Debating an athlete’s Hall of Fame merit is a polarizing exercise. There are no statistical benchmarks, entrance fees or years of service needed to be inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

One does, however, need to receive seven votes on nine ballots to be considered as a finalist for induction. Said player then needs to receive at least 18 of 24 votes from an entirely different panel to be officially inducted in Springfield, Massachusettes.

Shockingly, it was announced on Friday that Reggie Miller, considered by many as a viable candidate for induction in his first year of eligibility, didn’t even receive enough votes to reach the final stage of voting.

Instead, Dennis Rodman, Jamaal Wilkes and Tex Winter headlined the group of 12 that were honored as finalists -- but this isn’t about those three or the nine other candidates (including Chris Mullin, a former teammate of Miller’s ).

So why didn’t Reggie get the required votes to make the next level of voting?

Critics, and the Pacers legend has had many since he was drafted with the 11th overall pick in the 1987 NBA Draft, will point to his lack of a championship, no MVPs moderate number of All-Star appearances (five), career scoring average of 18.2 and almost absent secondary statistics.

While those points certainly have their value, there are different reasons why Miller won’t make the Hall of Fame until 2012 at the earliest and why he should have been honored this summer along with the likes of Wilkes and Winter.

Why He Didn’t Make It

• A Modest Home

Championship or not, Miller’s legend and Hall of Fame credibility would have been much greater if he didn’t play for the Pacers and spend his entire 18-year career in Indiana.

The Hoosier state may immediately evoke the thought of backyard hoops and Bobby Knight, but ask an average basketball fan to list the NBA’s host cities and you probably won’t hear Indianapolis until several minutes after New York and Los Angeles and maybe only slightly before Charlotte, Memphis and Sacramento.

The Pacers were very good annually as Miller entered his prime, enjoyed it and came down from it, but they were never as sexy as the Bulls or Knicks of the 1990s.

Put him in a high-profile city, and he very well may be preparing his speech and picking a presenter for his induction ceremony in a few months.

• The Jordan Effect

Like many others – namely Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone and John Stockton – Miller’s NBA resume would be vastly different had a certain Michael Jordan not dominated the sport for more than a decade.

While there is absolutely no proof that any of those five superstars would have won a championship had Jordan picked baseball over basketball from the beginning, we can definitely say their chances would have been incrementally better.

Unlike Barkley, Ewing, Malone and Stockton, the impact Jordan had on Miller’s career wasn’t limited to titles. Without #23, #31 likely earns more All-Star nods and possibly another Finals appearance and just maybe – he’s headed for the Hall of Fame.

Why He Should Have

• The Big Stage

Miller’s career scoring average of 18.2 is considered a negative by some, but his playoff average of 20.6 points supports his case for Springfield. That’s a 13.2% increase when the games matter the most.

Michael Jordan (10.9%), LeBron James (5.8%), Kobe Bryant (0.3%) and Ray Allen (-4.4%) can’t even touch Miller’s jump in productivity when the regular season becomes the postseason.

His scoring average also took a significant hit at the end of his career, when he passed the torch to younger stars like Jalen Rose and Jermaine O’Neal in a move that was detrimental to his own individual legacy.

After 12 straight seasons of at least 18 points (1989-90 to 2000-01), Miller averaged 13.4 in his last four seasons as O’Neal entered the MVP conversation and one of the game’s greatest shooters of all-time passed up shots he would have taken without so much as a blink in his twenties.

He’s been retired for five years, but he and Rick Barry are tied for 17th on the NBA/ABA all-time scoring list with 25,279 points.

• Contributions To The Game

As I have already written, definitive Hall of Fame requirements do not exist, but the stamp a person places on the game should have a huge effect on a player’s credentials.

Until Ray Allen surpassed him a little less than two weeks ago, Miller was the NBA’s three-point king and he served as the face of a relatively new aspect of the game. The three-point shot had only been in existence for eight years when Miller entered the league.

Miller also helped put the Pacers on the map after their ABA success failed to follow them to the NBA. The team had been in the NBA a mere 11 years when they drafted Miller out of UCLA.

Current stars like Paul Pierce, Tim Duncan and Kobe Bryant appear likely to follow suit, but in the modern era of player movement its unlikely many players will play close to 1,400 with the same team.

The stamp he left on the Pacers, the league and the game is significantly bigger than the bust he should have in Springfield.

NBA icons and even several Hall of Famers immediately came to Miller’s defense upon hearing the news last week:

--"Reggie Miller, that guy's a Hall of Famer,” Bill Walton told the New York Times. “The Hall of Fame is about history, it's about changing the course of history. I am flabbergasted, flabbergasted on a lot of fronts. Flabbergasted that Jamaal Wilkes is not already in the Hall of Fame, flabbergasted that Reggie Miller is not front and center here today. If I was in charge, things would be different.”

-- “I just know this, if he’s not a Hall of Fame guy, I don’t know who is,” Knicks president Donnie Walsh, who drafted Miller as the general manager of the Pacers, said.

-- “I am shocked that Reggie Miller didn’t make the finalists list,” Clyde Drexler told the Sporting News. “I thought Reggie was an outstanding player. And if you look at his accomplishments, he’s a Hall of Famer. I am going to stick up for Reggie as a fellow two-guard. But the guys who did make the list – Jamaal Wilkes, Maurice Cheeks, Chris Mullin – all of those guys are very deserving.”

Then there’s all the extraordinary moments he provided for fans during his 18-year career, including but not limited to these ten iconic shots.

The scary thought for Miller is how long will it take to actually be inducted since he wasn't even a finalist this time?