The Nets Have Completely Surrendered

Left to right: Kevin Durant, smiling; James Harden, sort-of smiling;

and Kyrie Irving, not smiling. A metaphor for the "era"?

Wow. The Brooklyn Nets have completely surrendered in 3 days. Even by the standards of the biggest joke franchise in the NBA, this is embarrassing.

Assembling a "superteam" with the goal of winning the NBA title has worked before. It worked for the Boston Celtics, as Kevin Durant and Gary Payton were brought in to join Paul Pierce, and they won the NBA Championship in 2008. It worked for the Miami Heat, as Payton, LeBron James and Chris Bosh were brought in to join Dwyane Wade, and they won the Championship in 2012 and '13. And it worked for the Golden State Warriors, who brought Durant in to join Steph Curry, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson, and they won the Championship in 2017 and '18.

But assembling a superteam has also failed. It failed for the Los Angeles Lakers, as Payton (2 out of 3 ain't bad, I suppose) and Karl Malone were brought in to join Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, and they lost the 2004 NBA Finals to a Detroit Pistons team which, at this writing, has seen only one of its players elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame: Ben Wallace.

The Nets -- on Long Island, in New Jersey, and now in Brooklyn -- have always been in the shadow of the New York Knicks, even when the Nets have been good and the Knicks have been bad. The Nets have a new arena in Brooklyn, the Barclays Center; and relatively new leadership in owner Joseph Tsai, general manager Sean Marks, and head coach Jacque Vaughn.

On July 6, 2019, the Nets signed Kyrie Irving as a free agent. Irving had helped LeBron and the Cleveland Cavaliers win the 2016 NBA Championship, but the 2 men fell out over Kyrie's bad attitude, and Kyrie was traded to the Celtics. There, too, he alternated between brilliance and mopery. When his contract ran out, they didn't lift a finger to re-sign him. The Nets signed him.

The very next day, the Nets got Durant from the Warriors in a trade. In addition to the 2017 and '18 titles with Golden State, Durant and James Harden had gotten the Oklahoma City Thunder into the 2012 NBA Finals, but lost to the Heat. With both Irving and Durant, the Nets were supposed to be contenders for the NBA Championship.

It didn't work out that way, although it wasn't all their fault. Durant was still dealing with the Achilles heel that cost the Warriors the 2019 Finals against the Toronto Raptors, and missed the entire 2019-20 season. Then, in March, that season was interrupted by the COVID pandemic. When the NBA started up again in August, it canceled the rest of the regular season, and went right to the Playoffs. Between the shutdown and earlier injuries, Irving only played 20 regular-season games. The Nets were the 7th seed in the Eastern Conference, and were swept by the Raptors in the 1st round.

Due to Durant's injury, the early exit wasn't totally unexpected. Durant would be back for 2020-21, and that was the season in which the Nets were supposed to go for it. They certainly tried: On January 13, 2021, they made a trade with the Houston Rockets, and got Harden, one of the game's top scorers at the time.

Now, the Nets had a "Big Three": Irving, Durant and Harden, with 7 Finals appearances and 3 titles between them. Surely, this combination would be enough to close a season with the 16 wins necessary to get through the Playoffs and win the NBA Championship.

Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant and James Harden. They played a grand total of 16 games together. And it wasn't just due to injuries. With COVID still an issue, Irving refused to get vaccinated, and, by the law of the City of New York, the Nets could not even allow him in the arena. Then, after the law was lifted, Irving hurt his teammates by exposing them to him, and thus possibly to COVID, thus risking their lives.

This led Frank Isola, who covers the Nets for the New York Daily News, and is a regular panelist on ESPN's Around the Horn, to call Irving "the worst teammate in the history of sports." Given the circumstances, it's hard to argue. He made Stephon Marbury look like Magic Johnson.

