Pau Gasol, Gregg Popovich headline Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
HOUSTON — The 1992 United States Olympic team is often credited with bringing NBA basketball to the world, but in those Barcelona Olympics, the U.S. brought its biggest basketball stars to Pau Gasol’s Spanish doorstep.
More than 30 years later, the fruits of basketball’s globalization are being fully celebrated, an MVP race among a trio of foreign-born players this season and a Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame class co-headlined by Gasol.
“I like to think that I contributed to the growth of international players and helped inspire some younger players to play the game, just like guys inspired me, the older players. That’s the beauty of life,” Gasol said last month when the Lakers retired his No. 16 jersey.
Saturday from the NCAA tournament’s Final Four, Gasol was formally announced as a member of the 2023 Hall of Fame class. He’ll be enshrined in ceremonies on Aug. 11 in Uncasville, Conn., and Aug. 12 in Springfield, Mass.
NBA stars Dirk Nowitzki, Dwyane Wade and Tony Parker, WNBA star and title-winning coach Becky Hammon and San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich are among those joining Gasol in a star-heavy class.
“A dream come true,” Gasol tweeted Saturday.
Pau Gasol a likely cinch to enter Hall of Fame in 2023 class along with Dirk Nowitzki, Dwyane Wade, Tony Parker and Spurs coach Gregg Popovich.
He’s the 30th player to wear a Lakers jersey and end up in the Hall of Fame. Gasol’s teammate and close friend Kobe Bryant was inducted posthumously in 2021, with Gasol attending alongside Bryant’s family.
Gasol won back-to-back titles with Bryant and the Lakers, highlights in an NBA career that included more than 20,000 points, 10,000 rebounds, 3,500 assists and 1,500 blocked shots — the fourth player to tally those numbers. He won three Olympic medals as a member of the Spanish national team and the world championship in 2006, when he was the tournament’s most valuable player.
“It’s been an incredible journey. Life has been like a tornado in a way, just [blowing around] but you just keep riding the wave, right?” Gasol said before his jersey retirement. “Riding the wave, doing the best you can, making the most of every single second, not taking anything for granted, making relationships, appreciating people, acknowledging everyone’s role and position, and truly being thankful. Because the journey will end at some point, so we’ll just enjoy it and make it as impactful as we can while we’re here.”
Also elected to the Hall of Fame were four coaches: Gene Bess, who won 1,300 games as a junior college coach at Three Rivers Community College in Poplar Bluff, Mo.; David Hixon, longtime coach at Division III Amherst and a two-time national champion; Gene Keady, a seven-time Big Ten coach of the year at Purdue; and Gary Blair, the former Texas A&M women’s coach who took two teams to the Final Four.
The 1976 Olympic women’s basketball team will also be honored as will former North Carolina State coach Jim Valvano, who will be enshrined as a contributor. Valvano led the Wolfpack to the 1983 NCAA title before transitioning into work as a broadcaster and an outspoken advocate for cancer research with his V Foundation.
Division III Pomona-Pitzer would be a springboard for Gregg Popovich, but the early years — and one game especially — didn’t augur a legendary future.
Hall of Fame chairman Jerry Colangelo told the new members or their families about the happy news earlier this week. Most of them joined Colangelo and other Hall of Famers on Friday for a welcome dinner, then on Saturday took their first public bows as basketball royalty.
“This class not only represents all levels of basketball — it represents truly, in every regard, what the game is all about and where it is,” Colangelo told the Associated Press. “I mean, think about the candidates. There’s the countries that are represented, Germany and Spain and France. It shows how far the game has come and where it is today. I think maybe it’s the most unique class, I’d say, of all time, and that covers a lot of territory. It stands by itself as in its uniqueness.”
The four NBA players — Nowitzki, Parker, Gasol and Wade — combined for 95,092 points, 39 All-Star appearances and 10 NBA championships. Hammon was a six-time WNBA All-Star and is coach of the reigning WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces.
All Popovich has done is win five NBA titles, more games than anyone else in league history and an Olympic gold medal at the Tokyo Games that were played in 2021.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
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