I recently heard the great Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan say that his city\u2019s Mount Rushmore of sports stars \u2014 one pick for each of the four major sports \u2014 is better than anyone else\u2019s in the country.<\/p>\n
And he might be right.<\/p>\n
Even the Bay, with Barry Bonds<\/a> or Willie Mays<\/a>, Steph Curry<\/a>, Joe Montana<\/a>, and Joe Thornton<\/a>, can\u2019t compete with Ted Williams, Bill Russell or Larry Bird, Tom Brady, and Bobby Orr.<\/p>\n That Orr \u2026 he\u2019s always the trump card in conversations like this.<\/p>\n But the Bay can hold its head higher than most in this regard. Three of the all-time greats and Jumbo Joe? That\u2019s an exceptional quartet, with one, Curry, still active.<\/p>\n At some point, though, Curry will retire. Not you, me, or the Warriors know what happens to Golden State after that.<\/p>\n But it had me wondering: When Curry hangs up the Under Armours, will there be a no-doubt first-ballot Hall of Famer still active for one of the Bay\u2019s Big Four teams?<\/p>\n I\u2019ll guess yes, but it might be a close call.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s start with the Warriors\u2019 candidates. If Mitch Richmond is in the Basketball Hall of Fame, Jimmy Butler is going to make it. When Ben Wallace made it, Draymond Green\u2019s ticket to Springfield was stamped. And Steve Kerr will go in as a coach \u2014 no question about it.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the thing with the Basketball Hall of Fame: Everyone gets in. Yao Ming (486 NBA games) and Manu Ginobili (13.3 points per game) both have orange suit coats. If you were good enough, they\u2019ll find a way to enshrine you.<\/p>\n But will any of those three active Warriors still be active if Curry isn\u2019t? I\u2019m not betting on it. And a first-ballot induction might be a stretch for either Green or Butler.<\/p>\n The Warriors will not provide our answer here. And no one on the current Sharks roster is going to be Hall of Fame-worthy in the next decade, much less in the next couple of years.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the Giants. I doubt Justin Verlander \u2014 a lock for Cooperstown \u2014 is still around when Curry goes. Does the director of baseball operations count as active? If he does, that\u2019s a decent bet. As an MVP and seven-time All-Star, Posey should make the Hall. Joe Mauer made it first ballot; Posey should, too. That said, it might take a few tries and a bit of stress. The baseball hall is hardly logical. (You don\u2019t want to start me on this.)<\/p>\n Which brings us to the 49ers.<\/p>\n There are ample candidates, to be sure: Christian McCaffrey, Nick Bosa, Fred Warner, George Kittle, and Trent Williams.<\/p>\n All five can make a case for Canton.<\/p>\n As it stands today, only one is a lock Hall of Famer, and a first-ballot selection at that: Trent Williams.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not to say others can\u2019t join him in a few years, when Curry calls it quits, but there\u2019s no guarantee in the world of professional football, so extrapolation is a dangerous game.<\/p>\n As such, with Williams consistently fending off retirement rumors, it might be silly to project him sticking around longer than Curry.<\/p>\n Whether he does or not, make no mistake about it: Williams is a lock for the Hall on the first go. It might help that offensive tackle isn\u2019t a position defined by numbers, but here\u2019s one for you: 11 Pro Bowls. That\u2019s tied for the most of any tackle ever. It\u2019s hard to imagine he won\u2019t break that record this season, health permitting. He\u2019s in.<\/p>\n The next most likely 49er to make the Hall of Fame is Fred Warner. But let\u2019s pump the brakes on the first-ballot rhetoric.<\/p>\n Warner is 28 years old \u2014 his career shouldn\u2019t be even close to being over. With four first-team All-Pro selections to his name, he has a borderline Hall of Fame resume after just seven seasons. Another All-Pro season, and he can claim as many selections as Willis. That puts him in the Hall. Two more and he\u2019s arguably a first-ballot selection.<\/p>\n The time Warner needs to reach first-ballot status might line up perfectly with the time Curry needs to leave. This could be the pick, folks.