BOB COUSY TURNED 94 years old last month, and the Boston Celtics legend believes nearly half of his life has been spent affiliated with the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
"I've served in just about every capacity on every committee," the "Houdini of the Hardwood" says with pride one summer morning, calling from his home in Worcester, Massachusetts, about an hour's drive east from the hall in Springfield. The 13-time All-Star, six-time champion and 1957 NBA MVP was inducted as a player in 1971. Nearly two decades later, in 1989, Cousy became the first Hall of Famer to be named president of the hall itself -- a short stint that he says was more honorary than hands-on.
For all his involvement, Cousy admits that he has one notable blind spot: how someone becomes a Hall of Famer.
"Because of my reasons or someone else's," he says, "I've never taken time to inform myself on the voting process."
There's a primer on the hall's website, but it doesn't provide identities of the voters themselves, a sharp contrast from the respective halls for professional hockey, football and baseball. So who are the voters? Who picks them? And why is the whole procedure shrouded in mystery?
These are among Cousy's queries, and when details -- provided to ESPN by those who have voted (and who largely wanted to remain anonymous) along with top executives at the hall -- are shared with Cousy, he pauses, then offers a long "hmmmmmm."
"It sounds byzantine," Cousy says. "It probably wouldn't pass a Supreme Court muster."
The hall's latest class, a 13-member group that features Manu Ginobili, Tim Hardaway, Bob Huggins, Swin Cash and Lindsay Whalen, among others, will be enshrined in basketball's birthplace this weekend. How that class came about, exactly, is unclear, because the Basketball Hall of Fame is the least transparent among the halls in perhaps all of sports.
The election process for the Basketball Hall of Fame is so secretive, in fact, that its final ballots are destroyed.
EACH OF THE four major Halls of Fame has similar procedures for inducting members. There are requirements for eligibility, largely based on years removed from the league itself, and then committees that screen nominees and another for the final vote. The bar for induction is high in all four: nominees must receive either 75% or 80% of possible votes for enshrinement. Some halls, such as hockey and basketball, have limited voting terms for committee members who vote; others are open-ended.
But the Basketball Hall of Fame is different from its brethren in two striking ways. The first is that the other halls focus only on inducting members from their sports' professional ranks in North America, whereas Naismith encompasses all levels and genders of the entire sport globally: the NBA, WNBA, college, high school, international, men's, women's -- you name it. This is the case despite the fact that there are halls of fame for college basketball (in Kansas City), women's basketball (in Knoxville, Tennessee) and international basketball (the FIBA hall in Madrid).
"I think that sets us apart," says Jerry Colangelo, the hall's chairman since 2009. "We represent the game of basketball, on all levels. And whether there are other hall of fames within basketball doesn't matter. That's fine."
Then there's the voting.
For both the hockey and football halls, the identities of the voters are listed online. And in baseball, where only writers vote, all 394 members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America who voted in the 2022 Hall of Fame election are also listed online. (Ballots from BBWAA voters who want theirs to be public will be listed online at a later date, too.)
With the Basketball Hall of Fame, the only online description of the anonymous voters' identities is an in-house mention that the two 24-person honors committees (one for North American men and one for women) are comprised of "Hall of Famers, basketball executives and administrators, members of the media, and other experts in the game of basketball."
"There's not any major reason why we're different from anyone else," Colangelo says. "It's just that it's always been that way, because we want to protect the people who are voting, who are involved in the process, and that eliminates a lot of things that do happen, conceivably, in the other sports, in terms of influencing those people who are voters. There's potentially an integrity issue if names are out there in the public. We have active coaches, we have active general managers, we have media people who are all involved. We have Hall of Famers who are involved. And so there's no requirement to disclose those names.
"What does that accomplish?"
Both Colangelo and John Doleva, the hall's president and CEO since 2001, say that anonymity -- which Doleva says has been part of the voting process for as long as he can remember -- serves a greater purpose than transparency.
"All the halls of fame are flawed in a way because it's like in any voting. There's bias," says one former voter. "The one thing is that it's not corrupt. No one -- Jerry or anybody in the NBA -- have ever leaned on me in any of those situations."
Granting anonymity also allows the hall to tap into a deeper pool of voters with significant experience in the game -- voters who wouldn't participate if their vote were made public.
"If I could show you the list, you would nod your head and go, 'Wow,'" Doleva says.
Doleva continues, "Why is there confidentiality? It's not because we want to be secretive. It is to protect you, the voter, and give you the reassurance that your vote and your comments are not going to be circulated so you find yourself in an uncomfortable situation."
An uncomfortable situation like a legendary player on a screening committee who said an eligible teammate wasn't Hall of Fame worthy and thus didn't vote for them. This particular instance, several voters say, has happened multiple times.
"It really gave me an added measure of respect that they valued the game that much," one former voter says, recalling witnessing just such an incident.
