The Class of 2026 was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Saturday in Springfield.
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – Four players, two coaches, a referee, an innovator who crossed multiple lanes and a landmark team were enshrined as the Class of 2026 in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Saturday.
Coach Doc Rivers, six-time All-Star Amar’e Stoudemire, referee Joey Crawford and, as a contributor, coach Mike D’Antoni represented the NBA among the Hall’s newest members. WNBA stars Candance Parker, Chamique Holdsclaw and Elena Delle Donne entered the hoops shrine as well, as did Gonzaga University coach Mark Few.
And as a group entry, the 1996 USA Basketball women’s national team was honored for its success in winning Olympic gold in Atlanta but also for its lasting impact on women’s sport overall.
Here are some notes, quotes and anecdotes from the Hall’s big weekend:
A week that began in sorrow …
… ended with tributes and warm memories of Don Nelson, the Hall of Fame coach who seemed to cross paths with almost everyone in league history from his roots as an NBA player (1962-76) to his 31 seasons as a coach.
The “In Memoriam” segment of the night’s presentation, always poignant in its look at Hall members who died since the last ceremony, took on added emotion when Hall chairman Jerry Colangelo introduced it and spoke of Nelson. Colangelo traced his roots competing with Nelson back to their days growing up outside Chicago. Born six months apart, they clashed in college – Colangelo played at Illinois, Nelson at Iowa – and then for years as NBA coaches and team builders.
In all, they had known each other nearly 70 years when Nelson died Sunday at age 86.
Rivers also reached back when talking about Nelson at the weekend’s outset.
“It probably was the most illegal thing Nellie did: I practiced with the Bucks when I was at Marquette,” Rivers said. “Dave Wohl was an assistant for Nellie, Dave would pick me up and I’d literally practice with the Bucks my freshman and sophomore years.”
Doc Rivers speaks after being inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
How did that go?
“[Sidney] Moncrief made me think, ‘Man, I don’t know if this NBA life is for me,’” Rivers recalled. “Playing against him and Marques [Johnson] and Junior Bridgeman, Brian Winters, I played against all of ‘em. I was more athletic than some of them – that made me feel good.”
1996 heroes inspired today’s stars
It’s not much of a stretch to suggest that the 1996 USA women’s team was as important in its ways as the fabled “Dream Team” of Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and the rest had been four years earlier.
“We’re just long overdue,” said Dawn Staley, a player on that squad and in the WNBA, and later South Carolina coach. “Our ’96 team was full of players who really understood the assignment. They understood who was a part of getting us to that point, the Lynette Woodards, Nancy Liebermans who really paved the way to strike when the iron was hot.”
The WNBA’s new Hall of Famers told how much that Olympic team inspired them.
“I remember being 10 years old, on the couch, watching the Olympics,” Parker said. “Watching the U.S. team dominate – Lisa Leslie, Sheryl Swopes, Teresa Edwards … They’re the reason the game exists today. I think of them as opportunity and it’s surreal that I’m going into the Hall of Fame with them.”
Said Holdsclaw: “I had those posters on my wall, and they made me believe. I saw that Lisa was getting a statue and I sent her a picture, it was me in my college dorm with her picture on my wall. Without this team, I don’t know if my basketball career here would have become a reality.”
Few’s ignominious start
Few took an outpost campus in Spokane, Wash., and lifted it to remarkable heights, taking on the powerhouses of college basketball at Gonzaga. He got the Bulldogs to NCAA title games in 2017 and 2021, 26 tournament appearances and a 773-156 record.
But his career almost got short-circuited when he applied for the open head coaching job at tiny Creswell (Ore.) High, which he attended and where he was the unpaid assistant.
“I felt great about my chances,” Few said. “Not only because I was the assistant coach, but the local superintendent played cards with my dad, who was the town’s minister. My mom was the town nurse. It seemed like I was a shoo-in.
“Well, I got shot down. And here I am, so go figure.”
Stoudemire’s strong finish in faith
Whatever Stoudemire needed to do to reach the Naismith Hall already was in the books when he challenged himself with one final basketball adventure: In 2016, at age 33, he joined Hapoel Jerusalem and won the Israeli League Cup.
In 2019-20, he played for Maccabi Tel Aviv and, on his last day as a player, won another championship and was named Finals MVP.
Amar'e Stoudemire speaks after being inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
Stoudemire obtained his Israeli citizenship in March 2019, converted to Orthodox Judaism in August 2020 and described his final hoops season as a Biblical experience.
