Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
A Hall of Fame night awaits Big 3
Kobe. Timmy. KG. The full names weren’t necessary. The first name, or even the initials, were enough. Such was the star power that Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett carried throughout their careers and still possess, all of them now five years removed from their final games as NBA greats. Each was an NBA champion, an MVP, an Olympic gold medalist, annual locks for All-Star and All-Defensive teams.
And now, the ultimate honor comes their way: On Saturday night in Uncasville, Conn., they all officially become members of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
The combined numbers for the trio are impressive: 11 championships (with Bryant and Duncan getting five apiece), 48 AllStar nods, more than 86,000 career points, and roughly $900 million in NBA salaries . Bryant is the No. 4 scorer in NBA history, Duncan 15th, Garnett 18th.
Their star power is so bright the Hall of Fame changed its rules for a year: For the 2020 class the electors enacted a one-year suspension of direct elections from the Veteran’s, Women’s Veteran’s, Early AfricanAmerican Pioneers and Contributors categories. The electors didn’t want any deserving nominee from those groups overlooked.
“When we selected this group for induction, we immediately knew that this would be, maybe, one of the great classes of alltime,” said Jerry Colangelo, the chairman of the Hall of Fame’s Board of Governors.
There are nine members of the class that will be enshrined Saturday: Alongside Bryant, Duncan and Garnett are new LSU women’s coach and former Baylor coach Kim Mulkey, former Bentley coach Barbara Stevens, four-time Olympic gold medalist Tamika Catchings, two-time NBA champion coach Rudy Tomjanovich, three-time Final Four coach Eddie Sutton and former FIBA secretary general Patrick Baumann. Bryant, Sutton and Baumann will all be enshrined posthumously.
Duncan averaged 19.0 points, 10.8 rebounds, 3.0 assists, 2.2 blocks per game in 19 NBA seasons with the Spurs. He was the NCAA player of the year in 1997 at Wake Forest, the NBA’s rookie of the year the following year, a champion a year after that.
“On a professional level, the most concise way to put it is, ‘No Duncan, no championships,’” said Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, who coached Duncan for his entire career. “And on a personal level, I love the guy.”
Duncan never sought the spotlight. Garnett was different. Demonstrative, loud, trash-talking, he pushed opponents’ buttons.
“I never accepted losing,” Garnett said. Sixers coach Doc Rivers, Garnett’s longtime coach in Boston including for the 2008 title season, said the same thing in a different way. “The thing about Kevin, he only wanted to win,” Rivers said.
Bryant averaged 25.0 points, 5.2 rebounds and 4.7 assists per game in his 20 NBA seasons, all with the Lakers. He scored 81 points, the second-most for a game in NBA history, in 2016. He scored 60 points in his final NBA game — two years before winning an Academy Award.
He was, and is, iconic. The Sixers’ Joel Embiid said he remembers the first NBA game he ever watched — and who starred in that game.
It was Bryant, and Embiid immediately had a hero.