And Irving couldn't get along with Harden. Still, the Nets got the 2nd seed in the East for the 2021 Playoffs. They beat the Celtics in 5 games, but then lost to the Milwaukee Bucks in 7 games. At first glance, it doesn't look particularly shameful. The Nets did win the 1st 2 games in Brooklyn, but, Cliché Alert, and this cliché is especially used in the NBA: The series isn't "over" until the home team loses at least once. Led by Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Bucks won the next 2 in Milwaukee.

The Nets won Game 5 in Brooklyn, and the Bucks won Game 6 in Milwaukee. But in Game 7, in Brooklyn, the Bucks won in overtime. Durant scored 48, but Giannis scored 40, and the Bucks were just a little bit better, and went on to win the title.

Losing to that Bucks team was not, by itself, a terrible thing. Certainly, pushing a team that eventually won the title to a Game 7 suggests both some talent and some character. But losing a Game 7 at home always looks bad, especially in regard to character.

Cliché Alert: The window was closing. Except Nets management didn't know it. Irving still couldn't get along with Durant. So, on February 10, 2022, the Nets made a "my headache for your headache trade." They sent Harden to the Philadelphia 76ers for a package that included the talented but troubled star Ben Simmons. Simmons had missed the entire season to that point, with a back injury and, it was suggested, mental health issues. (Only he knows for sure what was going on.) So now, the Nets' Big Three was Irving, Durant and Simmons. Except Simmons wasn't available for the 2022 Playoffs.

As in 2020, the Nets were missing one of their Big Three, and only got the 7th seed in the East. As in 2020, they were easily beaten by the Celtics. But for 2022-23, all 3 -- Irving, Durant and Simmons -- were supposed to be healthy and ready to go.

Except Irving was whining his way through the season again. As always, bursts of brilliance, which suggested that he knew he was in his "contract year," were followed by sloughs of indifference, which suggested that he didn't care -- not about his future earnings, not about where he wanted to play in 2023-24 and beyond, and certainly not about his current teammates. Durant had demanded to be traded. And the Nets were 32-22, 5th in the East.

Finally, Irving demanded a trade. There were suggestions from basketball media pundits that they shouldn't give in to his demand before today's trading deadline, and instead should put him on the spot. Instead, 3 days ago, the Nets caved: They sent Irving and Markieff Morris to the Dallas Mavericks for Spencer Dinwiddie, Dorian Finney-Smith, and 3 draft picks for 2027 or later.

And then, yesterday, the surrender was made complete: The Nets traded Durant to the Phoenix Suns. The Suns reached the Finals in 2021, and were one of the favorites to do so again this season. Now, they look like favorites for the title.

The Nets look like they might barely scrape into the Playoffs, and then be done for a while. Once again, they are vying with the NBA's other "little brother franchise," the Los Angeles Clippers, for the titles of the league's biggest underachiever and its biggest joke franchise.

The Nets didn't even get a Division title out of their superteam experiment. There's not one banner that can be hung in the rafters of the Barclays Center as a reminder of anything good that Big Three I (Irving-Durant-Harden) or Big Three II (Irving-Durant-Simmons) accomplished, because they didn't accomplish anything beyond a 2 seed. Ain't no banners, trophies or parades for that.

The Nets' most recent banner remains the one for their 2006 Atlantic Division title. That was 17 years ago. They were still playing home games at the Meadowlands. Not one member of that team is still playing, in any professional league, anywhere in the world.

And yet, the Nets remain the New York Tri-State Area's most recent pro basketball Finalist, having made it in 2003, to the Liberty's 2002 WNBA Finals berth and the Knicks' 1999 NBA Finals berth; and the last Area team to win a league title, having won the ABA in 1976, to the Knicks' 1973 and the Liberty's never.

Somebody asked online, "How did this become such a trainwreck? There was soooo much promise.... "

Bringing Kyrie in, all by itself, made it a promise they had no chance of keeping. I was a Nets fan for their entire 35 years in New Jersey. I left them after they left me, when they moved to Brooklyn in 2012. I knew they would fail in their superteam bid, because that's what the Nets always do: They fail. But I didn't know they would surrender so spectacularly, and so fast.

