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Tim Bontemps
SAN FRANCISCO — Carmelo Anthony, Dwight Howard and a team they were part of — the gold medal-winning 2008 U.S. Olympic Team — headline the group of finalists for this year’s Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame class.
Among the other nominees are women’s basketball legends Sue Bird, Maya Moore and Sylvia Fowles, along with coaches Billy Donovan and Mark Few.
Anthony, a 10-time All-Star, is 10th all time in the NBA in scoring with 28,289 points. He also led Syracuse to a national championship in 2003.
Howard was the preeminent defensive presence of his era, winning three straight NBA Defensive Player of the Year awards (2009-11). He made eight All-NBA teams in addition to leading the Orlando Magic to the 2009 NBA Finals and then winning a title with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2020.
The 2008 Olympic Team returned Team USA to the top of the heap internationally after a disappointing bronze-medal finish at the 2004 Games and no medals at both the 2002 and 2006 world championships. That team included not only Anthony and Howard but a list of several NBA stars, including the late Kobe Bryant, Jason Kidd, Dwyane Wade, Chris Paul, Chris Bosh and LeBron James. It was assembled by Jerry Colangelo, the chairman of the Hall of Fame.
Moore won two national championships at the University of Connecticut and four WNBA titles in her seven-year career with the Minnesota Lynx before she chose to retire in 2018 at the height of her prime to pursue criminal justice reform. Bird also won two titles at UConn and four in the WNBA during her career with the Seattle Storm and is considered one of the greatest point guards in the history of women’s basketball.
Fowles was a dominant interior presence at LSU, which she led to four Final Four appearances, and as a professional, when she won a pair of titles with Moore as a member of the Lynx. She was the WNBA’s MVP in 2017.
Donovan led Florida to four Final Four appearances in 19 seasons with the Gators, and is the last men’s basketball coach to win back-to-back NCAA Division 1 titles (2006-07), doing so behind longtime NBA stars Al Horford and Joakim Noah. He then left the college game and has spent the past decade coaching the Oklahoma City Thunder and Chicago Bulls.
Few is the winningest active coach by percentage at Gonzaga and has led the Bulldogs to two national championship games (2017, ’21) and 25 consecutive NCAA tournament appearances.
Other Hall of Fame finalists include: longtime NBA referee Danny Crawford; five-time All-Star forward Marques Johnson; longtime college coach Jerry Welsh; three-time NBA All-Star Buck Williams; former Stanford and WNBA star Jennifer Azzi; women’s basketball pioneer Molly Bolin; Serbian basketball coach Dusan Ivkovic; Miami Heat owner Micky Arison; and Israeli basketball legend Tal Brody.
The group now will move on to the final round of the nomination process, with a panel of 24 anonymous voters considering each’s candidacy. A candidate has to receive votes from at least 18 of those 24 panelists to gain election to the Hall of Fame.
The 2025 class will be announced April 5 in San Antonio during the NCAA Men’s Final Four.
Enshrinement weekend is Sept. 5-6.
