25 years of Hall of Fame selection list! Howard, Melon Anthony all were selected!

Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame will officially welcome its latest incoming member this weekend, although only two former NBA players will be in the Hall of Fame, a small class by modern standards, Carmelo Anthony and Dwight Howard were important throughout the decade of the 2000s and 2010s, with collectively earning 18 All-Star Games and 14 All-American First Team honors.

On the other hand, the 2025 players are eye-catching because they should enter the Hall of Fame regardless of the criteria. Both Anthony and Howard are computed by my NBA player career assessment method to lead the top 100 players in league history. Of every rookie since 2017, at least one player has failed to meet this standard except for 2024, and they have surpassed all players in the 2024 induction, except Charnsi Billups.

For Howard, this might surprise you because his second half of his NBA career was disappointing, which is also reflected in the unexplained omissions of his 2021 NBA 75th Anniversary Team. But Howard deserves to be in the Hall of Fame with his first eight seasons with the Orlando Magic.

Despite not winning that season, Howard won the Defensive Player of the Year three times in five seasons with the Orlando Magic and was selected to the first team each of the 2007-08-2011-12 seasons. While one might think these honors are a product of a shortage of centers in the league, Warcraft has been in the top five in the Most Valuable Player (MVP) voting for four consecutive seasons, with him finishing second in the 2010-11 season and I should have voted for him. He should have won that award, and in fact that award went to Derek Ross.

If Howard retires when he was first traded, his MVP prize number will be 41st in history and the championship contribution will be 52nd. Howard played with six teams after leaving the Magic, including three different plays with the Los Angeles Lakers, and eventually won the championship in 2020 and played a key role on the bench. Despite this, he still ranks in the top 40 in all-time in the number of championship contributions, which puts him far ahead of Anthony.

He has consistently appeared on the field during Anthony's 19-year NBA career, although he did not perform as well as Howard in his final year of playing for the Lakers with Howard in 2021-22, and his peak period has never reached Howard's height. Anthony has only one team that made the top five in the MVP vote (he finished third in 2012-13 and led the New York Knicks to the only 50-win season between 2000 and 2024) and has never made it to the NBA for a first time.

Anthony, who was selected as All-Star 10 times and No. 1 in the All-American 10 times, is still ranked 66th in the championship-contributing honor rankings and is in the top 100 overall, and is an obvious Hall of Fame member. This is just his NBA career. As the first “one-year show” players, players like Howard entered the league directly from high school, Anthony’s Hall of Fame resume also included leading Syracuse to a national championship during his freshman year and his long-standing performance with the U.S. basketball team. (More on this later.)

Although Anthony and Howard are unable to compare with classes composed of inner circle Hall of Fame members, such as 2020 (Bryant Bryant, Posthumous Award, and Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett), only three classes have surpassed this year in average increasing number of titles since 2010.