When the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame announced its class of 2007 this past weekend, there were some of the usual gripes. For one, the class doesn’t include anyone being inducted on the basis of his play in the NBA, which seems a glaring oversight. The class includes legendary coach Phil Jackson, veteran referee Marvin “Mendy ” Rudolph, WNBA coach Van Chancellor, University of North Carolina coach Roy Williams, the entire 1966 Texas Western team, and two international coaches, Pedro Ferrandiz and Mirko Novosel, but it stops far short of recognizing all who were eligible and truly worthy of induction.

Local fans of a certain vintage would love to see the Knicks mount a campaign to have Bernard King inducted (he’s deserving and overdue), and Chicago Bulls fans who remember the pre-Jordan era as something more than a prelude might yearn to see Artis Gilmore take his rightful place in Springfield, Mass., but there’s another equally important omission. This should have been the year that key historical figures Edwin Henderson and John Isaacs were inducted. Both were among the finalists last year but have fallen from view this time around.

Okay, if you’re racking your brain trying to remember whether Henderson played for, say, the Cincinnati Royals, or if Isaacs starred for the Fort Wayne Pistons — stop. You’ll need to go a good bit further back in history to find them; these men are figures whose careers bookend the Black Fives era, an oft-forgotten but important time in American sports history that is only beginning to come to light.

The Black Fives are the hoops parallel to baseball’s Negro Leagues. During the first half of the 20th Century, teams from allblack leagues played in ballrooms and gyms in nearly every major American city, and the circuit featured some of the top athletes in America. Paul Robeson, a two time All-American football player during his collegiate days at Rutgers, was also a standout basketball player who played on a Black Fives team in Newark. Before he was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers, Jackie Robinson played on a Black Fives team in Los Angeles.

Henderson was a Harvardtrained physical education teacher who introduced the nascent game of basketball to the black community in Washington, D.C. in 1904. To say it caught on quickly is an understatement. Within a year, Henderson was organizing leagues along the Eastern seaboard, and tournaments between top teams in different cities were held in 1907. In 1908, the Smart Set Athletic Club, a team based in Brooklyn, won the first Colored Basketball World Championship, which became an annual tournament.

Basketball then was much slower than today’s game. The courts were smaller, the basket was still literally that, and referees had to retrieve the ball with a stick after each score. There was a jump ball after each hoop. Since the armories, which typically hosted basketball games, were segregated, many black teams were sponsored by ballrooms, which would include games as part of their evening entertainment. Big bands would play before the game and during halftime, and a dance would be held after the game.

Owing to the context, Black Fives games came to be known for being faster and more entertaining than their white counterparts. The Harlem Globetrotters got their start as part of a Chicago-based Black Five league. The powerhouse team of the era was the New York Rens, named for Harlem’s Renaissance Ballroom. Isaacs was the team’s star player and key strategist. He introduced the pick and roll play into the sport, adapting it from a move he had tried in high school and college games.

The Rens were eventually granted entry as a team into the National Basketball League, a 1940s precursor to the NBA. The new pro league featured integrated teams and when it was merged with the Basketball Association of American to form the National Basketball Association, integration was simply accepted as a part of the sport.

The Black Fives era had largely fallen from view when, in 1996, Claude Johnson, a marketing executive and history buff, stumbled onto a conflict while doing some research for his new employer, the NBA. According to league annals, the Rens and the Globetrotters were listed as the only all-black teams of the pre-NBA era. But Johnson had already read Arthur Ashe’s “A Hard Road to Glory: A History of the African American Athlete,” which listed many other teams.

Johnson took to spending his free time reading microfilm of the early 20th century black press. He found a treasure trove of information about the circuit. Then, using census records, he tracked down the descendants of the players and recorded their stories. He has since started a clothing line called Black Fives, which has been picked up by Nike and features the logos of the teams from that era. (A portion of the profits are earmarked for descendants of the original Black Fivers.)

Although Isaacs and Henderson were passed over this time, they are unlikely to fade from view. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is producing a documentary on the era that will feature Isaacs, who is still alive and in good health, as well as stories about the ballrooms open during the Harlem Renaissance and the cultural connections between jazz and basketball. The film will be a companion to Abdul-Jabbar’s recent book, “On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance” (Simon and Schuster).

With this wave of activity, the Black Fives shouldn’t be obscure for much longer. Now if only a couple of NBA front offices could do the same for Bernard and Artis.

mjohnson@nysun.com