Basketball Hall Of Fame

If you go: The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame is open after Labor Day through June 30, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; July through Labor Day, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. It's closed Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is $5; seniors and students under 15, $3; children 8 and under are admitted free with parents. The Hall of Fame is celebrating basketball's centennial throughout 1991, and a number of special events are planned. UCLA will play Indiana next Nov.

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.

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.

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.

Cheer up, you die-hard basketball fans who think the world ends after the NBA Finals. There is a place, just off Highway 91 in the heart of Springfield, Mass., where you can get your fill of slam-dunk excitement all year long. It's the Basketball Hall of Fame, a lively exhibition of large shoes and large jerseys, where you can shoot hoops on a practice court or join the big boys for an eight-minute, so-real-you'll-sweat game.

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.

James Worthy whirled past befuddled opponents for 12 standout seasons as a Laker forward, freeing himself for crowd-pleasing dunks or medium-range jump shots during the "Showtime" era of the 1980s. Others gained more acclaim, but few played their roles more dependably than Worthy. Chick Hearn called Worthy's every spin, dunk and jumper -- and a great deal more during a 42-year career that made him perhaps the greatest Laker of them all.

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

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

"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.

Jamaal Wilkes usually is not one to toot his own horn. It's an admirable quality, but friends tell him his reluctance to promote himself could be one reason the former UCLA All-American and Showtime-era Lakers forward has been shunned by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. So now he's lobbying. "I believe I should be in," says Wilkes, whose nomination is under consideration by the selection committee again this year. "I'm not obsessed with it, but I believe I deserve to be in."

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.

SAN ANTONIO -- Pat Riley, winner of four NBA championships as coach of the Lakers and a fifth with the Miami Heat, is among seven who will be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on Sept. 5 in Springfield, Mass. He will be joined by former NBA standouts Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon and Adrian Dantley, former Immaculata coach Cathy Rush, Detroit Pistons owner Bill Davidson and ESPN analyst Dick Vitale.