FanHouse Hakeem Olajuwon

Tip-Off Timer counts down the days until the first game of the 2009-10 NBA season. On Tuesday, there are exactly 84 days left.

We've already talked about the most disastrous draft in NBA history (1986) and the calamity it caused, but if you backtrack two years, you can make a good case for just the opposite, the finest class of players ever to enter the league at one time.

The '84 NBA Draft stands alone.

This is the Draft that produced four future Hall of Famers, three others that played in at least one All-Star Game, and a handful of guys who had long and productive NBA careers.

Tip-Off Timer counts down the days until the first game of the 2009-10 NBA season. On Monday, there are exactly 85 days left.

Even today, 24 years after the fact, the debate still rages over the 1985 NBA Draft Lottery. Was it predetermined to ensure the high-profile New York Knicks got the No. 1 pick and franchise center Patrick Ewing, the most heralded college player in several years?

Or is that just another wild-eyed conspiracy theory? People still argue it, while Commissioner David Stern grew tired of the talk long ago.

"I've heard the theories,'' said longtime NBA executive Pat Williams. "And they're just bogus.''

By losing the first the first two games of this series, the Orlando Magic have secured their place in history, trailing only the old Baltimore/Washington Bullets as the team with the most consecutive losses in the NBA Finals before getting a victory.

The Bullets lost nine straight consecutive games. They were swept by Milwaukee in 1971. They were swept by Golden State in 1975. They lost Game 1 in 1978 before beating Seattle and winning the NBA title that year.

The Magic have lost six, adding these two to 1995 when they were swept by the Houston Rockets. Can they make it seven tonight? Here are the first six in chronological order:

Dwight Howard is on the verge of making history and no one seems to notice. He's averaging 2.9 blocks and 14.0 rebounds a game, putting him on pace to become not only the youngest player to lead the league in blocked shots (beating out Marcus Camby by nearly a year) but also only the fifth player in NBA history to lead the league in blocks and rebounds in the same season.

You may not know what he looks like, who he was and why people felt he was special enough to teach them but Pete Newell was one of the best coaches college basketball has ever seen.

Newell died yesterday at the age on 93.

Newell was a legend and held the respect and admiration of the game's other legends. Newell coached for 14 years at San Francisco, Michigan State and California. He compiled a 234-123 record and won the 1959 NCAA Tournament while at Cal. His final head coaching gig came the very next year when he took an Olympic team with Oscar Roberston, Jerry West and Jerry Lucas to a gold medal.

He also beat UCLA's John Wooden the last eight times they met.

He's legacy lives on with his "Pete Newell Big Man Camp". The camp has been going on for over 30 years and has taught the likes of Lew Alcinder, Bill Walton, Shaquille O'Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson. The camps have become a mandatory stop for any big man wanting to get into the NBA.

The Basketball Hall of Fame revealed its seven newest members on Monday: Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing and Pat Riley were all accepted in their first year of eligibility while Adrian Dantley, announcer Dick Vitale, Pistons owner Bill Davidson and women's collegiate coach Cathy Rush were finally accepted after falling short as finalists in the past.

Much will be written about the three big names to get the nod -- Olajuwon, Ewing and Riley -- and deservedly so, but I'm most happy for Dantley, who had to suffer through being a finalist in six of the past seven years before finally getting the nod. Dantley, who's currently a Nuggets assistant coach, was so used to being stuck as the bridesmaid that he almost didn't answer the phone when the Hall called on Thursday. From the Denver Post:

Dantley found out Thursday. "He's a funny cat, because he didn't want to take the phone call because he thought he was going to get rejected again," [Nuggets coach George] Karl said. "I kept saying: 'Tell him to take the phone call! It's gonna be a yes!' "

Dantley never has been shy about talking about his apprehension to answering the phone when the Hall calls. "Every time around the last week of March, I start feeling kind of funny, seeing whether they are going to say yea or nay," Dantley said in an interview with The Post in February. "It's a weird feeling when the guys say, 'Sorry you didn't make it, you're eligible for next year.' . . . The last couple of years I haven't even answered my phone."

I think part of the reason it was easy to overlook Dantley's contributions to the game is because he spent the bulk of his prime years in relative obscurity with the (pre-Stockton/Malone era) Utah Jazz. But he retired as one of the league's top 10 scorers of all-time, and he's still in the top 20. Had he played in the spotlight of a major market like New York, he'd have been a shoe-in years ago.

The Basketball Hall of Fame finalists were announced yesterday and this year's potential class includes new nominees Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon and Pat Riley. Also remaining from previous years are Chris Mullin, Adrian Dantley, Dennis Johnson and Golden State coach Don Nelson.

The complete list of 15 Finalists includes a total of 10 candidates from the North American Screening Committee - players Ewing, Dantley, Johnson, Olajuwon and Mullin; coaches Nelson and Riley; and contributors Victor Bubas, Bill Davidson and Vitale. Two candidates each comprise Finalists from the Veteran's Screening Committee - player Richie Guerin and contributor Johnny 'Red' Kerr - and the International Screening Committee - coach Togo Soares and player Maciel Ubiratan Pereira (both of Brazil), with coach Cathy Rush representing the lone nominee from the Women's Screening Committee.

One would have to think that Dream and Ewing (YES!) are stone cold locks for first year induction, along with Riles; you could probably actually argue that Ewing deserves to get in just based on the monster he's created in Orlando this year.

In the wake of last year's playoffs, there were thoughts that the league office's mechanisms for parity had finally started to kick in. From the salary cap and the luxury tax threshold, to changing the rules to benefit teams without a traditional center, to creating the draft lottery, the NBA has been making an effort to create parity. Last year, for the first time in a number of years a team outside of the usual Lakers, Spurs, Rockets, Pistons, Bulls group won the NBA title. As well, the Mavs and Suns, two teams without traditional centers, were two of the best teams in the league.

Upon further analysis, you might find that last year's playoffs weren't really proof of parity after all. Miami did win the title, but they did that mostly because they were able to obtain Shaquille O'neal. And this year, the Spurs and Pistons (two perennial champions) are the favorites to win the entire thing again. If you define parity (as CNBC's Darren Rovell does) as the amount of teams that win a championship a given period of time, it's obvious that there isn't much parity in the NBA.