2024 Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony.

Billups When he was in high school, his grandmother said that due to their past, the name “Billups” wasn’t the most reputable. She hoped he could do something to make the name more reputable. Whenever he played tournament games (not as a part of George Washington School) against Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, or Stepheon Marbury, they asked if him if he skied or rode horses, because he was from Colorado. No, he did not. And he still doesn’t. Billups says he probably should have been teammates with Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady in Toronto. During his time in Minnesota, he thanked Terrell Brandon and Sam Mitchell. Mitchell taught him how to be a pro. And Brandon really mentored him too. Also thanked Flip Saunders. He misses Flip so much. Said the Pistons were a collection of guys that had been cast away from other teams. He enjoyed every minute of his 2nd stint in Denver, playing with Carmelo Anthony, JR Smith, and coach George Karl. He thanked the Clippers for helping get his coaching career started. He advocates Tyronn Lue for being in the Hall Of Fame as a coach. And at the end, he gave a shout out to his grandma. Jerry West This is his 3rd time being inducted. First was as a player; then was as a contributor for the 1960 US Olympic Team. Now it’s as an executive. He hated the L word. The Clippers called him “the personification of basketball excellence”. Doug Collins Doug Collins had a friend that was a coal miner. He took Collins down to the coal mine one day. That made Collins realize that while he thought he worked hard, it was really just a game that he had fun doing. What his friend did was real work. His friend worked in the mines for 30 years. After his 3rd year in college, he had a decision....

Lots of thoughts on Billups

I always wondered about whether he looked fondly upon his upbringing in Colorado or not. It surprised me one time when he referred to Denver as "not being a basketball town". He's right in a sense. It's definitely below average but you would think that as a Denver native, he would either vouch for it or just avoid the topic altogether

Sort of surprising considering that he loved his 2nd run with the Nugz. I remember the first run. It was awkward because he played off the ball even though he's a point guard. The lineup was Van Exel, Billups, Mercer, Dice and LaFrentz. Team was in the dumps so that may be why he thinks he should've been teammates with VC and TMac. Who knows what would've happened had they all stayed together

I'm glad he gave a shout out to Flip. I'm still sad that he passed away at such a young age

The Pistons winning the title may have been one of my all time favorite titles. Effectively ended the Shaq and Kobe run

Funny that West hated the L word. What was the context of that and who gave the speech?

I assume that VC excelled in the long jump and high jump lol

I want to see Carter videos of him doing long jump and high jump. I wonder if he had done it as an Olympic event, if he could have medaled, or been the best USA athlete there.

West's son gave the speech. Yes, I was waiting to see if you picked up on the built in joke about West hating the L word. I mean a joke among us message board members.

The context was either probably games in general as a player, or maybe the matchups against Boston. Probably games in general.

I was surprised Terrell Brandon mentored Billups. I would have thought Brandon would have seen Billups as competition. Good to know that about them.

Was Van Exel the PG on that Denver team? If so, then I would have had Billups as the lead PG, then Billups. Or sort of done a 55/45 split with Billups getting the bigger share.

Sort of like how Cassell and Payton were both PGs in Milwaukee, but one of them probably had the ball a little more.

Do we have a conclusion as to whether Billups liked his upbringing in Colorado?

Maybe he liked it to an extent, but he didn't like the most common activities like skiing or horse riding. Because he seemed happy to play in his hometown in his 2nd stint.

And while I don't know the geographic extent to which the Billups name had been tarnished, it did seem important that he finally made the name proud. And you would think the first location where it would have an improved reputation would be his hometown.

Any comments on any of the Doug Collins stuff?

Also, even if the Lakers had won the 2004 title, I could still see Kobe Bryant having the me or him ultimatum with Shaquille O'Neal. Especially if O'Neal had won another Finals MVP and Bryant didn't.

So it's possible to also say that Kobe Bryant ended the dynasty.

It's also possible the Spurs would have won two more before the Lakers would have won another one anyways, so the Spurs could have ended it by becoming the new dynasty.

Billups was teammates with Camby, Stoudamire, Doug Christie, Walt Williams, Dee Brown, and McGrady.

Then he got traded in the offseason, and the Raptors drafted Vince Carter.

Had he stayed, then he would have been teammates with McGrady and Carter.

By the time the rookie season started with Vince Carter, Camby, Stoudamire, Williams were gone.

Why did they get rid of those 3 players? They were good.

