Candace Parker and Elena Delle Donne, each former WNBA MVPs and champions, headline the finalists for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2026 introduced Wednesday.
Parker is the one participant in WNBA historical past to win championships with three franchises (the Los Angeles Sparks, Chicago Sky and Las Vegas Aces). One of many first true positionless basketball gamers, Parker was a phenom at each degree — successful the dunk contest on the McDonald’s All American Recreation in highschool, two nationwide championships at Tennessee, two Olympic Gold medals and two WNBA MVP awards.
She’s nonetheless the one participant in WNBA historical past to win Rookie of the 12 months and MVP in the identical season (2008).
Delle Donne can also be a two-time league MVP (2015 and 2019) who turned the primary WNBA participant to shoot 50% from the sector, 40% from 3 and 90% on free throws. She led the Washington Mystics to their first championship in 2019, cementing her legacy as one of many biggest pure shooters the sport has seen.
Two members of the LA Clippers’ “Lob Metropolis” period have been additionally named as finalists. Six-time All-Star Blake Griffin turned across the fortunes of the beleaguered franchise with an electrical, high-flying model, punctuated by his win within the 2011 slam dunk contest by which he jumped over a Kia vehicle.
Griffin grew into a much more full participant over his 14 seasons within the league, ending his profession with greater than 14,000 factors and three,000 assists.
Doc Rivers, who coached lots of these Lob Metropolis groups, was additionally chosen as a finalist. Rivers, whose 1,114 (and counting) profession teaching wins rank eighth on the all-time listing, led the Boston Celtics to an NBA championship in 2008. He’s the present coach of the Milwaukee Bucks.
A’mare Stoudemire is a finalist once more. Stoudemire averaged 18.9 factors and seven.8 rebounds in 846 profession video games over 14 seasons for Phoenix, New York, Dallas and Miami, the primary eight of which have been for the Suns.
The 6-foot-10 ahead/middle was a six-time All-Star and an All-NBA first-team choice in 2006-07, forming one-half of a formidable pick-and-roll duo in Phoenix with level guard Steve Nash.
Stoudemire was additionally named the 2003 NBA Rookie of the 12 months after getting into the league immediately from highschool.
Different participant finalists embrace Kevin Johnson, Buck Williams and Marques Johnson. Official Joey Crawford is a finalist, as is Tal Brody, who helped form Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball, and Mike D’Antoni, within the contributor class.
Different coaches apart from Rivers embrace Gonzaga’s Mark Few, Houston’s Kelvin Sampson and the late Jerry Welsh, who coached Potsdam in upstate New York to NCAA Division III titles in 1981 and 1986. They’re joined by legendary highschool basketball coach Gary McKnight and Dick Motta, one of many winningest coaches in NBA historical past.
The 1996 gold medal-winning U.S. ladies’s nationwide workforce can even be thought-about for induction, as will Jennifer Azzi, who was a member of that Atlanta Video games workforce and is a finalist once more as a person. Accompanying her as a ladies’s committee finalist is Chamique Holdsclaw.
Molly Bolin-Kazmerm, the primary participant signed by the Ladies’s Skilled Basketball League, is a returning finalist nominated by the ladies’s veterans committee.
Former Serbian skilled participant and longtime coach Dušan Ivković, already a FIBA Hall of Famer, is as soon as once more a finalist from the worldwide committee.
The ultimate Class of 2026 might be introduced throughout the NCAA Last 4 weekend in April, with the formal enshrinement ceremonies scheduled for August in Springfield, Massachusetts.
The Related Press contributed to this report.