[SEE] What it takes to get into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

How does a player get into the NBA Hall of Fame? Originally answered on Nov. 5th, 2015
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More from Quora: What are some unwritten rules of the NBA?
Answer by Dave Hogg, freelance sportswriter:

• The Contributor (North American) Committee, which honors people who made their impact off the court. In 2015, this committee elected George Raveling for his career after coaching.
• The ABA Committee, which honors players who were stars primarily in the ABA. In 2015, they selected Louis Dampier.
• The International Committee, which honors people who impacted the game outside of North America. In 2015, they selected Lindsay Gaze, a long-time player and coach in Australia. You might remember his kid Andrew.
• The Early African-American Pioneers Committee, which honors—you can probably guess this one—African-American players from the days before the NBA was integrated. In 2015, they elected John Isaacs, a great player with the New York Renaissance before World War II.
• The Veterans Committee, which honors people who have been out of the game for at least 35 years, and were overlooked the first time around. In 2015, they selected Tommy Heinsohn.

"But wait!" I hear you exclaim. "Tommy Heinsohn was one of the greatest players in NBA history! How could they have waited this long to put him into the Hall of Fame?!?"

You are absolutely correct. It would have been a travesty for Tommy to have been left out of the Hall this long.

He wasn't.

He was inducted to the Hall of Fame in 1986. This year, the Veterans Committee decided that he deserved to be elected again, this time, as a coach. He's the fourth person to be honored in such a way, joining Lenny Wilkens, Bill Sharman (because the 1960s Celtics don't have enough Hall of Famers—they have to start inducting them twice) and John Wooden. Yes, John Wooden was once young enough to have been a basketball player. A very good one, obviously, though he retired at the age of 29 because he thought he might enjoy coaching.

One more thing. There can also be teams elected to the Hall of Fame; they go through the same process as players, coaches, and refs. Not NBA teams or college teams, but teams that were great in other situations. The 1960 US Olympic Team is in, as are the Harlem Globetotters, the aforementioned New York Renaissance, and The First Team, which consisted of the kids that were in Dr. James Naismith's gym class when he invented basketball. Yes. Really.

You know what other team is in the Hall of Fame? The Dream Team. It's hard to argue with that, since that was the greatest collection of basketball talent ever assembled. However, it was so great that inducting them was almost entirely meaningless. The official induction for the Dream Team includes the 12 players, head coach Chuck Daly, and assistant coaches Lenny Wilkens, Mike Krzyzewski, and P.J. Carlesimo. Of those 16 men, 14 were already in the Hall of Fame. The only people this actually honored were Christian Laettner and Carlesimo.

(As a matter of fact, if you were playing close attention, you'd notice that this means Lenny Wilkens is in the Hall of Fame THREE times.)

One last thing before anyone asks: no, I don't know who is on any of the voting committees. It is one of the biggest secrets is basketball.

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