A lineup of Stoudamire, Billups, McGrady, Carter, Camby looks good to me. I don't like small guards but that's always going to be an issue with Stoudamire, and that lineup is probably one of the better possible lineup of bigger players surrounding Stoudamire. I'm sure it would take time for people to figure out how to play, but at least that's a lot of good young talent. Doug Christie can be in the lineup if needed. Maybe move Billups to PG and play Stoudamire off the bench, with Christie in the lineup.

Vince Carter also thanked 4 different coaches in Toronto, and joked that he had a lot of coaches there.

Billups was part of the Stoudemire trade. Stoudemire went from Toronto to Portland in exchange for Kenny Anderson but Anderson complained about going to Canada so they re routed him to Boston with Billups going from Boston to Toronto

Ok, then why get rid of Camby and Walt Williams?

Just a note on spelling.

Damon's last name is Stoudamire.

Amare's last name is Stoudemire.

Now, one of my spelling things that I can't remember are people with D's in their name. For Josh Reddick, Cam Reddish, JJ Redick.

Finally someone gave me a good mnemonic device.

Josh is a big boob. Big boobs are often DD's. Two D's in Reddick's name.

Josh and Cam are double D guys. They like them some strong, plump, full DD's.

JJ, is just a boob. A singular, boob. A dolt. Twat. Dumbass.

NVE was definitely the lead ball handler in Denver with Billups off the ball. I don't think Denver's failures were completely due to that but rather the overall culture in Denver at the time was lousy As for whether Billups enjoyed his upbringing in Denver, I can only go with what I remember. I remember some outlet showing him with a Broncos shirt when he was a kid which would imply some amount of civic pride but he was also young and may have just been wearing a shirt that was given to him by a relative I do know that he chose to attend college at Colorado so there's some home pride attached to that as well Other than that, he just mentioned Denver as being a below average bball town. That may just be an honest assessment of the market as opposed to him not liking his upbringing The Doug Collins stuff was interesting. I remember seeing the Raymond Lewis youtube video where he complained about being paid so little despite claiming to have been the better player between him and Collins. They were both first round picks by the Sixers with Collins being the number 1 pick and Lewis being later in the first round. Instead of complaining, Lewis should've just let his play do the talking instead of holding out for a better contract To more directly answer what was said about Collins in the HOF speech, that's a neat story about visiting the miners although it's disappointing that athletes continually have to be reminded of their well being with anecdotes like that. At the end of the day, I'm glad Collins had a greater appreciation for being an athlete though Aside from that, I'll always remember Collins as the guy who sank two free throws that should've been good for the....

Not sure about Walt but Camby was dealt for Charles Oakley because they wanted veteran leadership. Seemed to have worked a bit for both sides. Oakley provided defense, toughness, leadership and rebounding that the franchise never previously had while Camby infused the Garden faithful with energy off the bench originally

Haha, good way of memorizing it

I knew there was something off about how I was spelling Damon's name. Thanks for the clarification

I think the Collins thing with his friend that was a minor was when Collins was in high school. It was before his college days.

So I think Collins was still young enough where it is still reasonable for him to not have the whereabouts of what other life choices are.

Although he did say his friend had been mining for 30 years.

I'll re-watch the part about the minor so I can see where chronologically it fit in. I did try to list my notes chronologically, and it does appear I noted it early on.

Yes Collins talked about the last moments of that Olympics game too.

Billups watched the 2014 SuperBowl from his hotel room:

https://www.denverpost.com/2014/01/23/hochman-chauncey-billups-fondly-embraces-we-the-broncos-nation/

I can't find a source as to whether he attended the parade in 2016.

They also had a superfans induction thing.

Billy Crystal, Alan Horwitz, Spike Lee, and Jack Nicholson were the 2024 superfans.

https://www.hoophall.com/news/naismith-basketball-hall-of-fame-to-honor-four-new-superfans-during-enshrinement-weekend

In 2021, Nav Bhatia, Jimmy Goldstein, and Penny Marshall were the superfans. But they didn't get an induction like there was in 2024.

https://www.hoophall.com/news/naismith-memorial-basketball-hall-of-fame-reveals-superfan-exhibit-as-part-of-25-million-renovation-of-museum

The 2024 induction ceremony had a minute where they acknowledged the superfans on stage. I don't think the 2021 had something like that.

Thoughts @Trueblood?

When is the next game that I'm not going to watch?. I want to be sure I miss it.