2026 Basketball Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony.

[nuraman00]

Chamique Holdsclaw:

• I wasn’t allowed to play basketball at the boys and girls club in New York, because I was a girl. They said we had to do arts and crafts. Ron Artest was one of a few that advocated for me, and that allowed me to play.
• Speedy Claxton, Lamar Odom were some New York role models of mine.
• Teresa Edwards, Lisa Leslie, Tina Thompson, and Dawn Staley were other role models.

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Joey Crawford:

• His dad was a MLB NL umpire. He umpired 3,000+ games, 3 World Series.
• Jake O’Donnell showed him how he did NBA games. And gave him his first whistle.
• Sid Borgia was Crawford’s referee scout. Crawford would have to give Borgia his schedule. Borgia scouted Crawford for 4 years in the Eastern League (not NBA).
• In 1977, John Nucatola offered him a job in the NBA.
• Referee John H. Thompson told Crawford, when Crawford was working the Eastern league and Baker league, that Crawford had a temper. Crawford agrees, he had a bad temper, and had to work on it. Thompson helped him.
• Crawford worked 39 years; 2500 regular season games; NBA Finals 1986 - 2016; 50 NBA Finals games; 374 playoffs games. To quote Mohammed Ali, “It ain’t bragging if you did it, and I did it.”
• Rod Thorn once called him, and said: “Everybody thinks you’re a great referee, but all you do is call T’s.” [Hangs up.]

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Mike D’Antoni:

• Amar’e Stoudemire was one of the presenters for Mike D’Antoni. One of the rare times a non hall of famer has been a presenter for a hall of famer, although Stoudemire would also become inducted, later that night.
• His mom came from the “Hatfield” clan. No one messed with her family.
• He went to Marshall University. He was there in 1970 when a plane crash killed the football team; civic leaders; and more. This tragedy united the community.
• While playing for Milan, sometimes the coach would draw up a play. Bob McAdoo would look at the coach, look at Mike D’Antoni (who was the point guard), and tell him “just give me the F’ing ball.”
• D’Antoni thanked Joe Barry Carroll, Wally Walker, and Russ Shoene for attending today.
• Wally Walker’s wife introduced D’Antoni’s future wife Lauren to Mike. Before he finished his pizza, he knew she was the one. Seven seconds later, they were engaged.
• Barbara Bottini, husband of Bryan Colangelo, and Mike’s wife, Lauren, prepared a dinner together. Bryan was in Treviso scouting 3 players from Mike’s team. That dinner together was how Mike went back to the NBA as a coach.
• One of the best moments of his career was during Linsanity. D’Antoni thanks Lin; Jared Jeffries; and Steve Novak for attending tonight.
• In Houston, Daryl Morey backed up D’Antoni’s instincts, with statistics.

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Mark Few:

• When he was an assistant at Cresswell High School in Oregon, the head coach job was open. His father played cards with the superintendent . His mom was the town nurse. He felt good about his chances. He didn’t get it.
• His father was a pastor at the same church for 54 years.
• In 1999, he was an assistant at Gonzaga. The head coach left for Minnesota. The Athletic Director told the University President, Father Spitzer , he knew exactly whom to hire: Assistant Coach Mark Few. Spitzer said “Great. Which one is he?”

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Elena Donne:

• She notes that Larry David is in the audience. She hopes her speech is “pretty, pretty, pretty, good.”
• Her dad would take a ladder, and put a broom on top of it. They named that Oscar. Donne would shoot over it. That’s how she learned to shoot.
• She has an older sister that is deaf and blind. She learned from her sister how to get through the day and fight battles, when no one is looking.

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1996 Womens Team USA:

• Lisa Leslie: One of their best wins was leading up to the 1996 Olympics. Between October 1995 - July 1996, they had a 52 game tour. During one of those games, they were down by 30 at halftime in Russia. It was cold. They came back and won.

