Knicks Stars Look to Crack Hall of Fame's Inner Circle

The NBA is littered with likely Hall of Famers. In a sport like basketball where winning is more driven by an individual player compared to the wide-spanning rosters of football or baseball, most players who accumulate a few All-Star appearances are destined to join the game's elites.

The New York Knicks, like just about any contender, are staffed with multiple perennial All-Stars. Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns are each coming off of some of the best statistical seasons of their young careers, but even as the 29-year-olds can look back on numerous impressive NBA seasons, they each have a long way to go before they're considered first ballot locks.

ESPN's Zach Kram organized a tier list of the likeliest recipients of the game's most revered class, which admittedly included just about every active NBA star, and sorted them by how their chances of crashing the hall look.

Neither Towns nor Brunson were named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team, taking them out of the running of the league's recent compilation of the best players ever, nor have they made the case for themselves as a snub in the years since or young franchise-leading stars well on their way, putting them in their respective fringe tiers.

Despite Towns' status as the second option on the Knicks, the 10-year veteran surpassed Brunson's odds in the "veterans on the bubble tier." He was labeled as something of an outlier, considerably younger than the older players joining him here, having amounted an impressive statistical profile as a one-of-a-kind stretch-five without the individual success of some of his peers.

"Towns' hardware -- which consists of a Rookie of the Year trophy, five All-Star selections and three third team All-NBA nods -- isn't yet at the Hall of Fame standard, and his playoff record is lacking," Kram wrote. "Taken all together, it seems Towns needs a few more strong seasons to reach lock territory. Boosting the Knicks to the Finals would certainly help."

He's made the playoffs infrequently as the top scorer as a defensive liability and mistake-prone leader, more recently finding success as the second star to a star guard in Anthony Edwards before joining Brunson last summer.

The Knicks' actual star, Brunson, has already peaked higher than Towns ever has despite entering the league with considerably less opportunity. Unlike 2015's first-overall draft pick, Brunson crawled into the NBA through the second round several years later before coming into his own as a gem of a scoring point guard. The perennial MVP candidate has emerged into one of the best clutch bucket-getters in the game, a master of pace who's never far from getting to his shot.