Hall of Fame Needs a True Basketball Artist

Strange week. But before I get to Paris Hilton, Tinkerbell and Jim Gray, the tall and the short of it is I had breakfast with 7-foot-2 Hall of Fame basketball great Artis Gilmore, and then later in the week breakfast with the 5-2 wife.

I don’t know about scientific research, but from my experience, I can tell you it’s not necessarily the one who eats the most who grows the tallest.

Anyway the wife had made it a bed-and-breakfast invite -- the lengths that woman will go to avoid cooking -- while I was under the impression I was getting together with Gilmore and mutual friend, big-time producer Frank Pace, because we’ve all golfed with comedian George Lopez, and he’s hilarious -- when he’s swinging a club.

Lopez had just finished third in the AT&T; Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, which is akin to the Clippers coming back this season to make the NBA Finals, so I wasn’t ruling out the possibility that Pace and Gilmore wanted me to check to see whether Lopez knew Barry Bonds’ trainer.

Instead, I was shocked to learn from Pace that Gilmore is not -- that’s not -- in the Basketball Hall of Fame, which makes you kind of wonder who is in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

That answer, of course, came this week with the latest list of nominees, including Dick Vitale. Dick Vitale in the Basketball Hall of Fame before Artis Gilmore? Mouth over rebounds?

“For sure Artis belongs in the Hall,” Jerry West said. “For sure.”

Gilmore still holds the NBA’s all-time shooting percentage mark, and get this, they have his Jacksonville college jersey hanging in the Hall as part of a special tribute to the top centers who’ve played the game.

“It’s a mystery why he is not in the Hall,” Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said.

No mystery. The soft-spoken giant has steadfastly refused to promote himself, and since some of his best years were spent in the ABA, as tall as he was, he has gone unnoticed.

I know I couldn’t find him when I went looking for him at the restaurant. I’ve had the same problem with the wife after one of her visits to Lukaro’s Salon and Luke the Barber has started chopping. There have been times when I’ve been caught looking at every other woman in the room before finally recognizing the wife.

Gilmore no longer has the signature massive Afro, and since he has never had the big ego, until he stood up there was no picking him out of a crowd.

Once we got together and began talking about his glory days in basketball and reviewing his statistics, well, there’s absolutely no question the folks who honor the greats of basketball haven’t been on top of their game. Dick Vitale?

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IN A Washington Post story this week, an unnamed Laker is quoted as saying of Kobe Bryant, “What more does he want us to do? He’s won here, he’s well paid, everybody except Shaq turns flips to make him happy, including Phil. And he trashes Phil like that [in The Times]. What can he do without Shaq that he hasn’t done with him? Is there something bigger than winning the title that we don’t know of? We don’t know what’s going on with him.”

I’m guessing the unnamed Laker isn’t Slava Medvedenko. Jim Rome suggested, and then basically said, it was Rick Fox because no one else could string words like that together. Some folks in the office thought it was Horace Grant.

Whoever he was, he was gutless.

Bryant put his name behind his critical comments.

The unnamed player asks “what more does he want?” as if Bryant is the only one here who is being divisive. Talk about a healthy case of backbiting, and even whining. If a Laker player really wants Laker harmony, then why is he popping off to a national writer only too happy to spread the venom and protect his identity?

Wouldn’t it be a joke if it was Devean George?

A lot of the Bryant unrest in Lakerland has been relayed to the public anonymously the last few months. The reason most folks believe Bryant is leaving the Lakers is because they’ve read media reports that have unnamed people saying Bryant has told them so. Sure are a lot of unnamed people out there.

Shaq went public Tuesday and put his name behind what he had to say.

“When you work with somebody you don’t have to like them. You have to respect them,” he said. “I’m the first one to tell you I need [Bryant]. And hopefully he’ll tell you he needs me. I can probably win 50, 60 games by myself. But to get over to the next level, I need a guy like him with me. And I know that, and I’m not ashamed to say it. I need him. I don’t know if he likes me, but I know he respects me. And I respect him. Maybe sometimes his agenda’s not like mine and mine’s not like his. But it’s nothing personal.”

If the Lakers don’t know what to make of Bryant, maybe they should follow Shaq’s lead, and either back up what they have to say by not whispering through peepholes, or just shut up.

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PICTURE THIS. The NBA has a celebrity game as part of the All-Star week festivities, and names Paris assistant coach. She doesn’t go anywhere without her dog, Tinkerbell, which is smaller than one of Shaq’s fists.

It’s Gray’s job, the guy who went on the attack with Pete Rose and Mike Tyson, to interview Paris. First thing this hard-nosed reporter does is pet Tinkerbell, who is sitting on Paris’ lap. A picture is indeed worth a thousand words. From my vantage point it looks like he’s whispering sweet nothings too, but I can’t tell for sure whether they were directed to Tinkerbell or Paris.

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THEY THREW out Gary Payton and Speedy Claxton because they were hugging?

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.