Colangelo and some former voters note that the pool of voting expertise that the hall draws from is deeper than some other halls of fame, with participants all taking part not just on the final voting committees but on the screening committees, too (the North American screening committee has nine members and the women's screening committee has seven members).
Baseball, in comparison, relies only on media members to vote.
"I don't like the baseball thing, because it's just writers," the former voter says. "They don't know enough about the game. They're not involved in baseball."
However, hockey's voting body is made up of former players, executives, coaches and media, and their identities are all public.
Still, Basketball Hall of Fame voters are reminded not to publicly reveal their identity as a voter or to discuss how they ultimately voted. The penalty for doing otherwise? Doleva says he's not sure.
"To be honest, we have never had any violations of it that has come back to me in terms of media," he says.
Longtime NBA journalist Peter Vecsey, a former voter, would like a word.
"I want everything I say to be on the record," he begins.
LIKE OTHER VOTERS, Vecsey was sworn to secrecy about his role as a voter.
"I never told anybody, except you," he says. "So I played it pretty close to the vest."
What Vecsey -- and others who have voted -- recall is first receiving a booklet in the mail containing the names and biographies of nominated individuals eligible for induction that year. In a typical year, that booklet contains anywhere from 40 to 50 names.
In early February, the nine-member North American screening committee gathers in its Manhattan headquarters (though the COVID-19 pandemic forced those meetings onto a Zoom call) to debate and discuss the names in the booklet and, ultimately, whittle that list of players, coaches and referees down to no more than 10.
Each candidate must receive at least seven votes to make the final cut, which is then mailed out to the 24-member honors committee in the second week in March; members receive that list, mark yes or no on each candidate, then mail their ballots back to the hall. Those final ballots are then tallied by a lawyer and eventually shredded "so that there is not a paper trail to go back and somehow find that some individuals voted in some way -- again, to protect the process," Doleva says.
Electees are announced at the NCAA Men's Final Four in April, when anxious hopefuls wait by the phone, but the real tension of the entire Hall of Fame induction process comes in that room where the screening committee gathers. The meetings can last several hours and the level of debate on each individual candidate can be intense. For some attendees, this meeting marks the best part of being a voter: to hear the game's greats discussing teammates and colleagues in an unfiltered manner.
"It gets really, really spirited and heavily debated -- but in a good way, where it's not disrespectful," says one former voter.
Says another former voter, "You know you're either denying somebody or promoting somebody to go to the next level and get into the Hall of Fame and how serious that is. A lot of times, it's just a thin thread separating one person from another person."
Some enter the room campaigning for those they played with, coached, worked alongside or covered as a member of the media. Vecsey says when he was a voter in the immediate years after receiving the Hall's Curt Gowdy Media Award in 2009, he campaigned for Dennis Rodman, who was inducted in 2011. Other voters say they, too, campaigned for certain eligible members.
"Sometimes you feel very strongly about a person that you might not even know that well, but you just know their impact on the game," says another former voter. "And it doesn't go your way. But you respect why it didn't."
Some attendees -- which include Colangelo and Doleva -- are talkative, others less so. But there are plenty of stories, as players will share what it was like playing against eligible players, or coaches will share what it was like coaching that player, and on and on.
"There's a lot of room for mischief," a tongue-in-cheek Vecsey says. But Vecsey and all former voters who spoke with ESPN say they believe that, despite any criticisms of their own or beliefs that there should be transparency, the vote, ultimately, is fair.
"I think the vote is fair," Vecsey says. "Jerry has a say like everybody else in the room. But he doesn't have more to say."
"It sounds byzantine. It probably wouldn't pass a Supreme Court muster."Bob Cousy on the Basketball Hall of Fame voting process
Doleva and Matt Zeysing, a historian and curator at the hall, help create lists of potential voters for all the committees, then the list is presented to Colangelo for final approval. Voters serve staggered three-year terms, so the voting committees turn over regularly.
"We always try to keep up the appropriate representation -- male, female, Hall of Famers, coaches, etc.," Colangelo says. "We like how we balance this thing off so that each segment of the basketball world is represented."
After the screening committee finishes its vote, the finalists are then reviewed by the Hall's board of trustees, and according to the hall's site, "At this time, should it be determined by the Board of Trustees that a Finalist has damaged the integrity of the game of basketball, he/she shall be deemed not worthy of Enshrinement and removed from consideration."
The topic of off-court issues does come up, several voters say.
"To the best of my recollection, or the time I've been involved, there's only been a few cases where that's even been a conversation," Colangelo says. "We don't have a lot of individuals who have checkered pasts as it relates to personal conduct and things like that. But everything is always discussed."
There is always a question of what qualifies one to be a Hall of Famer: What is the criteria? To Colangelo, the answer is simply their "body of work," which leaves room for interpretation.
