Is there a player who slipped more under the radar in the eighties and early nineties than Clyde Drexler?

Making way for the more well known stars of his era - Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Dominique Wilkens, Isiah Thomas - Drexler was the heart of the Trailblazers, coming close to leading Portland to a championship on numerous occasions before finally coming home and playing a key role on the Houston Rockets championship team in 1995.

A Champion in college and the pros, an All-Star and an Olympian, after today Clyde Drexler will also be known as a Hall of Famer.

"The Hall of Fame? Are you kidding me?" he practically shouts with that full-throated laugh we have come to know through the years. "I never played organized basketball until I was in the seventh grade at Albert Thomas Middle School. I had trouble making the varsity at Sterling.

"I grew up as just your average kid who changed and played all the different sports depending on the time of year and the seasons. Baseball, football, basketball, whatever came around. That's what we did in our neighborhood.

"The idea one day of being able to go to college and get an education was almost more than I could ever have expected. Then to be drafted by the NBA and think you could make a living. You've got to be kidding."

"One of the biggest thrills, the greatest kicks I've ever gotten out of my whole career," he said, "is going around the country and meeting kids who would tell me, `Hey, when I'm playing ball with my friends on the playground, I'm always you. I'm Clyde the Glide.' "

It's a nickname that was given to him by a friend in high school, so fitting to describe the way he soared through the air on his way to the basket, nearly poetic for the way it rolls off your tongue. Yet it doesn't begin to describe the completeness, the complexity of his game.

"I laugh at that whole thing, because when I was growing up, all I ever wanted to be was Jerry West or Julius Erving," Drexler said. "As soon as I got onto the court, I'd tell everybody I was one of those guys and try to make moves to imitate them.

"To think that I eventually got to play in their league, to get to know them, to play against Julius, it's practically an indescribable feeling."

Erving, who played for Philadelphia, took the rookie Drexler under his wing in 1983 and became a mentor through the years in just the same fashion that a veteran named Bill Russell once instructed Dr. J. In 1997, all three of them were named among the NBA's 50 Greatest Players, and now Drexler will join them as peers in the Hall of Fame.

"It's not something that you ever go into a career thinking about," he said. "It's not the kind of thing that you give much thought to all during your career. I don't think you set it for a goal. The idea is to just keep playing to the best of your ability, let everything happen and see where it takes you."

"You walk through those hallways, and you see all of those great names of players already there," he said. "You look at exhibits, displays, see all of the numbers and accomplishments. I guess it's only natural to think a little bit about where you measure up."