Today, on ESPN's First Take, Stephen A. Smith called the Nets "the biggest failure in NBA history." On Around the Horn, Isola once again called Irving "the worst teammate in the history of sports."

Around the Horn airs on ESPN weekdays at 5:00 PM Eastern Time. It is followed at 5:30 by Pardon the Interruption, and that show's co-hosts also weighed in last night. Tony Kornheiser is a native of Long Island, where the Nets played from 1968, when he was in college at the State University of New York at Binghamton, to 1977, when he covered the New York Nets for the local newspaper Newsday. He compared the current Nets to mythology, citing both the Bible, calling what the team engaged in to "a sin of pride"; and the ancient Greeks, saying that, like Icarus, "They flew too close to the Sun, and got burned."

It was a great turn of phrase for Kornheiser, who often refers to having been an English major. But he got the cause of Icarus' death wrong: Icarus was the son of Daedalus, who made a set of wings, and flew, and the son asked the father to make him a set of wings, too. He did, but warned Icarus not to fly too high. He did, and as he got too close to the Sun, the wax holding the wings together melted, and Icarus fell to his death. So it is somewhat appropriate that Durant went to a team named the Suns.

And co-host Michael Wilbon, a Chicago native who covered a true superteam in the 1990s Chicago Bulls, and who, along with ESPN correspondent and former Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan, probably knows more about basketball than any living person not a player or a coach, said of Irving, "He's a great basketball player when he feels like it, which is not all the time." Wilbon is known for his bluntness, so, by his standards, this was putting it politely.

Upon his arrival in Dallas, Irving said, "To me, personally, just sitting in this seat today, I just know I want to be places where I'm celebrated, and not just tolerated, or just kind of dealt with in a way that doesn't make me feel respected. And there were times throughout this process, when I was in Brooklyn, where I felt very disrespected."

These are the words of a man who refused to do what it took to make himself even eligible to literally show up. And then, when he became eligible again, he metaphorically refused to show up on many an occasion.

There have been 4,374 men who have played at least 1 regular-season game in the National Basketball Association since its founding in 1946. Of those, Kyrie Irving is the one with the least justification to talk about respect.

Brooklyn Nets fans -- if any of them are left after this debacle -- should not talk at all.

As for the Knicks: They currently hold the 7th seed in the East. They will probably make the Playoffs. They might do better in those Playoffs than the Nets do.

The Most Damaging Player In Each New York Team's History

Note: I'm only going to include the "Big Four" leagues: MLB, the NFL, the NBA and the NHL. No Liberty, no Cosmos, no Red Bulls, no NYCFC, no whatever Sky Blue FC are calling themselves now.

I'll lead off with not (yet) the most damaging, but the most recent:

New York/New Jersey/Brooklyn Nets: Kyrie Irving. All he had to do was get vaccinated, and he would have been playing all along, home and away. There wouldn't have been a poisonous atmosphere at the Barclays Center. Chances are, they would have beaten the Boston Celtics in the 1st Round, and possibly dethroned the Milwaukee Bucks, and at least reached the Eastern Conference Finals against the Miami Heat. There could have been a Championship in the future. If not this year, then a serious run at it this year, and building on that for next year.

Instead, Kyrie had to be... Let's put it this way: With some people, the worst advice you can give them is, "Be yourself."

The worst thing about what Kyrie has done to the Nets is that it could well still be a work in progress. In other words, it's unlikely that team management will buy him out, so he could still hurt them again. True, he could also lead them to that elusive title.

But who's kidding who? As Mike Lupica put it in the Daily News when they were eliminated:

The only way Kyrie Irving could make himself an easier mark is if he were trying to guard you. On Twitter the other day he said that “My name is worth billions to these media corporations.” Name one.