"That becomes sort of a discussion point -- of what he would think as a Hall of Famer might not be what somebody else might not think as a Hall of Famer," says one former voter.
Says another former voter, "I look at who's in the hall. You use that as your bar."
Some voters say the ambition to represent the entire sport can make it challenging when, say, a high school coach they're unaware of becomes eligible. Others say the votes at times are more representative of NBA success.
"Everything was basically being judged on your NBA career," one former voter says.
With voting, several who spoke to ESPN say the biggest dilemma is that some years are so stacked with obvious choices -- such as two years ago, when Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett were all up for election for the first time -- that it blocks out other deserving candidates. (In the case of 2020, that was Chris Bosh, another first-year-eligible player who had to wait until 2021 to get the call.)
"There's always some of you out there that some people will say, 'Well, how could he not get in the Hall of Fame?'" Colangelo says. "My response is, well, thus far, that's true. That doesn't mean it's not going to happen."
The committee also walks a fine line on the urgency to induct deserving members before they die or become compromised by health issues that prevent them from even speaking during their induction process.
"Why not sooner than later?" says one official affiliated with the hall. "Why drag it out? Some of these guys get in after they die. Why not let them enjoy it now?"
Says Vecsey, "There's nothing worse to me than getting an award posthumously."
Larry Costello, an NBA champion as a player (1967) and a coach (1971), is being inducted this year as a contributor after he died in 2001. Vecsey plans to attend the ceremony in honor of Costello, who will be represented by family.
"That is a sad thing," Colangelo says of those being inducted posthumously. "I don't know of any solution. You can't just say, 'Well this guy may die in three years, so we've got to get him in.'"
IT WAS A Monday morning in Denver when George Karl got the call this year. He was told it would come whether he was inducted or not. Karl says he hadn't wondered too much about going into the hall during his 27-season NBA coaching career, but when he crossed the 1,000-win mark -- something only 10 NBA coaches have done -- he started to hear from friends, family and colleagues that he might be next in line. But he didn't want to think about it too much or even look into how it all worked too carefully.
"I thought if I studied the process, I would jinx it," Karl says.
He did find himself asking some questions about the process to former NBA head coach Don Nelson, who was inducted in 2012, when the two would golf together.
This year, the call came from Doleva, who told Karl he was one of the members of the Class of 2022. Karl, who is 71, was elated, quiet, reflective. He called friends and family, and he says he later found out that Gary Payton, whom Karl coached in Seattle, was a voter this year and "was really prominent in getting me elected," Karl says. (Colangelo and Doleva declined comment regarding whether Payton was or has been a voter.)
Karl last coached in the NBA in 2016. His Hall of Fame wait was seven years, which is nothing compared to Spencer Haywood, a 1980 NBA champion, four-time NBA All-Star, 1970 ABA MVP and Olympic gold medalist.
"My waiting process was 27 years," says Haywood, who was inducted in 2015 after retiring in 1983. "I was a finalist three times. Each time I didn't get in, I was hurt, crushed, feeling bad and not knowing why. But I stayed the course."
Haywood, who averaged 20.3 points and 10.3 rebounds in an NBA and ABA career that spanned from 1969 to 1983, says he never got an explanation of what took so long, and he figured, at one point, that if it didn't happen, so be it, because his career had always been unusual anyway. Maybe it was payback, in a way?
"Because when you sue the NBA and the NCAA all the way to the Supreme Court" -- as Haywood did in 1970, winning a case that challenged eligibility rules and changed the course of the NBA -- "you're gonna catch some hell," Haywood says.
During his wait, Haywood says he didn't lose hope, as he looked to former South Africa president Nelson Mandela, who was imprisoned from 1962 until 1990.
"He had 27 years in the hole," Haywood says, "and he never lost hope."
On the other side of the waiting spectrum is Dick Barnett, a two-time NBA champion with the New York Knicks in 1970 and 1973, two-time NBA All-Star and a three-time NAIA champion at Tennessee A&I (now Tennessee State University).
Barnett, who will turn 86 on Oct. 2, has been inducted into the NAIA Hall of Fame, the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame, the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame and the Small College Basketball Hall of Fame. In 2019, the Naismith Hall of Fame inducted Barnett's Tennessee A&I teams of 1957, 1958 and 1959.
But he is still waiting for a call as a player.
"I think that whole process has been tremendously compromised," says Barnett, whose No. 12 was retired by the Knicks in 1990. "Are they going by players' abilities and records and accomplishments? Because Dick Barnett should've been in the Hall of Fame 50 years ago."
At this point, Barnett has lost several teammates, and time isn't on his side. Does he think he'll live to see the day when the hall might induct him?
"I'm not really concerned about that," Barnett says. "Looking at my accomplishments, I really feel that whatever that hall of fame is, I should've been inducted. I've been inducted into five or six halls of fame. At this point. I'm not even concerned about that. I know what kind of player I was."