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Unmentionable Coach (Glen Rivers):

• Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen are his presenters. (First time the Big 3 have been together, nonacrimoniously, since Allen left for Miami?)
• He would lose games to his brother Grady, 32 - 0,. 32 - 0, 32 - 2, etc. Finally when he was a freshman in high school, he beat his brother. They moved him to the varsity team, and he got to play with his brother for that year.
• His father was a police officer, little league coach, and first black record store owner in Chicago.
• One of his father’s rules was “There will be no victims in the Rivers family.” His father would especially say that if Rivers came home to complain.
• One of his mom’s phrases, whether things were good or bad, was “You’re right where you’re supposed to be.”
• When he was playing for the Knicks, he had one of the biggest arguments with Pat Riley. Unknown to them, Jeff Van Gundy was listening outside the door, ready to intervene in case furniture was thrown. Riley said “One day, when you’re a coach, and you will be one, you’ll understand exactly where I’m coming from.” Rivers said “Are you crazy? I am never going to coach. Every coach that I know, went nuts.”
• Pat Riley said “Never coach a person for who they are today, but to push them for who they should be someday.”
• Chuck Daly gave him the best advice: “Hire Annmarie [Loflin]”.
• Kevin Garnett really did not want to go on a duck boat at 8am. All he said was profanity.
• The two greatest gifts the game gave Rivers were: 1) Having his son Spencer sit on the sidelines, while Spencer learned coaching, on Austin’s high school team, and also at Duke. 2) Coaching Austin Rivers.

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Unmentionable player (Amar’e Stoudemire):

• Mike D’Antoni was one of the presenters for Stoudemire.
• Basketball was his therapist at a young age.
• When the Orlando Magic became an expansion franchise, and they had a program called the Junior Magic, Stoudemire played his first organized game as a 13 year old, in Lake Wales. He dunked. They said they’d never seen a 13 year old dunk before.
• Stoudemire wanted to go to Mount Zion academy, because that’s where Tracy McGrady went. Like McGrady, Stoudemire was also trying to go to the NBA out of high school.
• Stoudemire only played high school basketball for two years (freshmen and senior).
• After getting drafted by the Suns, Stoudemire talked to everyone. Veterans (Tom Gugliotta, Penny Hardaway, Stephon Marbury). Broadcaster Eddie Johnson. Team security Kevin Tucker. Scott Williams.
• During the 2005 offseason, they told Stoudemire he had to have microfracture. He didn’t know what that was. At that time, microfracture meant retirement.
• He followed whatever the training staff said. Stoudemire was proud to play all 82 games in the season he returned from injury.
• During the end of his career, Stoudemire was proud to play for Jerusalem, and play his last game in Maccabi Tel Aviv, winning a championship and Finals MVP.

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Candace Parker:

• Early in her speech, she picks up a basketball and passes it to Cheryl Miller, who catches it. Her presenters were Cheryl Miller, Dwayne Wade, Allen Iverson, Tamika Catchings
• Ron Harper was her favorite Bulls player.
• Her brothers Anthony and Marcus were her role models. Her middle brother is a doctor from John Hopkins.
• When Parker played soccer, there was a girl who hadn’t scored all year. So the team helped her score a goal. That girl’s dad ran onto the field and they did airplanes, and asked where she wanted to go from ice cream. Meanwhile, when Parker had scored 5 goals in a game, her dad gave her nothing. Not even a “good game”. Parkers had different goals.
• Her great grandfather Clarence got a Masters from the Unviersity of Oklahoma in 1956. Her “Mimi” Shirley threw a no hitter in Des Moines.
• She used to call her dad Joe Jackson, but since the Michael Jackson biopic came out, they retracted that nickname.
• She dunked at 14, her brothers didn’t dunk until they were 16.
• In 1997, her brother got drafted and traded to the Philadelphia 76ers, and Allen Iverson (passes the ball to him) became his teammate.
• Candace Parker once got kicked out of a practice by Pat Summitt for not offensive rebounding. Parker said she was going to show Summitt, and show up at 4am the next day, ahead of their 6am practice. When Parker got to the arena the next day at 4am, Coach Summitt was already there. That’s when Parker realized how important coaches were.

 

[nuraman00]

Are we supposed to like Mark Few because he was the coach at Gonzaga, even though he didn't coach John Stockton? Few joined as an assistant in 1989, years after Stockton had already left Gonzaga.

 

[nuraman00]

@MHSL82, why didn't you tell me that Derek Fisher was the coach that benched Candace Parker in the 2019 playoffs, as the LA Sparks were swept out of the playoffs? He apparently benched all five starters and Parker was held to 11 minutes.

You never say anything bad about Fisher's coaching decisions.