But the problem with the Brooklyn Nets, the greatest dynasty that never was and never will be, is much bigger than Irving, a self-indulgent and self-absorbed player whose vaccination status was the single biggest contributing factor to what became not just a lost season, but one of the biggest flops in New York City basketball history. Irving: Who somehow seems himself as the hoops version of Nelson Mandela.

The larger problem with the Nets is that the people in charge, owner Joe Tsai and general manager Sean Marks, look like patsies here for the way they have allowed Kyrie and Kevin — K in this case stands for strikeout in basketball, too — to walk all over them from the time the two stars came to Brooklyn to win all those championships they were going to win.

You know what the Nets are? They are the East Coast version of the Lakers, another dynasty that never was and never will be, who also allowed their stars to run their franchise. They were going to be a Super Team for the ages and ended up winning one title, and winning it when the NBA turned into BubbleBall during COVID.

New York Knicks: Stephon Marbury. The last of 5 brothers to play at Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn's Coney Island, "Starbury" (a nickname he made up) was supposed to be the next great New York City point guard. He went one-and-done at Georgia Tech, then signed with the Minnesota Timberwolves. He might be the biggest reason why Kevin Garnett had to go to Boston to win a title.

In 1999, he was traded to the Nets, and they were 2 of the worst seasons in the history of a franchise with a rotten history, although he was named to the 2001 All-Star Game. He was traded to the Phoenix Suns, even-up for Jason Kidd, a "my headache for your headache" trade. He helped the Suns set after several good years, despite another All-Star appearance in 2003; while Kidd immediately turned the Nets into back-to-back NBA Finalists.

In 2004, the Knicks traded for him. Marbury was only 27, and a 2-time All-Star. And, because he was one of New York City's own, Knick fans believed he would be the man to return the Knickerbockers to glory. That it did not happen was not all his fault -- after all, he came with Anfernee "Penny" Hardaway, a once-great player now saddled with injuries, who did his best but couldn't overcome them, and James Dolan was running the franchise -- but he led the way.

He didn't get along with head coach Don Chaney. Or with the next, fellow Brooklynite Lenny Wilkens, one of the NBA's 50th Anniversary 50 Greatest Players, and once the winningest head coach in NBA history, coach of the 1979 NBA Champion Seattle SuperSonics. And he didn't get along with the next one, Larry Brown.

Brown was a success wherever he went in the NBA. As his longtime friend and fellow Long Islander, Tony Kornheiser of ESPN, put it, "He took the Clippers to the Playoffs! Nobody takes the Clippers to the Playoffs!" And he had taken the Nets to the Playoffs. In fact, he had pulled both of those feats off twice. At the time, this was considered a huge deal, because both teams were "little brothers" to the bigger teams in the area. Both teams were, and -- despite what they've done since -- still are joke franchises. And he had won an NBA Championship with the Detroit Pistons, and gotten the Philadelphia 76ers to the Finals, eventually getting Allen Iverson to see the value in not just a game, but in practice.

The one team with whom he couldn't make the Playoffs was the Knicks: Unlike Iverson, Marbury could not be convinced that Brown knew what he was doing. They feuded like crazy, and, as Frank Isola and Michael O'Keefe wrote in the Daily News, Marbury had become "the most reviled athlete in New York."

Brown left in 2006, while Marbury continued to poison the atmosphere at Madison Square Garden until 2009, when the Boston Celtics finally took him off the Knicks' hands, reuniting him with Garnett -- and taking them down from their title perch of the season before. So that's 5 different NBA teams Marbury messed up, 2 of them in the New York Tri-State Area. He is a serious contender for the overall Number 1 on this list.

China was starting up a pro basketball league, and Marbury played in it from 2010 to 2018, and is now the head coach of the Beijing Royal Fighters.

