Paul Pierce, Chris Bosh, Chris Webber, Michael Cooper, Lauren Jackson, Ben Wallace and Yolanda Griffith are among the finalists for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021, they announced on Tuesday on ESPN’s The Jump.
Pierce, nominated for the first time, spent 15 of the 19 NBA seasons with the Boston Celtics, winning a championship and MVP of the Finals in 2008. He is 10 times All-Star and the second highest scorer in the Celtics career behind John Havlicek.
Bosh was nominated for the first time in the 2020 class, but was not named a finalist. His career as a player ended unexpectedly in 2016 after 13 seasons due to a blood clot problem. Bosh, an 11-time All-Star, two-time NBA champion and Olympic gold medalist, officially retired in 2019 as a member of the Miami Heat.
Webber, the top pick in 1993, was a five-time All-Star in the NBA’s 17 seasons and a lead role in Michigan’s “Fab Five,” whose legacy has reshaped college basketball for more than two decades.
Cooper spent 12 seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers as a member of the “Showtime” era, winning five championships. He was named NBA Player of the Year in 1987 and has been included in the All-Defense team five times. After his playing career, he continued to coach the Los Angeles Sparks, winning two championships and the 2000 WNBA Coach of the Year.
Meanwhile, Jackson is one of the most decorated female players, winning the WNBL Most Valuable Player award four times and three times in the WNBA. She is a three-time champion and a seven-time WNBA All-Star. She won Defensive Player of the Year in 2007 and was named MVP of the 2010 WNBA Finals when she led the Seattle storm to a championship.
Wallace, one of the best defenders in NBA history, has been a four-time All-Star. He won a championship in 2004 with the Detroit Pistons. With a career average of just 5.7 points per game, Wallace has been named in six All-Defense teams and is one of two players (Dikembe Mutombo is the other) to have won four Defensive Player of the Year awards.
Griffith, an eight-time WNBA All-Star, won a WNBA championship in 2005 and was named the final MVP with the Sacramento Monarchs.
Five-time All-Star Marques Johnson and five-time All-Star Tim Hardaway are also finalists.
Also named finalist in this year’s class: coach Rick Adelman, the ninth winning coach in NBA history; Villanova’s coach, Jay Wright, two-time NCAA champion; coach Marianne Stanley, who led Old Dominion to an NCAA title in 1985; coach Leta Andrews, the most successful high school coach of all time, male or female.
NBA legend Bill Russell is also a finalist, but in this case as a coach. Russell, who was admitted as a player in 1975, was the first African-American head coach of the NBA and led the Celtics to back-to-back championships in 1968 and 1969.
Notable candidates who missed the 2021 class limit: Chauncey Billups, Richard Hamilton, Becky Hammon and Swin Cash.
The entire 2021 class will be unveiled in the NCAA Final Four, scheduled for early April.
The 2021 class is scheduled to be admitted to Springfield, Massachusetts, in September. The 2020 consecration ceremony for a group of celebrities led by Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett has been rescheduled and moved and is scheduled for May 13-15 at Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut.