The 2020 Basketball Hall of Fame enshrinement ceremony, originally scheduled to take place during the weekend of August 28-30, has been rescheduled and will now occur on May 13-15, 2021, according to a press release.
This year’s star-studded class of Hall of Fame inductees is headed by Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, and the late Kobe Bryant. Former Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich, former college coach Eddie Sutton, longtime WNBA star Tamika Catchings, former FIBA and IOC executive Patrick Baumann, and veteran women’s basketball coaches Kim Mulkey and Barbara Stevens are also part of the 2020 class.
However, instead of being formally inducted into the Hall later this month, the 2020 class will be enshrined in the spring of 2021. And in addition to necessitating a postponement, the coronavirus pandemic has forced the Hall of Fame to change venues for its ceremony, per today’s announcement.
“For this single event, and only because of the pandemic, we will relocate the entire event one time to Mohegan Sun which has been a long-time marketing partner of the Hall,” Hall of Fame president/CEO John Doleva said in a statement. “Mohegan Sun has shown they can effectively operate a ‘near-bubble’ for our event which provides a more secure environment for our guests.”
The postponement of this year’s ceremony and diminished guest visitation at the Hall of Fame in Springfield has forced the Hall to make layoffs and to reduce some senior employees’ pay, Doleva added in his statement.
The chairman of the Hall’s board of governors, Jerry Colangelo, suggested back in May that the plan remains for the 2020 and 2021 Hall of Fame classes to be enshrined in two separate ceremonies, despite the fact that this year’s class will now be formally inducted in ’21.
Rudy T’s enshrinement is long overdue.
Never underestimate the heart of a champion