Hall Of Fame Rumors | Hoops Rumors

2021 Hall Of Fame Class Announced

May 16th, 2021 at 10:46am CST by Arthur Hill

As expected, Paul Pierce, Ben Wallace and Chris Webber will be part of the Class of 2021 for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, tweets ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

They will be joined by Chris Bosh, coaches Rick Adelman, Jay Wright and Bill Russell, and WNBA players Yolanda Griffith and Lauren Jackson.

Among former players, Bosh is the only name that hasn’t been reported already. He is best known as part of the Big Three in Miami that made four straight Finals appearances and won two NBA titles early last decade. He played 13 NBA seasons, with the first seven coming in Toronto before getting a chance to join LeBron James and Dwyane Wade with the Heat.

Bosh is an 11-time All-Star and was a second-team All-NBA selection in 2007. A medical condition ended his career early, and he was elected to the Hall in his first year of eligibility.

Adelman made two trips to the NBA Finals and is the ninth-winningest coach in league history with 1,042 career victories. He played seven seasons in the league, but made his greatest impact as a coach, guiding the Trail Blazers, Warriors, Kings, Rockets and Timberwolves.

Wright has been the head coach at Villanova since 2001 and has more than 600 career wins. He has led the Wildcats to three Final Fours and captured NCAA titles in 2016 and 2018.

Russell was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1975 for his legendary playing career, but he was also a pioneer as a coach. He took over as player-coach of the Celtics in 1966, becoming the first Black head coach in North American professional sports. Russell had a 341-290 coaching record and won a pair of NBA titles.

Griffith is a seven-time WNBA all-star and was captured the league’s MVP, Newcomer of the Year and Defensive Player awards in 1999. She was named Finals MVP in 2005 after leading the Sacramento Monarchs to their first WNBA championship.

Jackson was an Australian star who won three silver medals in the Olympics. She’s among the WNBA career leaders in games, minutes, field goals and three-pointers and helped the Seattle Storm win two titles, capturing Finals MVP honors in 2010.

Several other players were also voted into the Hall, Wojnarowski adds (Twitter links):

International Committee: Toni Kukoc.
Contributors: Val Ackerman, Cotton Fitzsimmons, Howard Garfinkel.
Veteran’s Committee: Bob Dandridge.
Women’s Veteran Committee: Pearl Moore.
Early African-American Pioneers: Clarence Jenkins.

Photo courtesy of USA Sports Images.

Chris Webber Reportedly Elected To Hall Of Fame

May 16th, 2021 at 8:46am CST by Arthur Hill

Chris Webber will be part of the Class of 2021 for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame when the formal announcement is made today, sources told Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated.

Webber played 15 NBA seasons and was named to five All-Star teams and five All-NBA teams. He won Rookie of the Year honors in 1994 and holds career averages of 20.7 points, 9.8 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game.

Many consider this a long overdue honor for Webber, who retired in 2008 and has been eligible for the Hall since 2013.

The Warriors made Webber the first pick in the 1993 draft after two outstanding seasons at Michigan as part of the Fab Five. He moved on to Washington and then Sacramento, where he had his best NBA seasons. He later played for Philadelphia and Detroit before finishing his career with Golden State.

Since retiring, Webber has been a broadcaster with TNT, although he recently parted ways with the network. He has also been involved in the music and film industries.

Webber will join Paul Pierce and Ben Wallace, who were reported Saturday as 2021 enshrinees.

Paul Pierce, Ben Wallace Reportedly Part Of 2021 Hall Of Fame Class

May 15th, 2021 at 11:58am CST by marksuleymanov

Ahead of Sunday’s official announcement, two names of the 2021 Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame class have been reported: Ben Wallace and Paul Pierce.

Sources told Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated that the legendary defensive stalwart Wallace will be enshrined, while Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe reported Pierce’s induction.

It’s a well-deserved honor for both men who were crucial pieces of championships teams in the 2000s. Wallace, 46, was a four-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year and a key component to the Pistons’ 2004 NBA Finals victory over the Lakers. The four-time All-Star was best known for his stint in Detroit where his No. 3 jersey hangs retired in the rafters.

Wallace was a standout at Virginia Union in the mid-1990s before going undrafted and signing with the then-Washington Bullets. While he had stops with the Bullets/Wizards, Magic, Cavaliers, and Bulls, Wallace spent nine of his 16 NBA seasons with the Pistons.

As for Pierce, he was a 19-year NBA veteran best known for his successful stint as a member of the Celtics. After his junior season at the University of Kansas, Pierce was drafted 10th overall by the Celtics in 1998 and quickly emerged as one of the NBA’s brightest young stars. Pierce’s early success led to Shaquille O’Neal dubbing him as “The Truth,” a moniker he carries to this day.

Pierce made his first NBA All-Star team in his fourth NBA season and would go on to be a 10-time All-Star. He helped lead the Celtics to a 2008 NBA championship alongside fellow stars Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. Boston made another NBA Finals with Pierce in 2010 but lost to the Lakers in seven games.