New Jersey Devils: Ilya Kovalchuk. After 9 years as a sniper for the Atlanta Thrashers, the Devils traded for him. In 4 seasons with the team, he twice scored at least 30 goals, and was a key figure in the team that reached the 2012 Stanley Cup Finals. (It's worth noting that, of the 9 teams in the "big four" leagues, only 2 have reached their sport's finals since: The 2014 Rangers and the 2015 Mets. So this is a big deal.)

But in 2013, he "retired" from the NHL, with $77 million and 12 years remaining on his contract. He was only 30, and his move left the Devils in the lurch: They've only made the Playoffs once since, in 2018.

But he only retired from the NHL. He went back to Russia, and signed with his former team, SKA St. Petersburg. It was all about the money: Not just a higher salary, but considerably lower taxes. Then the ruble crashed in December 2014, and he was making less money. Serves him right. In 2018, he applied to return to the NHL, but the Devils weren't interested. Good thing: At 35, was a shadow of his former self, playing just 2 more seasons, for 3 different teams, and scoring 26 more goals, raising his career total to 328.

New York Islanders: Alexei Yashin. From 1993 to 2001, he scored 218 goals and had 273 assists for the Ottawa Senators. As the 2001-02 season dawned, he was about to turn 28, was coming off back-to-back 40-goal seasons, and hadn't missed a game due to injury in 4 years. There was nothing wrong with wanting a healthy Alexei Yashin on your team.

The question was, What was a team willing to trade to get him? The Islanders traded Bill Muckalt, Zdeno Chara, and their 1st-round draft pick, who the Senators turned into Jason Spezza. Muckalt was a thrown-in, and played his last NHL game in 2003. In 2022, Chara and Spezza are still playing in the NHL, and both could end up in the Hall of Fame.

And Yashin? General manager Mike Milbury signed him to a contract extension worth $87.5 million over 10 years. He scored 32 goals in 2001-02, but that would be his peak. His production dropped, and because of his contract, he was "untradeable." He played his last NHL game at age 34, although he hung on in the Russian league for 5 more years.

Unlike some of these guys, Yashin didn't make a nuisance of himself, to his teammates, to the organization, or to the fans. He just didn't deliver. And it's not like he paid himself: Milbury was more to blame than Yashin was.

New York Rangers: Ken Hodge. BlueLine Station, a Ranger fan website, calls the 1976 trade that sent Hodge to Madison Square Garden and Rick Middleton to the Boston Garden the worst trade in Ranger history. Hodge was supposed to pair up with Phil Esposito to score a lot of goals, as he had with the Bruins. Instead, he played 96 games for the Rangers, with 23 goals and 45 assists.

Yes, they actually wore these uniforms.

In regular-season games.

That's not terrible: The Rangers got off luckier than most of these teams. But look what they gave up for Hodge: In Boston, Middleton played 12 seasons, with 402 goals and 496 assists. The Bruins retired his Number 16, and he should be in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Think that might have helped in the 1979 Stanley Cup Finals against the Montreal Canadiens? Or in those Playoff series against the Islanders? Or in the 1986 Conference Finals against the Canadiens?

New York Giants: Kerry Collins. First season, 1999: 7-9. Second season, 2000: 12-4, but became the 1st quarterback ever to lead an offense that failed to score in a Super Bowl, the Giants' only score coming on a kickoff return. Third season, 2001: 7-9. Fourth season, 2002: 10-6, with 4 losses by 7 points or less, costing them a Division title, and allowing them to fall into that humiliating road Playoff loss to the San Francisco 49ers. Fifth season, 2003: 4-12. Collins was not only the worst starting quarterback in Giants history, he was the worst starting quarterback ever to play in a Super Bowl.

New York Jets: Mo Lewis. Now, this doesn't seem fair. Mo was a very good linebacker. He played 13 seasons for the Jets, including 3 Pro Bowl appearances, 4 Playoff berths, and a trip to an AFC Championship Game. But his tackle injured Drew Bledsoe and led to the rise of Tom Brady. What could be more damaging -- not just to the Jets, but to the entire NFL -- than that?

