Former NBA stars and Olympic gold medalists Carmelo Anthony and Dwight Howard could become members of the new class of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, which will be announced on April 5.
The 17 finalists announced on Friday include a team Anthony and Howard played for—the 2008 U.S. Olympic gold-medal winners known as the “Redeem Team” that came back and won it all after the 2004 team took bronze. Anthony played for six different NBA teams and made 10 All-Star teams. A 2020 NBA champion, Howard played for seven different squads amid eight All-Star appearances and five All-NBA first team awards.
Former five-time All-Star Marques Johnson also made the list after a stellar career with three different teams in the 1970s and 1980s. Johnson also helped UCLA win a national title in 1975 before the Milwaukee Bucks made him the third pick in the NBA Draft.
Buck Williams also made the finalist list after his successful career between 1981 and 1998 where he made three All-Star teams and helped the Portland Trail Blazers reach back-to-back NBA Finals. A high-level rebounder, Williams still ranks third all-time for offensive boards with 4,526.
Two active head coaches also made the cut: Chicago Bulls head coach Billy Donovan and Gonzaga head coach Mark Few. Donovan’s biggest success came in the NCAA where he led the Florida Gators to back-to-back national titles and made four Final Four appearances overall. Few built the Bulldogs into a national power amid two national title game appearances in 2017 and 2021 plus 25-straight NCAA tournament appearances, and 700-plus career wins.
Former Division III head coach Jerry Welsh also made the finalist list. Welsh coached SUNY Potsdam to a national title, made the Final Four three times, and won 494 career games between 1968 and 1991. Welsh went on to lead Iona in Division I hoops where he won another 47 career games between 1991 and 1995.
An international coach, Dusan Ivkovic of Serbia, also made the cut after six decades of coaching. He developed multiple NBA stars, and won a FIBA world championship in 1990 and an Olympic silver medal in the 1988 games in Seoul.
Also an international figure, Tal Brody promoted the game around the world as an Israeli and American citizen. His accolades include 10 Israeli League championships between 1967 and 1980, six Israeli State Cups between 1973 and 1980, All-American honors at Illinois in 1965, and the No. 12 draft pick with the then-Baltimore Bullets in 1965 though he opted for Israel.
Legendary NBA referee Danny Crawford also made the list after a stellar 32-year career between 1985 and 2017. Crawford’s body of work includes refereeing 23-straight NBA Finals and 2,300-plus regular season and playoff games.
Sue Bird, Maya Moore Among Women’s Finalists
Three of the most recent women’s basketball greats and one pioneer headline this year’s finalists.Maya Moore, Sue Bird, and Sylvia Fowles all had stellar WNBA careers since 2000. Molly Bolin was the first-ever player to officially join the Women’s Professional League in 1978.
Bolin was known as “Machine Gun” Molly because of her shooting. She averaged 25.6 points per game for her pro career in the WBL and WABA between 1978 to 1984.
Moore won four championships with the Minnesota Lynx between 2001 and 2017 as a dominant scorer, and she won two NCAA national titles at UConn before that. She also won two Olympic gold medals in 2012 and 2016.
Bird also won four titles with the Seattle Storm amid 13 All-Star appearances in her 21-year career from 2002 to 2022. She won Olympic gold five times, and Bird won two national titles with UConn.
Fowles won two titles during the Lynx title, and she became the all-time league leader for rebounds with 4,006 in her career. She also won four Olympic gold medals and led LSU to four-straight Final Four trips.