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, George Kittle\u2019s Hall of Fame candidacy is fascinating. I\u2019m not sure his resume is Hall-worthy today. He\u2019s a six-time Pro Bowler and two-time All-Pro, but his reputation rightfully exceeds that, thanks to his blocking ability.<\/p>\n If Kittle can make another All-Pro team, he\u2019s in. He\u2019ll be on par with Antonio Gates, Kellen Winslow, and John Mackey.<\/p>\n Another two, and he might just be a first-ballot enshrinee.<\/p>\n But as it stands today, Kittle\u2019s resume matches guys like Riley Odoms, Ben Coates, and Mike Ditka. Of the three, only Ditka, who revolutionized the position, made the Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n Kittle should keep a close eye on Jason Witten\u2019s upcoming candidacy. Witten was an 11-time Pro Bowler with two first-team All-Pro honors to his name. He has double the catches and nearly double the receiving yards of Kittle, thanks to a 16-year NFL career. If he isn\u2019t a first-ballot pick, the bar for Kittle might be higher than already stated, making first-ballot enshrinement for him a functional impossibility.<\/p>\n Nick Bosa and Christian McCaffrey simply need to play more games to even be considered for the Hall of Fame. Canton is no joke, folks.<\/p>\n Bosa has been a first-team All-Pro just once. He\u2019s going to need at least one more to even warrant consideration.<\/p>\n And his 62.5 sacks going into 2025 aren\u2019t even sniffing the Hall of Fame. He\u2019ll likely need double that number if there aren\u2019t significantly more end-of-season accolades.<\/p>\n As it stands, Robert Mathis, like Bosa, has only one All-Pro selection and five Pro Bowls. Mathis also has 123 sacks. He is not yet in the Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n Bosa can get there, but with only five healthy seasons to his name at a premium position, it\u2019s going to take a long time before he can rest on his resume.<\/p>\n McCaffrey probably doesn\u2019t have that kind of time. As a running back, he\u2019s not in a position to play the long game. And as it stands going into the 2025 season, he\u2019s nowhere near the Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n McCaffrey\u2019s peaks are, legitimately, as good as anyone\u2019s in the modern game. His 17-game average of 1,942 yards from scrimmage a season is stupefying. His two All-Pro selections and three Pro Bowls are a testament to that, as he has only posted five healthy seasons.<\/p>\n But supernova running backs like Priest Holmes, Todd Gurley, LeVeon Bell, and Jamaal Charles aren\u2019t sniffing the Hall of Fame. McCaffrey is going to have to stay at the top of his game for a long while yet to make the case that he deserves to be in the Hall. That means at least one more All-Pro season and two more Pro Bowls \u2014 then we can have a conversation about him vs. Terrell Davis or Earl Campbell.<\/p>\n Which brings us back to the initial premise: Who will take over as the surefire first-ballot Hall of Famer in the Bay when Curry leaves?<\/p>\n It might just be Williams, who said in June that he\u2019s going to play until the wheels come off. And if not him, then give me Warner.<\/p>\n Either way, the epicenter of starpower in the Bay will shift south \u2014 if it isn\u2019t already there \u2014 and the Bay\u2019s nearly unrivaled legacy of excellence will continue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I recently heard the great Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan say that his city\u2019s Mount Rushmore of sports…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3786],"tags":[7,159,160,479,164,4025,4024,155,165,1203,6,9,1106,36594,161,162,1959,163,15911,24700,66,380,255],"class_list":{"0":"post-207058","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golden-state-warriors","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bay-area","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-golden-state","12":"tag-golden-state-warriors","13":"tag-goldenstate","14":"tag-goldenstatewarriors","15":"tag-inside-sports","16":"tag-latest-headlines","17":"tag-mlb","18":"tag-nba","19":"tag-nfl","20":"tag-nhl","21":"tag-oakland-athletics","22":"tag-peninsula","23":"tag-san-francisco","24":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","25":"tag-san-francisco-county","26":"tag-san-francisco-giants","27":"tag-san-jose-sharks","28":"tag-sports","29":"tag-steph","30":"tag-warriors"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114953603218423302","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}