At such seemingly benign moments is history changed.

New York Yankees: Kevin Brown. I know, I know, I've ripped several Yankee pitchers over the 15 years I've written this blog. I even made a list of all the games one of them, Boone Logan, blew for the Yankees, which I suspect is a team record: Logan's Litany of Losing.

But Kevin Brown. Oy, gevalt, Kevin Brown! After pitching well against the Yankees for the Texas Rangers and the Baltimore Orioles from 1992 to 1995, he went to the National League, and helped the team then known as the Florida Marlins win the 1997 World Series. That team was immediately broken up, and he was traded to the San Diego Padres. They won the 1998 NL Pennant, and started Brown in Games 1 and 4 of the World Series, because of his success against the Yankees. Instead, the Yankees swept the Padres.

The Padres didn't keep him, either, and he signed the 1st $100 million-plus contract in baseball history, with the Los Angeles Dodgers. After the 2003 season, angry at Jeff Weaver's incompetence in the World Series, the Yankees traded Weaver and 2 pitchers who never amounted to anything to the Dodgers, for Brown, and also got Javier Vázquez, knowing they would need to replace the departed Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte.

Some replacements. Brown went 10-6, and after a bad loss in September, punched the dugout wall with his right hand. His throwing hand. He broke it, but was ready to pitch again come the postseason. Despite making the All-Star Game, Vázquez only went 14-10. And, due to injuries, in the all-important Game 7 of the American League Championship Series against the arch-rival Boston Red Sox, manager Joe Torre started Brown, and he didn't make it out of the 2nd inning. Torre replaced him with Vázquez, who didn't get out of the 4th.

Before Kevin Brown became a Yankee, the Yankees were, beyond any question, the team in baseball, and the Red Sox were their bitches. We'll never know if he would have pitched better in October if he hadn't broken his hand in September, but since that game in October, the Yankees have fallen behind not just the Red Sox, but the Tampa Bay Rays and the Houston Astros, and that's just in the American League. Brown pitched 1 more year, through injuries, and retired with a record of 211-144, 216-149 if you count the postseason -- 15-14 as a Yankee.

I had considered long-ago 1st baseman Hal Chase, a great fielder and a good hitter, whose hiring as player-manager late in the 1910 season, and his known throwing of games for gamblers, turned a 2nd (but not close 2nd)-place team into a 102-loss last-place team in just 2 years. But, at the time, they were the New York Highlanders. They weren't officially the Yankees yet, let alone the Yankees.

New York Mets: Bobby Bonilla. There aren't too many athletes who messed a team up, left, returned, and messed them up again. Although born and raised in The Bronx, Yankee territory, Bonilla was a Met fan growing up, and became a star on the Pittsburgh Pirates' early 1990s near-dynasty.

The Mets threw money at him, and he joined for the 1992 season. It was a disaster, as his hitting stats went way down, and the team had its 1st non-contending season in 9 years. The Mets had an even worse season in 1993, full of acts of carelessness that got people hurt, and, in 2 separate incidents, Bonilla threatened local reporters. They finally traded him in 1995.

And yet, they brought him back for 1999. At 36, he was washed-up, and was released. But they still owed him $5.9 million. His agent offered the Mets a deal: He would defer payment for 10 years, and the Mets would pay him $1.19 million every year from 2011 to 2035 (or his heirs if he died before 2035). The Mets took the deal.

Now, every year, July 1, the date of the payment, is known as Bobby Bonilla Day: There are still players the Mets are paying less to play than they're paying Bonilla to not play. Only 13 more years to go.

Which Current New York Athletes Will Make the Hall of Fame?

Tomorrow, Eli Manning will hold a press conference and announce his retirement from the National Football League.

The question has been asked: Should he be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame?

