Telander: Chet Walker in the Hall; Arne Duncan stands tall

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Former Bull Chet Walker is going into the Hall of Fame. You’ll get no argument here. | Sun-Times File Photo

Updated: March 1, 2012 12:28PM

I was pleased to see the list of finalists for the 2012 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Lots of worthy folks.

But my lock-down choices would be Reggie Miller — because of his lethal jump shot (and despite the fact Michael Jordan once told me Miller slapped on defense ‘‘like a girl’’) — Ralph Sampson (tall and terrific) and Bernard King, an underappreciated, at-times-troubled, knee-damaged scorer who had back-to-back 50-point games for the Knicks (on 40-for-53 shooting from the floor) and 40 points in one half en route to a 60-point game against the Nets.

I was thrilled to see Chet Walker — an All-American at Bradley, Bulls star, 13-year NBA vet and seven-time All-Star who never played fewer than 76 games in a season — get voted in by the veterans committee.

Chet the Jet, nothing but class. And long overdue.

◆ Anybody slug it out in the Barca-Lounger on Friday night and watch the NBA All-Star Celebrity Game?

If you came to long enough to notice the East trampled the West 86-54, you also noticed U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, No. 26 for the East, lightin’ it up, old-school.

The Chicago native, Harvard grad and former head of the Chicago Pubic School system had 15 points, five blocks and five steals in the first half. The MVP trophy went to microscopic comedian Kevin Hart (generously listed at 5-2), but it was the 6-4 Duncan who deserved the golden ball last held aloft by hair-throb Justin Bieber.

Dunc’ will get over it. But it reminded me again how the Obama administration has put participatory basketball on the governmental map. Duncan, Obama and Chicago financier John Rogers, head of Ariel Capital Management, were pickup buddies in Chicago back in the pre-election days, and they showed that you don’t have to be a dummy to hoop it up.

Duncan was a starter at Harvard, Rogers was a captain at Princeton, and ‘‘the Bammer’’ (Columbia, Harvard Law) is a cunning lefty who starred on the blacktop.

Sadly, Obama — who beat Clark Kellogg in a genuine game of HORSE — seems to be turning more to golf than basketball as he ages. Who does he think he is, MJ?

◆ The quote none of us wanted to hear: ‘‘I’m thrilled to be back in affiliated professional baseball.’’

Speaker? Jose Canseco. Reason? He joined the Quitano Roo Fighters of the Mexican League for spring training. For a moment I thought — hoped — it was the Foo Fighters of the Ex-Nirvana League.

◆ Here’s one thing new Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer has brought to the usually conservative Big Ten: SEC-style values.

The school that just dumped coach Jim Tressel for NCAA violations and lying has a new renegade on its hands, it seems: the former Florida leader accused by fellow Big Ten coaches of stealing at least eight recruits who had verbally committed to other schools.

‘‘It should be noted that my coaching staff is in full compliance,’’ Meyer said in a statement a couple weeks ago. ‘‘No one on this staff did anything illegal or unethical.’’

Like everything in D-1 ball, we shrug and sigh, because it’s debatable.

◆ The Big Ten is becoming more like other revenue-driven conferences in that it casually has deception at its root, i.e. there are 12 teams in the league. Moreover, the conference now includes ‘‘natural’’ rivals Nebraska and Penn State, separated by four states, 1,100 miles and a trillion acres of corn, plus Gary, Ind.

The Big Ten traditionally has stood apart from lesser conferences, honoring four-year scholarships, being the last to allow red-shirting, only recently letting high school seniors enroll early so they can play in spring games, etc.

But new member Nebraska is believed to be the first school to redshirt a football player (1937) and Penn State (joined in 1990) . . . well, it brought along Jerry Sandusky and the biggest ethical scandal in college sport history.

You play with the big boys, you get big-boy stains on your shorts. The over-riding question is whether the Big Ten will throw in with the building NCAA executive tidal wave to have a four-team, three-game ‘‘plus-one’’ mini-tournament for the football national championship.

All 11 big conferences would have to agree, and the stakes are massive. More money than the Super Bowl some day? Why not?

I’m betting the playoff payoff will be here in two years, by the end of the 2014 season, and the Big Ten will be in the thick of it.

The way they roll.