Pierce’s 15-year run in Boston ended with a high-profile trade to the Nets in 2013, which has become infamous for Brooklyn’s massive overpay for just one disappointing season with Pierce and Garnett. Pierce finished his career with stops in Washington and Los Angeles before retiring following the 2016/17 campaign.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

And-Ones: Webber, Vaccinations, ABL, Hall of Fame

May 14th, 2021 at 9:15pm CST by Dana Gauruder

TNT has parted ways with analyst Chris Webber with the postseason quickly approaching, Andrew Marchand of the New York Post reports. Webber has been with the network since 2008. Webber had been paired with play-to-play man Marv Albert and it’s unclear who will take Webber’s place.

We have more from around the basketball world:

Approximately 75 percent of NBA players have been vaccinated for the coronavirus, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN. Commissioner Adam Silver continues to urge front-office executives to convince players who haven’t been vaccinated to take that step before the postseason. Teams heading into the playoffs are concerned that they could lose a key player under the league’s health and safety protocols.
Team rosters for the inaugural season in the Africa Basketball League have been unveiled, Alessandro Maggi of Sportando notes. Former NBA player Ben Uzoh is on Nigeria’s Rivers Hoopers roster. There are also also nine players with G League experience and 21 players with NCAA Division I experience in the 12-team league.
The Basketball Hall of Fame inductions will be held on September 10-11, Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press tweets. The star-studded Class of 2020 will be inducted this weekend and the Class of 2o21 will be unveiled on Sunday.

Chris Bosh, Paul Pierce, Rick Adelman Among 2021 Hall Of Fame Finalists

March 9th, 2021 at 2:37pm CST by Luke Adams

The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame has announced 14 finalists for the Class of 2021 election, according to a press release. These nine players and five coaches are the candidates to be named Hall-of-Famers when this year’s class is announced on May 16.

This year’s finalists are as follows:

Players:

Coaches:

Rick Adelman
Leta Andrews
Bill Russell
Marianne Stanley
Jay Wright

Hardaway, Johnson, Wallace, Webber, and Andrews have been finalists in the past and are receiving consideration again this year. The other nine are first-time finalists, though Russell has – of course – already been inducted into the Hall of Fame as a player.

Among this year’s first-time finalists, Bosh, Pierce, and Adelman are a few of the most interesting names. Bosh earned 11 All-Star nods and won a pair of NBA championships before a blood-clotting issue cut his career short. Pierce made 10 All-Star teams and won a title (and a Finals MVP award) over the course of his 19 NBA seasons. Adelman, meanwhile, is the ninth-winningest coach in NBA history, with an all-time regular season record of 1,042-749 (.582).

Due to the coronavirus, 2020’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony couldn’t be held as planned last year and has been rescheduled for May 14-16. The Class of 2020 includes Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan, and the late Kobe Bryant.

The ceremony for the Class of 2021 is scheduled to take place in September 2021, following May’s announcement of the inductees.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

And-Ones: Hall Of Fame Nominees, G League, Extensions, More

December 22nd, 2020 at 3:01pm CST by Luke Adams

Longtime Celtics forward Paul Pierce and former NBA player and head coach Doug Collins are among those eligible for the first time to be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, writes ESPN’s Royce Young.

Pierce and Collins are joined as this year’s first-time nominees by former Defensive Player of the Year Michael Cooper and three-time WNBA Most Valuable Player Lauren Jackson, along with Howard Garfinkel, Lou Henson, Val Ackerman, and Yolanda Griffith. Those new nominees will be added to a list of returning candidates that includes Chauncey Billups, Chris Bosh, and Becky Hammon, among others.

While the 2020 Hall of Fame class – headlined by Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, and Kevin Garnett – won’t be enshrined until May due to coronavirus-related delays, the 2021 class is scheduled to be unveiled in early April, with a September induction ceremony to follow.

Here are more odds and ends from around the basketball world:

Stefan Bondy of The New York Daily News (Twitter link) hears from a source that the NBA G League may be targeting February 8 for the start of its shortened season. Training camps would begin at a bubble site – possibly in Atlanta – on January 29 in that scenario, Bondy adds.
ESPN’s Bobby Marks (Insider link) examines what’s next for the players who didn’t sign rookie scale extensions on Monday and takes a look at some players who will still be candidates for veteran extensions during the season, including new Bucks guard Jrue Holiday and Rockets forward P.J. Tucker.
The NBA’s decision to rescind the Bucks‘ 2022 second-round pick after finding evidence that they jumped the gun on negotiations with Bogdan Bogdanovic last month is a relative slap on the wrist, but still represents a noticeable step up over past penalties for tampering, Jared Weiss writes for The Athletic. The league made it a priority starting in 2019 to crack down on such violations.
Basketball junkies will enjoy the 2020/21 version of Niku Mistry’s annual NBA Almanac, a 300-page guide that recaps last season’s results – along with each offseason transaction – and includes team-by-team breakdowns for the coming year.