Yes. As Drew Rosenhaus would say, "Next question!"

Come on. This is stupid. Of course Eli belongs.

He has passed for 57,023 yards. That is more than everybody except his brother Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Brett Favre, Dan Marino and Phillip Rivers. Favre and Marino are already in, Peyton becomes eligible next year, and Brady (unless you want to keep him out due to cheating) and Brees are easy choices. Rivers is a question mark, but he plans to play next season, and could provide an easier answer.

He has passed for 366 touchdowns. That is higher than everybody except the exact same 6: Brees, Brady, Peyton, Favre, Marino and Rivers.

He has a pass completion rating of 60.3 percent. That is higher than these men already in the Hall: Sammy Baugh, Sid Luckman, Otto Graham, Bob Waterfield, Norm Van Brocklin, Bobby Layne, Johnny Unitas, Y.A. Tittle, Bart Starr, Sonny Jurgensen, George Blanda, Len Dawson, Bob Griese, Fran Tarkenton, Ken Stabler, Roger Staubach, Terry Bradshaw, Dan Fouts, Dan Marino, Jim Kelly, John Elway and Warren Moon.

It's also higher than that of the man considered the best quarterback in New York football history: Joe Namath. Also, while he's not yet in the Hall, he should be, but he didn't have a higher career completion percentage than Eli, either: Phil Simms. Nor did Archie Manning.

His career passer rating is 84.1. Granted, it's a weird stat, and I don't put much stock in it. But it is higher than every one of those quarterbacks, and one more who is already in the Hall of Fame: Troy Aikman.

He led 37 regular-season game-winning drives. That's more than anybody except Peyton, Brees, Marino, Elway, Brady, Favre, Roethlisberger, Elway, Unitas and Matt Ryan.

Oh yes: He not only won 2 Super Bowls, defeating Brady and the New England Cheatriots both times, but won the Most Valuable Player in each game.

Here is the list of quarterbacks who have won at least 2 Super Bowls and are eligible for the Hall of Fame: Starr, Griese, Bradshaw, Staubach, Aikman, Jim Plunkett, Joe Montana. That's it: 7 guys. Eli, his brother Peyton Manning, Brady and Ben Roethlisberger have also done it, but they're not yet eligible: Peyton becomes eligible in next year's election, and Brady, Big Ben and (for the moment, at least officially) Eli are still active.

The only one of the 7 who isn't in is Plunkett. He should be in. And he was not a better quarterback than Eli Manning. (There's a little irony: Plunkett was one of the guys who beat Archie Manning, Eli & Peyton's father, out for the 1970 Heisman Trophy.)

If you count pre-Super Bowl NFL Championships -- and you should -- then add Van Brocklin (in), Unitas (in), Layne (in), Otto Graham (in), Tommy Thompson (out), Baugh (in), Luckman (in), Arnie Herber (in) and Ed Danowski (out -- which doesn't help Eli, because he was also a Giant).

So that's 13 out of 16 in. And if you don't know much about Thompson (1948 and '49 Eagles) and Danowski (1934 and '38), you may know that this was an era of significantly less sophisticated passing, and you would be safe in presuming that Eli was better than either of them.

*

What other current players for New York Tri-State Area teams are going to their sports' Halls of Fame? It's not a long list. From the Giants, there is nobody else that's anywhere near sure. Saquon Barkley has gotten off to a very good start, but he's had just 2 years. Way too soon to tell.

From the Jets: Le'Veon Bell is a possibility, but that's mainly for what he did with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Sam Darnold? Based on what we've seen so far, he seems more Richard Todd than Joe Namath.

From the Yankees: Lots of guys with a chance, but, unlike the newly-elected Derek Jeter and last year's honoree Mariano Rivera, nobody yet obvious. It's way too soon to tell for Aaron Judge, Gleyber Torres, or any of the other "Baby Bombers." Giancarlo Stanton has 308 home runs and he just turned 30, but his injuries, and now 2 postseason failures, make him a big question mark.

