Ron Boone

What do you think about the HOF candidacy of Ron Boone?You have him ranked as #90 (not adjusted for the elections of Chet Walker & Mel Daniels).However,it appears that the HOF for the near future will be electing one player who played all or most of his career in the ABA annually. Among your group of the top 100 candidatse, while Boone makes your list only as #90, among ABA stars Boone ranks at about #5. He threw down about 17 points per game and had a career long consecutive games streak of 1041 games. In the ABA and later in the NBA over 13 seasons (1968-1981), Boone never missed a game and performed at a high level. He was an ABA All-Star on a number of occasions. Even late in his career he still played a lot of minutes. As far as I know, he had Zero token game appeaences just to keep his streak alive. His consecutive games streak was broken by A.C. Green,with 1192 career games (1985-2001) a player who at 9.6 points per game, was nowhere near the scoring threat that Boone was.Unlike Boone, Green definitely di make some cameo appearences to keep his consecutive games streak alive.Perhaps you hasd a few ABA players who were slightly more deserving of HOF honors than Boone, such as Louie Dampier, however sentimentally or just because I value a player who shows up, plays hard, and plays through injuries, a little higher than others with better stats or greater reputaions, I'm for the HOF adding Boone to it's roster as soon as possible (2013). These Hall Of Fame special categories, may be short term (except fort the Veterans Catefory, which deserves to always be in existence). You never know when the HOF directors will decide that enough players have been elected in the special ABA category and that the category should be terminated. That's another reason why I'd like to see Boone get elected as soon as possible.P.S. : Boone was an ABA All-Star, his last four years with that league (the 1973 through 1976 games). He averaged over 20 points per game three times, including his last two years in the ABA and his first year in the NBA (1976-77 with 22.2 ppg). His career high was the 1974-75 season when he scored 25.2 PPG).Dennis Orlandini (Phillies Archivist)

I think Boone is in that very short list of players (after Daniels) who could be the next representative fro the ABA. Though I do not think he is as deserving as Roger Brown or Dampier, Boone's consistency and of course durability make him very friendly to hall voters. Was he ever a domnat force in the ABA? Probably not but he is one of those guys that helped defined the league in an entirely differnt way than a high flying dunking machine such as ERving or Warren Jabali. He was a professional on and off the court and always came to play.