SAN ANTONIO, Texas — Former NBA stars Jason Kidd, Steve Nash, Ray Allen and Grant Hill headline the 2018 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame class announced Saturday.
Other inductees include longtime college basketball coach Lefty Driesell, women’s basketball standouts Katie Smith and Tina Thompson, and four-time NBA All-Star Maurice Cheeks.
Kidd, a 10-time NBA All-Star and six-time All-NBA selection, is considered one of the best passers in NBA history. He finished his career second all-time in assists and steals and third all-time in triple-doubles. The 6-foot-4 point guard played for five different franchises and won a title with the Dallas Mavericks in 2011. He led the league in assists five times in his 19-year career and won two gold medals with the United States.
Nash, a native of South Africa who grew up in Canada, is third among the NBA’s all-time assist leaders. He won the MVP award back-to-back years in 2005 and 2006, one of just 12 players to win multiple MVP awards. He made eight All-Star games and was a seven-time All-NBA selection, including a first-team selection three times, while leading the league in assists on five occasions.
Nash has been serving as a player development consultant for the Golden State Warriors and as general manager of the Canadian national team.
Allen is one of the greatest shooters in NBA history. He is the league’s all-time leader in career 3-point field goals made, in both the regular season and postseason. Allen won two NBA championships with the Boston Celtics and Miami Heat, and made 10 All-Star games. He was also a two-time All-NBA selection and won a gold medal in 2000. During his time at UConn, Allen won National Player of the Year honors in 1996.
Hill, who shared Rookie of the Year honors with Kidd in the 1994-95 season, made seven All-Star appearances in his 19-year NBA career. Hill, a five-time All-NBA selection, is the first former Duke player to be selected to the Hall of Fame. One of the greatest players in Duke history, Hill was a two-time All-American and won two national championships with the Blue Devils.
Driesell, 86, is 11th all-time among the winningest men’s Division-I coaches in college basketball history. Driesell went to 13 NCAA tournaments, eight of them coming during his time at Maryland from 1969-86. He won the NIT with the Terrapins in 1972. Driesell also was the head coach at Davidson, James Madison and Georgia State.
He’s also credited with creating Midnight Madness in 1971 at Maryland, allowing 3,000 fans to attend a public run three minutes after the official start of practice at midnight.
Smith and Thompson are two of the greatest women’s basketball players of all time. Smith is the all-time leading scorer in women’s professional basketball, playing in both the ABL and WNBA. She won three Olympic gold medals in 2000, 2004 and 2008. Thompson won four WNBA titles with the Houston Comets and was selected to the All-Star game nine times. She won two Olympic gold medals.
Cheeks won an NBA championship with the Philadelphia 76ers in 1983 and helped lead them to two other NBA Finals trips. He earned four straight All-Defensive First Team selections and retired as the NBA’s all-time steals leader. Cheeks is currently fifth all-time in steals and 13th all-time in assists. He’s spent nine seasons as a head coach for three different franchises, reaching the playoffs three times.
The 2018 Hall of Fame class is rounded out by Rod Thorn, a longtime NBA executive and the general manager of the Chicago Bulls when they drafted Michael Jordan; Charlie Scott, a five-time All-Star who scored nearly 15,000 combined points in the ABA and NBA; Rick Welts, president of the Warriors; Dino Radja, one of FIBA’s 50 greatest players and a two-time EuroLeague champion who played for the Celtics; and Ora Mae Washington, a dominant basketball and tennis player whom Arthur Ashe once said “may have been the best female athlete ever.”
Source : ESPN
