Ex-coaches, players lobby for Wilkes

LOS ANGELES – Jamaal Wilkes usually is not one to toot his own horn.

It’s an admirable quality, but friends tell him his reluctance to promote himself could be one reason the former UCLA All-American and “Showtime”-era Lakers forward has been shunned by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

So now he’s lobbying.

“I believe I should be in,” says Wilkes, whose nomination is under consideration by the selection committee again this year. “I’m not obsessed with it, but I believe I deserve to be in.”

Wilkes’ opinion is shared by Hall of Famers who played with and against the sweet shooter (Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton, Rick Barry) as well as Hall of Famers who coached him (John Wooden, Pat Riley).

All wrote letters to the hall on Wilkes’ behalf, as did Hall of Famer Bill Sharman, who coached the Lakers to their first NBA title in Los Angeles.

Riley, voted into the hall last year, noted last summer during his acceptance speech in Springfield, Mass., that the smooth operator known as “Silk” was “one of the greatest small forwards ever.”

Wrote Johnson in his letter of recommendation: “What made ‘Showtime’ was versatility, knowledge and skills, and no one – no one – brought that to the table more than Jamaal Wilkes.”

Wooden, once asked to describe his ideal player, told the New York Post: “Why not just take Jamaal Wilkes and let it go at that?”

So why isn’t Wilkes in the Hall of Fame?

“A wonderful question,” Walton e-mails, “and one that needs to be asked daily until this travesty is corrected.”

One possibility is that the former Keith Wilkes, after graduating from high school, was never the best player on his team.

At UCLA, where the 6-foot-6 beanpole was a two-time All-American for teams that won two NCAA titles and 88 consecutive games, Wilkes was overshadowed by Walton.

With the Golden State Warriors, who won their only NBA title during Wilkes’ first pro season, the league’s rookie of the year played second banana to the high-scoring Barry.

And with the Lakers, of course, Wilkes was all but eclipsed by Johnson and Abdul-Jabbar.

“I don’t think he got the credit he deserved, either in college or the pros,” Wooden says.

Wilkes averaged 15 points and 7.4 rebounds as a three-year starter at UCLA, helping the Bruins to consecutive 30-0 seasons and the 1972 and ’73 NCAA titles in his sophomore and junior seasons.

A three-time All-Star, Wilkes helped his teams win four titles in 12 seasons.

Wilkes laughs at the notion that his having played alongside a number of all-time greats might hinder his candidacy.

“I don’t know if that should be held against me, but it’s certainly a point of view,” he says. “I certainly can’t dispute that notion because I did play with great players – and I loved every second of it.“