Hall Of Fame Ceremony Rescheduled To May 2021

August 14th, 2020 at 11:15am CST by Luke Adams

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.

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Hall Of Fame

2020 Hall Of Fame Ceremony To Be Delayed Until 2021

May 28th, 2020 at 9:14am CST by Luke Adams

The 2020 Basketball Hall of Fame enshrinement ceremony won’t take place this August, as initially planned. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the ceremony will tentatively be pushed back to the spring of 2021, according to the chairman of the Hall’s board of governors, Jerry Colangelo (story via Jackie MacMullan of ESPN).

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.

The induction ceremony for the nine new members of the Hall had been scheduled for the weekend of August 28-30, with proposed alternate dates of October 10-12. However, Colangelo tells MacMullan that those dates are “just not feasible” due to COVID-19’s impact on large gatherings.

“We’re definitely canceling,” Colangelo said to ESPN. “It’s going to have to be the first quarter of next year. We’ll meet in a couple of weeks and look at the options of how and when and where.”

Despite the delay, Colangelo made it clear that the Basketball Hall of Fame doesn’t intend to eventually merge the 2020 class with its 2021 class, which figures to be announced next spring — the plan is still to hold two separate ceremonies.

“We won’t be combining them,” Colangelo said. “The Class of 2020 is a very special class and deserves its own celebration.”

Coronavirus Notes: Resuming The Season, Hall Of Fame, Ewing

May 23rd, 2020 at 6:33pm CST by Arthur Hill

Several teams that are unable to open their facilities because of government restrictions are asking the NBA if their players can report directly to the proposed campus environment, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. Sources tell Woj that the NBA is willing to work out an arrangement with those teams. Franchises located in areas where stay-at-home orders are still in effect have a large number of players who have gone elsewhere, he adds.

A timetable and other specifics to resume the season are expected to be outlined in a Board of Governors call on Friday. Sources tell Wojnarowski that teams expect to be told to begin recalling players to their markets around June 1. A few teams have talked about establishing temporary training camps at other sites before arriving in Orlando, which is now considered the likely location to finish the season.

There’s more coronavirus-related news to pass along:

During a conference call on Thursday, the league offered few specifics about how it plans to finish the season, Wojnarowski writes in the same story. Some Board of Governors members believe the league would prefer not to bring back all 30 teams because placing more people in the bubble environment means a greater opportunity of contracting the virus. Also, there was little support for a scenario that would provide a chance to make the playoffs for the league’s worst teams. Privately, Woj states, those teams are more concerned with preserving their odds for the draft lottery and don’t want to risk injuries to their veteran players.
This year’s induction ceremony at the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame is still set for August 29, but two other dates are being considered if the virus is still prevalent, writes Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe. Hall officials are willing to move the ceremony to Columbus Day weekend or to next spring. No matter what happens, the 2020 and 2021 inductions will not be combined. “I do want to make it very clear we will have a separate event for the class of 2020 because of the notoriety of that class and, frankly, every class deserves its own recognition,” CEO John Doleva said. “There is a potential next calendar year that we could have two enshrinements.”
Former Knicks star Patrick Ewing, now the head coach at Georgetown, has tested positive for COVID-19, according to Jeff Borzello of ESPN. Ewing issued a statement urging everyone to “stay safe and take care of yourselves and your loved ones.”

And-Ones: Batiste, Hall Of Fame, Cotton, Gatwech

May 2nd, 2020 at 9:55am CST by Dana Gauruder

Magic assistant coach Mike Batiste shot down a rumor that he’s returning to Europe to coach Greece’s Panathinaikos, Ennio Terrasi Borghesan of Sportando relays. Batiste, who was a star player for the EuroLeague team, said on Greek radio’s ERA Sport he’s staying in Orlando. “No one has contacted me, these are rumors. I have a two-year contract and I will honor it, when I’m done with that I don’t know what will happen,” Batiste said.

We have more from around the basketball world:

The Basketball Hall of Fame remains hopeful in can hold the induction ceremony for this year’s class as scheduled in late August, Marc Stein of the New York Times tweets. This year’s class has nine inductees, including the late Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett.
Australia NBL MVP and former NBA player Bryce Cotton has opted out of his deal with the Perth Wildcats, Olgun Uluc of ESPN reports. The NBL and its players agreed to a tiered system of pay cuts and the highest-salaried players are having their pay cut in half. The agreement allowed players to opt out of their contracts before May 4, with the Wildcats holding Cotton’s domestic rights. Cotton, who appeared in 23 NBA games before heading to Australia, is being pursued by European teams Panathinaikos and Asvel, according to Emiliano Carchia of Sportando.
Jimma Gatwech had his name pulled from the NBA draft, but will pursue other pro opportunities in 2020/21, Evan Daniels of 247Sports tweets. Gatwech, 19, spend the past year at CORE4 Academy in Atlanta.