Like hoops Hall itself, star-filled Class of 2009 falls just a bit short

That's quite the class the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame announced Monday. Takes you back to the 1990s: Michael Jordan and a handful of others -- David Robinson, John Stockton and coaches Jerry Sloan and C. Vivian Stringer

With Robinson and Stockton going in alongside MJ, that's a quarter of the 1992 Dream Team. Impressive as that is, if the Honors Committee had gone a little deeper into its nominees, this would have been, hands down, the best class ever.

By my lights, at least one other finalist, and perhaps three others, should have made it, too. The definite would be frontcourt scoring marvel Bernard King, while you could make the case for both Chris Mullin (who'd have been a fourth Dream Teamer) and the late Dennis Johnson (the redoubtable "Two Guard of Champions").

As chosen, though, this year's class is only "in the argument," along with the Class of 1980, which also included three gold medalists: Jerry Lucas, Oscar Robertson and Jerry West

There have been several other fine classes welcomed to the banks of the Connecticut River over the years:

• Rick Barry, WaltFrazier and Pete Maravich, inducted in 1987, might be the most electrifying trio. No three guys plied the basketball trade with more singular style than they did.

• The 1990 class of Dave Bing, Elvin Hayes and Earl Monroe would be right behind that group, on a par with ...

• ... the 2008 class of Adrian Dantley, Patrick Ewing and Hakeem Olajuwon

• And the deepest class might have been inducted in 1993, when Julius Erving, Dan Issel, Calvin Murphy and Bill Walton all gained admission. (Walt Bellamy was also waved through the gates that year, but I've long maintained that the very definition of a Hall of Fame is a shrine that excludes good-but-not-great players like Walt Bellamy.)

Call Robinson and Stockton the Jordannaires, call 'em "my supporting cast," call 'em whatever -- but call 'em, even when joined with MJ, something just short of the finest group of players ever accepted into Springfield in one fell swoosh.