On a stage full of basketball royalty, 8-year-old Hudson Mayes stood behind a podium and began to speak. With hundreds of fans, family and well-wishers staring back at him from the seats in a basketball arena in downtown Indianapolis, the young man in a gray suit read a letter he had written a few weeks earlier when he was told “Uncle Mel” had fallen ill. 5, 2015 — the arena that serves as home to the NBA’s Indiana Pacers was the site of a memorial service for Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer Mel Daniels, the gentle giant of a man who, after becoming an All-American forward with the University of New Mexico Lobos in the 1960s, helped lead the Pacers to three American Basketball Association championships. “I asked (Hudson) to read that letter he had written when Mel got sick,” said Cecilia “CeCe” Daniels, the wife of Mel Daniels and a UNM graduate herself. “He was a l…

“Oh those two were a hot mess together,” laughed Jeannie Brown, Roger’s wife and Mayes’ grandmother. “One of my favorite things was when the Pacers would be 20 points ahead, and they’d take Roger and Mel out and put them on the bench. Those two would have to cover their faces with towels when they were laughing and talking.” As chronicled in the 2013 documentary “Undefeated: The Roger Brown Story,” Daniels’ new teammate wasn’t just a good player — he was one of the greatest ever. As a freshman at the University of Dayton in 1960 — before the NCAA allowed freshmen to play on the varsity team — Brown and fellow New York high school star Connie Hawkins were banned from playing in college and the NBA when it was said they were associated with a known gambler back in New York, though neither was accused of gambling (the NBA later…