Cheeks in big crowd going into the Hall
SPRINGFIELD, MASS. » Grant Hill thinks his Hall of Fame classmate Ray Allen is being undersold if he’s only remembered as a 3-point shooter.
“I remember Milwaukee Ray,” Hill said, recalling Allen’s first stop in the league. “He was one of the greatest shooters of all time, but Ray would dunk on you. He would drive to the basket. I don’t think of him as (just) a shooter.”
A two-time NBA champion who predated — and set the stage for — the current proliferation of long-distance shooting, Allen will be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on Friday night along with three of the league’s best point guards and a half-dozen other stars from eras before the 3-pointer came to dominate the game.
Allen made 2,973 3-pointers in his career, three times leading the league in made 3s with numbers that wouldn’t crack a recent top five. He broke Reggie Miller’s all-time mark in 2011 with the Celtics and also was part of Boston’s
2008 championship team. “When I first got into the game, I was told not to shoot so many 3s because it was settling (for a shot),” Allen said on Thursday after the Hall of Fame Class of 2018 was presented with its honorary orange blazers.
“So I had to work on my mid-range game, and I attacked the basket quite a bit,” he said. “I was more athletic when I was younger. I always want to make sure they don’t forget that there is a post, there is a mid-range game. There’s a hole right now.”
Joining Allen at Friday night’s induction ceremony will be Hill, Steve Nash, Jason Kidd, Maurice Cheeks; women’s stars Tina Thompson, Katie Smith and Ora Mae Washington; coach Lefty Driesell, ABA and NBA star Charlie Scott; longtime executives Rod Thorn and Rick Welts; and Croatian star Dino Radja.
“This is a dream team to me,” Nash said. “As you look around and see the history of the game, it’s incredible to be standing on this podium and it’s beyond my wildest dreams.”
Radja played four seasons for the Celtics but made his name in Croatia and the former Yugoslavia, winning an Olympic silver medal for each and three straight European League titles.
Nash played 19 years in the NBA, earning back-toback MVP awards in 200506. He is third on the league’s career assist list and holds the NBA record with a .904 career free throw percentage.
Now an assistant with the Oklahoma City Thunder, Cheeks has been involved with the NBA since 1978, making four all-star teams and winning the 1983 championship with the Sixers. When he retired as a player, he was fifth in league history in both assists and steals.