Masahiro Tanaka has won 174 games by age 31, but that's counting his stats in Japan. In America alone, he doesn't get in. The newly-acquired Gerrit Cole is 94-52 with 1,336 strikeouts at age 29, but we may soon find out just how much of that was due to his talent, and how much of it was due to his Houston Astro teammates cheating.

From the Mets: Jacob deGrom is 66-49 with 1,255 strikeouts, and 1 trip to the World Series (lost). He'll be 32 in June. He's not going.

Don't tell me about his Cy Young Awards. Tim Lincecum won 2 Cy Young Awards in the National League, and he'll never make the Hall of Fame. In the American League, Denny McLain, Bret Saberhagen and Johan Santana won 2, and they'll never get in. Of course, Saberhagen and Santana wrecked their careers by going to the Mets, something deGrom doesn't have to worry about. Corey Kluber has also won 2 Cys, but he's not going to the Hall, either.

The Mets have Robinson Cano, with a .302 lifetime batting average, 2,570 hits including 324 home runs, 8 All-Star berths, 2 Gold Gloves, and a World Series ring. But he's also got a steroid cloud over him -- one that came over him after he left the Yankees. He's not getting in.

The Mets have Yoenis Cespedes, but he's only got 163 homers, 2 All-Star berths and 1 Gold Glove, and he's 34. He's not adding enough stats to get in.

And the Mets have Pete Alonso. He hit 53 home runs as a rookie, and he's only 25. But, as with Saquon Barkley, it's way too soon to tell.

From the Knicks: Don't make me laugh.

From the Nets: There's Kevin Durant, but he's hurt, hasn't yet played a game for the Nets, and at 31, he has considerably more yesterdays on the court than tomorrows. He'll get in for what he did in Oklahoma City and Oakland, but not in Brooklyn. There's Kyrie Irving, who might get in for what he did as LeBron James' "Scottie Pippen" in Cleveland, and doing something with the Nets could secure his place in Springfield. But I doubt that, in 2035, anyone is going to call him "Nets Hall-of-Famer Kyrie Irving."

From the Rangers: Henrik Lundqvist has 458 career wins as an NHL goaltender. That's more than anybody except Martin Brodeur, Patrick Roy, Roberto Luongo and Ed Belfour. He may end up passing everyone except Brodeur. His goals-against average is 2.43. There are only 10 goalies since the 1967 expansion who have a lower average, including Brodeur, but not including Roy. Of the 10, 4 are still active: Tuuka Rask, Ben Bishop, Jonathan Quick and Pekka Rinne.

He'll probably make it. But he's in his 15th season, and is 1-4 in Stanley Cup Finals games. That's not going to keep him out, but it sticks out like a sore thumb.

Chris Kreider will be 29 in April, so he has time to build up his stats, but his chances of getting in are slim. Nobody else on the team is even working his way into consideration.

From the Islanders: Who's kidding who? John Tavares has a chance, but he's been gone for a year and a half.

From the Devils: With Taylor Hall having been traded this season, nobody is close. It's far too soon to tell for Nico Hischier (21) and Jack Hughes (18).

So there it is. Since we can no longer count Eli Manning, here is the list of New York Tri-State Area athletes who are almost certainly going to their sport's Hall of Fame:

1. Henrik Lundqvist

That's it. He's all by himself. He's at the top.

This is the closest Lundqvist has ever come to actually being a "King."

UPDATE: In 2022, former Met manager Gil Hodges and former Yankee broadcaster Jim Kaat were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. That same year, while I hadn't included the New York Liberty in the original post, Swin Cash was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.

In 2023, Lundqvist was, indeed, elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame. So was early 1990s Islander Pierre Turgeon. That same year, 1980s Jet Joe Klecko and 2010s Jet Darrelle Revis were elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.