes took place (a new record)

This is for the “Modern Era”

Bold indicates they advanced to the Semi-Finals:

*Indicates they have been removed from future ballots

This is for the “Senior Era”

Bold indicates they advanced to the Semi-Finals:

*Indicates that they will be removed from the ballot permanently.

Please note that two voted for “None of the Above.”

We also had a vote to see if you wanted to change the voting parameter on the Final Ballot and asked if you wanted to keep it as is (vote max 5) or expand it to a maximum of 6 or 7.

31 of you said to keep it as is, so we will do that going forward.

Next week, we will announce the Semi-Finalists for the 1967 Pro Football Hall of Fame Revisited Project.

The 2024-25 NBA Season is coming soon, but it will be without a former MVP.

Derrick Rose announced on his social media that he is retiring from basketball. He did so in a classy way, also by placing full-page ads in the six cities he played in.

The 2007 Mr. Illinois Basketball, Rose played one year at the University of Memphis and was drafted number one by the Chicago Bulls in the 2008 draft. Rose promptly won the Rookie of the Year Award with 16.8 PPG; the year after, he went to his first All-Star Game. Rose had a spectacular 2010-11, during which time he made history as the youngest MVP with 25.0 Points/7.7 APG and would take the Bulls to the Eastern Conference Finals.

Rose dealt with injuries throughout the following season. In the playoffs, he tore his ACL, which resulted in the Guard missing the entire 2012-13 Season.  Upon his return, Rose was never the same player.  He was still a regular starter, but the magic was gone. 

He continued to play for many years, competing for New York, Cleveland, Minnesota, Detroit, and Memphis.

Internationally, Rose was also a two-time Gold Medalist for the United States at the 2010 and 2014 FIBA World Cups.

Rose will be eligible for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2028, and every player who won an NBA MVP quickly entered Springfield. Still, following his devastating injury, he was never a top player again.  With only three All-Star appearances and one All-NBA selection, he falls short in those categories, and other than the 2011 Eastern Conference Finals with Chicago, he was never on a contending squad. 

We here at Notinhalloffame.com wish Derrick Rose the best in his post-playing career.

Yes, we know that this is taking a while!

As many of you know, we at Notinhalloffame.com are slowly generating the top 50 of each major North American sports team. That being said, we have existing Top 50 lists and consistently look to update them when necessary and based on necessity. As such, we are delighted to present our post-2023-24 revision of our top 50 Oklahoma City Thunder.

As for all of our top 50 players in basketball, we look at the following:

1.  Advanced Statistics.

2.  Traditional statistics and how they finished in the National Basketball Association.

3.  Playoff accomplishments.

4.  Their overall impact on the team and other intangibles that are not reflected in a stat sheet.

Last year, the Thunder had a nice playoff run and proved they are a young team on the rise.  There was one new entrant and one significant elevation.

As always, we present our top five, which saw no changes:

1. Russell Westbrook
2. Gary Payton
3. Kevin Durant
4. Shawn Kemp
5. Jack Sikma

You can find the entire list here.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has rocketed to #8 from #27. He was a First-Team All-NBA selection and the MVP runner-up last year to Nikola Jokic, and the sky is the limit for this young Canadian.

The new entrant was Jalen Williams, who debuted at #46.

We thank you for your continued support of our lists on Notinhalloffame.com.