Basketball Hall Of Fame

More people visited the new Basketball Hall of Fame in its first two months of operation than in all of 1983, an official announced. And this year's attendance is about to surpass the number who toured the old hall last year at Springfield College. As of last week, 35,393 people visited the $11.4 million showcase. That compares with 33,810 two years ago and 37,197 in 1984. Attendance at the new hall is slightly ahead of expectations, Hall of Fame executive director Joe O'Brien said.

ATLANTA -- Rick Pitino hasn't had “One Shining Moment” this Final Four weekend. He's had several. It's been pretty surreal. It started last week, when Pitino's son Richard, was named coach at Minnesota to replace Tubby Smith, who replaced Rick Pitino at Kentucky in 1998. It continued Saturday, when a horse that Rick Pitino has an ownership stake in, “Goldencents,” won the Santa Anita Derby. Later that night, Louisville's basketball team advanced to Monday night's NCAA title game with a win over Wichita State at the Georgia Dome.

The image of polished perfection has made it to Springfield, Mass. On one hand, that makes Pat Riley profoundly proud. Because it's as if his father is going to the Basketball Hall of Fame with him tonight. "My dad was dashing," he says of the late Lee Riley. "One thing he always did, was he had those wonderful Clark Gable-type suits on, and bright red ties and starched shirts. He had a lot of style to him." But on the other hand, the portrait of Pat Riley presented over 24 seasons as an NBA head coach also is a distortion.

The Basketball Hall of Fame's finalists for the 2013 class have strong California connections with two-thirds of Golden State's Run TMC -- Tim Hardaway and Mitch Richmond -- joining Oakland native and former Laker Gary Payton as well as former Long Beach State and Fresno State coach Jerry Tarkanian among the 12 still under consideration. The announcement of the finalists is a prelude to the NBA's All-Star Weekend in Houston. The inductees will be announced at the Final Four in April.

Former Boston Celtic great Bob Cousy announced that he is quitting as president of the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.

Julius Erving and Bill Walton head a list of 10 players and one contributor nominated for the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Jamaal Wilkes remained blessed and cursed for playing for great teams. He was blessed with the Lakers (1977-85) as he helped them win three NBA titles, but he was cursed because his contributions were overshadowed by Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He was blessed to be a part of the UCLA teams that won 88 consecutive games and two NCAA championships. But Bill Walton carried the spotlight. But Wilkes' efforts will hardly go unnoticed Sept. 7 in Springfield, Mass., where he will be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, according to a Monday announcement . Wilkes will become the Lakers' 24th Hall of Famer, which includes 17 players, four head coaches, one assistant coach and two contributors.

Dennis Rodman earned plenty of labels during his sometimes turbulent NBA career. Here's one the player who created chaos on — and sometimes off — the court never expected: Hall of Fame member. Rodman headlined the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame's 2011 class announced on Monday at the Final Four in Houston, a group that includes former Dream Team member Chris Mullin and Stanford Coach Tara VanDerveer . "It's just unreal," Rodman said. And somewhat unexpected, at least to the two-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year and five-time NBA champion, who believed his extracurricular activities would overshadow his on-the-court accomplishments.

"Blake gets his first field goal in the second half. Don't go away, 89-77, it's down to 12. Don't go away!" It's Ralph Lawler's 2,513th Clippers game here and in San Diego, of which 1,613 have been losses, not that you can tell by his excitement level. Blake Griffin has just scored as they try to rally from a 16-point deficit in a game against the San Antonio Spurs, as Richard Jefferson fires off a three-pointer. . . . "Jefferson!" says Lawler as the ball arcs toward the basket, and goes in. "Go ahead and go away.

Knee injuries delayed the professional basketball debuts of No. 1 NBA draft picks Greg Oden and Blake Griffin. For Bob Boozer, it was national pride. The top pick in 1959, he kept the Cincinnati Royals at arm's length for more than a year to maintain his amateur status in hopes of playing for Team USA in the 1960 Olympics. "I always had this deep desire to represent this country on its Olympic basketball squad," Boozer says, "and at that time, you only had one go-round at it. Everyone told me, 'Your chances are remote,' et cetera, et cetera.

Former Minnesota Lynx Coach Jennifer Gillom, who once starred at the University of Mississippi and won a gold medal at the 1988 Olympics, was named the Sparks' coach Monday, ending a months-long search for a successor to Michael Cooper. Gillom played seven seasons in the WNBA: six with the Phoenix Mercury and her final season, 2003, with the Sparks, in which she was a teammate of forward DeLisha Milton-Jones. The job search began as soon as the season ended, although it had been known since May that Cooper, who led the Sparks to two WNBA championships, was leaving to coach the USC women's basketball team.

It's not as if there has been a lot of suspense leading up to this moment. Michael Jordan hasn't chewed his fingernails down to the cuticles wondering whether this, at long last, might be the year he gets into the Hall of Fame. But to act as if it's no big deal that he's being inducted into the Hall -- duh, of course MJ is a Hall of Famer! -- is wrong too. The man deserves his due. The best way to describe Jordan's place here is to say that the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame has been living a diminished life without him. By definition, there can't be a basketball hall of fame -- lowercase, uppercase, generic, whatever -- without Michael Jordan.