The complaints are already pouring in now that the 2008 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame class of seven has been named.

And because the inductions are based on the vote from a bizarre honors committee, politics and inconsistencies always abound. Nonetheless, the group that is led by Pat Riley, Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing, Adrian Dantley, Cathy Rush, #### Vitale and Bill Davidson now con####uously takes its place in Springfield amid the rest of basketball greats.

Of course, I’ve got my issues, if only because Chris Mullin, Don Nelson and Dennis Johnson are blatant omissions from this list. We’ll get to that later.

It is fitting that Olajuwon and Ewing received the honor in the same year considering how they waged battle as two of the three top centers of the era (along with David Robinson) -- the highlight coming in the 1994 NBA Finals when the Olajuwon’s Rockets ousted Ewing’s Knicks in seven games.

Olajuwon was clearly the more pure athlete, with uncommon quickness and agility from the day he walked onto the University of Houston campus as a 17-year-old freshman from Lagos, Nigeria. He and Clyde Drexler were the cornerstones of the Phi Slama Jama team coached by Guy Lewis. They went to the Final Four three times, with Olajuwon winning the NCAA Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player award in 1983 when they lost in the thrilling championship game to Jim Valvano’s North Carolina State Wolfpack and then again in 1984 to Ewing's Georgetown squad. From there Olajuwon became an unstoppable force with the Houston Rockets. With his “Dream Shake” spins on the baseline on the offensive end and his prowess on defense (he's the all-time NBA shot-blocking leader and steals leader among centers), the Rockets won two NBA titles. He was All­-NBA nine times, six on first team. Topping it off, this former soccer goalie growing up earned his U.S. citizenship and was a member of the 1996 gold-medal winning U.S. basketball team.

Ewing was the more storied college player on a much higher-profile Georgetown program for coach John Thompson. They won the NCAA title in 1984 when he was named the MOP of the tournament. He became the first pick of the first NBA Draft in 1985 and was named rookie of the year for the 1985-86 season. He made first team All-NBA just once -- in 1990 -- primarily because Olajuwon cast his large shadow over him year after year.

Ironically, the coach of that Knicks team that lost to the Rockets was Riley, the former All-American from Kentucky on that infamous team that lost to Texas Western in the 1966 NCAA Championship game. A first-round draft choice, his NBA career changed due to back problems. He lost the quickness and leaping ability and became a workhorse, hustle player. He did get a championship ring with the Lakers in 1972, but make no mistake about it, he’s in the Hall of Fame as an NBA coach. Named coach of the year with the Lakers, Knicks and Heat, no other coach can claim that feat, nor making it to the NBA Finals with three NBA teams – winning four titles with the Lakers and one with the Heat along the way. The most extraordinary statistic is 16 first-place finishes in his first 18 years (including the first 12) as a coach and 18 out of 23 overall.

In many ways, he also was a ground-breaker as a coach with his interesting diatribes to the media and introduced “pop psychology” as a general term for what coaches use to motivate players. Still coach and president of the struggling Heat, the 63-year-old Riley made it clear over the past week this may very well be his final year as a coach.

Dantley deserves extra mention for the resilience of his backers considering he was a finalist six times before finally garnering enough votes to get in. A superior, though undersized, forward at a shade under 6-5, he was exceptional at backing defenders down with post-up moves and was a great baseline scorer. An assistant coach with the Denver Nuggets, he was tireless in his work with another Baltimore high school great, young Carmelo Anthony. His prickly personality could be why it took him so long to get in considering his 23,177 career points, an All-American career at Notre Dame and his legacy as one of the great high school All-Americas from storied DeMatha High School in Baltimore with coach Morgan Wootten.

Vitale, Davidson and Rush are in for their contributions to the sport – all being nominated multiple times. Vitale, of course, has been the voice and advocate of college basketball for a generation. He coached high school ball in New Jersey before becoming the head coach at the University of Detroit and then the Pistons, before exploding on the public as a broadcaster in 1979. Davidson is the owner of the Pistons and Detroit Shock of the WNBA and is considered an exceptional contributor to the sport as a former chairman of the NBA Board of Governors and a leader in the industry.  Rush was a pioneer for women’s college basketball at Immaculata University in the 1970s, with championships from 1972-74 and appearing on television in 1975, a first for women’s hoops.

The final trio represents the inductees that draw the biggest questions. The contributors to the sport always do because of the ambiguity. It's why there's always talk of an “NBA” Hall of Fame. Consider the absence of Chris Mullin – a two-time All-American at St. John’s, a two-time gold medal-winning Olympian, five-time NBA All-Star and the man who rebuilt the Warriors of today as general manager. His absence is blatant. The same case could be made for his coach, Don Nelson, the second leading winner as a coach in NBA history, a two-time All-American at Iowa, and winner of five NBA championship rings as a player with the Celtics.

And there has been quite the firestorm for the late Dennis Johnson, who died suddenly a year ago from a massive heart attack while coaching the Austin Toros of the NBA Developmental League at the age of 52. D.J. was one of the great defensive guards in NBA history and was a member of three championship teams – 1979 in Seattle and 1984 and 1986 in Boston - winning the Finals MVP in 1979 with the Sonics.

That’s not to diminish the contributions from Vitale, Davidson and Rush … but compared to this trio, c’mon. Politics should be about running our government, not the basketball Hall of Fame. But what other reason can there be?