Hall of Fame induction should be about more than Kobe
As tempting as it to make it so, the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame weekend at Mohegan Sun cannot be all about three transcendent NBA stars.
Nor, as compelling and emotional as it surely will be, can Saturday night’s induction ceremony be all about Kobe Bryant.
And let’s pray — get down on our knees and pray — that Michael Jordan is self-aware enough not to try to make it about him.
In his remarks Friday at the media event for the 2020 class, Hall of Fame President and CEO John Doleva called the weekend the first chance for the “family of basketball” to get together since the global pandemic shut down everything.
The family of basketball. Good way to put it. Considering the 2020 induction was postponed from last September, the family reunion also is long overdue. Mohegan Sun annually hosts one of the Hall of Fame events. This time the entire production, induction and all, will be at Mohegan, which has the size and capability to accompany the necessary protocol.
The story does move north Sunday to Springfield for a ribbon-cutting and the announcement of the 2021 class. A $25 million renovation has turned a stale Hall of Fame into a 21st-century three-dimensional tribute to technology and interactivity. Top to bottom, it’s all new. This includes the centerpiece Kobe Bryant exhibit, which his widow, Vanessa, had a hand in designing and visited Friday.
It is a historic class to be sure. And if any Hall of Fame weekend should be a Big Tent weekend, this is it.
Yes, so much must be about Kobe, Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett. After all, the three combined for 10 of the 12 NBA championships between 1999 and 2010. They are three of six players ever to be named to the NBA All-Star team 15 times. And, yes, with Kobe’s death this past January, the entire basketball world was shaken to its core.
Yet there also is Tamika Catchings, one of the halfdozen greatest women players of all time, who grew up wanting to play in the NBA
like her dad, Harvey. There is Kim Mulkey, whose three NCAA titles stand behind only Geno Auriemma and Pat Summitt. There is Rudy Tomjanovich. There’s the late Eddie Sutton. There’s Barbara Stevens. There’s the late FIBA secretarygeneral Patrick Baumann, whose children Bianca and Paul spoke eloquently of how their dad breathed and spoke basketball every second.
All have great stories. All are great stories. I also know the Basketball Hall of Fame ceremonies can turn into a bit of strut fest at times, especially when Jordan is around. Mulkey was going to have Leon Barmore, her mentor and former coach at Louisiana Tech present her. He cannot because of health issues. Jordan was gracious enough to do the honors. Jordan also will present Vanessa Bryant.
There is room for showoffs and drama. There is room to be irreverent. Some of that stuff can be funny and entertaining. Too much is off-putting.
Jordan was nothing short of narcissistic in his acceptance speech years ago. He loves to brag how he beat this guy or that guy. At this family reunion, let’s hope everyone is a humble as Duncan and brutally honest as Garnett.
The stage must be shared with people like Stevens, who took a job as an assistant coach at Clark for $400 a year and ended up winning more than 1,000 games and a Division II national championship with Bentley. Stevens talked how she asked Auriemma and Muffet McGraw to co-present her, and after a long, dramatic pause on the phone, Auriemma said “I would be honored.” Stevens should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for bringing Geno and Muffet together.
Mulkey was great talking about being the little pigtailed girl growing up 30 minutes from the LSU campus playing Dixie Youth and Pony League baseball with the boys. How she played on the Olympic team under Summitt in 1984 and was stopped at the Louisiana state line by a state trooper on the way home. She thought she was getting a ticket. He gave her a dozen roses and escorted her to a surprise parade in Hammond. She talked about how she was working on her master’s and had no intention of coaching when late Louisiana Tech president F. Jay Taylor called her into his office and wouldn’t take no for an answer. And how she took the call telling her she been selected to the Hall of Fame and went outside the rain to cry her eyes out.
Sean Sutton, who played and coached with his dad, talked about how Eddie died this past May at age 84 only six weeks after he was told he had been selected for the Hall of Fame. Seven times he had been a finalist. How Eddie’s life was a walk through basketball history. He played for Henry Iba at Oklahoma State. He played against Wilt Chamberlain. He coached against Jordan. He survived a scandal at Kentucky to get to the Final Four three times and win 806 games.
There was Rudy T., the only man to score more than 10,000 points and win 500 games and two NBA titles as a coach. Not to mention overcoming the most violent punch in NBA history. After his Rockets twice held off the Suns, he also is famous for saying, “Don’t ever underestimate the heart of a champion.”
“I didn’t coin the phrase,” Rudy T. said. “It was Kevin Johnson after we beat them the second time. I thought it was a great quote. Now, Charles Barkley said, ‘They’re just like those Texas roaches. You stomp on them, you think you got them, you pick your foot up and they scurry away.’ I thought ‘heart of a champion’ was a better analogy than a roach.”
Garnett, of course, was blunt and beautiful
On getting to the Hall of Fame, “a big-ass dream.”
On winning a championship with the Celtics: “It meant everything, man. Getting to a storied franchise like Boston, gave me light, gave me breath, gave me purposes. The players you play with made the experience monumental, made it magical. The city was waiting for something big or different to happen.”
On Celtics fans: “The fanbase in Boston was over the top, followed you home, people wanted to pump your gas … another level. My only regret in any of this is I should have come to Boston a little earlier.”
On his legacy of redefining his position: “From day one I wanted to be different.
I wanted to face-up. With the glory of working with Kevin McHale, I started to change the narrative of what a 4 looked like. I wanted to be able to guard a 2 and 1 on switches. I wanted to go out to 17-19 feet on shots.”
On softening as perhaps the game’s fiercest competitor: “I haven’t gotten to the hug part yet. Competitive juices, friends and foes, slowly diminishes, right? One day I guess I’ll sit back and embrace it all. But I’m still it in it, man. If I’m being honest, I’m still in it.”
Rudy T. talked about Kobe’s explosiveness, how he could light up a scoreboard from everywhere. KG was as good on defense on offense and so imposing. The first time he saw Duncan catch a basketball, he said Duncan brought it under his chin and looked to the inside.
“I didn’t need to see anything else,” Rudy T. said. “I said ‘He knows how to play.’ And it made me sick.”
The stories were everywhere, and all of them need to told. Garnett talked about how he and Kobe were once young and so vulnerable and interacted with that youthfulness. How they also talked about the game and cracked jokes on each other. How they developed and each never wanted to be beaten and thought they were the best.
“We lost a champion of women’s basketball,” Stevens said.
“I miss him every day,” Garnett said.
Is it callous to say I’d rate Duncan over both Kobe and KG in the all-time rankings? A lot of people will disagree. Hey, families disagree sometimes. And certainly the family of basketball misses Kobe. Yet this weekend should be a celebration of all, not a wake for one. We’ve had one of those.