“The journey will take you down paths you don’t first see,” he said.
Parker’s bond with Wade is special
Parker, who had the unofficial honor of being the night’s last speaker, had a diverse and impressive group of presenters: Cheryl Miller, Allen Iverson (in a Tennessee ball cap, Parker’s alma mater), Tamika Catchings and Dwyane Wade. Earlier in the weekend, she lauded and eventually teased Wade, the Miami Heat’s former star.
“D’s like a brother,” Parker said. “My brothers get upset because I always call him ‘like a brother.’ He’s been a part of my career.”
Parker’s brother Anthony shared an agent with Wade, Hank Thomas, who instructed them to look out for the little sister who became a WNBA legend.
Candace Parker speaks after being inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
“Being a teammate now in our post-careers, at TNT and at Amazon … yeah, he’s been somebody who has always been on the sideline celebrating me,” Parker said.
Then she laughed about the video in which Parker asked Wade to be a presenter.
“He literally almost cried,” she said.
Parker took a WNBA basketball to the podium for her speech, calling it “her muse.” She also, at one point, thanked her knees for making this honor possible, based on the 10 knee surgeries she endured.
Don’t sleep on D’Antoni the player
While Mike D’Antoni enters the Hall as a contributor – recognition of his embrace and use of a Euro-style, fast-paced “7 Seconds or Less” attack in Phoenix – he was well known as an NBA coach with the Nuggets, Suns, Knicks, Lakers and Rockets. He also was a terrific player, one whose great performances just happened to be played overseas.
D’Antoni, a 6-foot-3 guard second-round pick from Marshall, lasted just four seasons in the NBA and ABA from 1973-1977, averaging 3.4 ppg and 2.0 apg.
But he logged 17 seasons with Olimpia Milano in the Italian League as player and coach, and lit things up. He was named the league’s best point guard ever once he was done.
Mike D'Antoni speaks after being inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
So what explains the dramatic difference, why the same skills ignited in Italy?
“Confidence,” D’Antoni said. “Some place in my journey trying to make it in the NBA I lost my confidence. I was at ground zero and I didn’t know if I’d ever make it.
“Then I went to Italy and I had an American coach there, Dan Peterson, who really believed in me and stuck with me. I played for that team for 13 years, and by the time we got done – we won all kinds of stuff – he had given me the confidence that, yeah, I can do this or I can coach or do whatever.”
Delle Donne didn’t curb her enthusiasm
Noting that one of the celebrities in the audience Saturday was comic actor Larry David – a golfing buddy of Rivers – the two-time WNBA MVP with Chicago and Washington prefaced her speech borrowing one of David’s catch phrases.
“So I can only hope this speech goes pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good,” Delle Donne said, as David smiled and nodded.
Crawford’s missed opportunity
Referee Joey Crawford chose as his presenters Rod Thorn, longtime NBA executive for 14 years his boss as supervisor of officials, and ref colleague Danny Crawford, a Class of 2025 enshrinee.
But he could have injected some humor (hopefully) and spiked the telecast ratings by asking former Spurs legend Tim Duncan to be his third.
Duncan and Crawford had a notorious run-in in 2007 when the tempestuous official ejected Duncan as the Hall of Fame player sat on the bench. Crawford didn’t like the way Duncan was laughing after a call out on the floor.
It was a dark chapter for Crawford, actually – he got suspended and ordered into counseling by then-commissioner David Stern. It also burned indelibly into the NBA public’s psyche.
“Listen, I was in Budapest doing a clinic for FIBA [officials], and they all want to know about Duncan this, Duncan that,” Crawford said away from the cameras this weekend.
“I told them, by the time I leave here, there’s going to be a fan who comes up and asks me about Tim Duncan.
“So I’m getting on the plane – in Budapest, remember – and this guy comes running. ‘Mr. Crawford! Mr. Crawford!’ I’m like, ‘What’s up?’ ‘Can we talk about Duncan?’”
But wait, there’s more: Crawford was in New York recently, walking to the NBA headquarters on Fifth Avenue. An elderly lady at a crosswalk needed help, so Crawford stuck out an arm.
“I said, ‘Look, I gotcha,’” Crawford recalled. “We get almost across the street and she says to me, ‘I watch a lot of the NBA.’ I said ‘Yeah?’ She goes, ‘What did Duncan do?’”
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Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
