On April 5, 1984, in a game against the Utah Jazz (played in a sold-out Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar took a pass from Magic Johnson, swung left, and drained a hook shot that gave him career point No. 31,420, moving him past Wilt Chamberlain to become the NBA’s all-time leading scorer.
The game stopped as the celebration ensued as Kareem’s teammates swarmed the captain. He was taken out of the game at that point, done for the night.
Abdul-Jabbar wasn’t done scoring, however. H retired five seasons later with 38,387 points, a record that stands to this day.
Vanessa Bryant reacts to Kobe Bryant’s election to Hall of Fame
“Obviously, we wish he was here with us to celebrate, but it’s definitely the peak of his NBA career. Every accomplishment he had as an athlete was a stepping stone to be here.”
The love for Kobe poured out from every corner of the Lakers’ organization on Saturday.
“No amount of words can fully describe what Kobe Bryant meant to the Los Angeles Lakers,” said Lakers co-owner and governor Jeanie Buss. “Kobe was not only a proven winner and a champion, he gave everything he had to the game of basketball. His fierce competitiveness, work ethic and drive were unmatched. Those qualities helped Kobe lead us to five titles – and have now brought him to the Hall of Fame, where he will be enshrined with the greatest to have ever played the game. No one deserves it more.”
“Kobe was always one to downplay his professional accomplishments – MVPs, NBA championships, gold medals, Oscars, and on and on and on,” said Lakers Vice President of Basketball Operations and General Manager Rob Pelinka. “But all of us can trust that this Basketball Hall of Fame honor is one Kobe would, and will, deeply appreciate. The highest of congratulations to you, dear friend. This one is so well deserved — for all the hard work, sweat and toil. Now, a part of you will live in the Hall with the rest of the all-time greats, where your legend and spirit will continue to grow forever.”
Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett are officially Hall of Famers
Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, and Kevin Garnett are Hall of Famers.
They were elected on the first ballot in a deep class that also includes Tamika Catchings, Rudy Tomjanovic, Kim Mulkey, Barbara Stevens, Eddie Sutton, and longtime FIBA executive Patrick Baumann.
“Obviously, we wish he was here with us to celebrate, but it’s definitely the peak of his NBA career,” Kobe’s widow Vanessa Bryant said on the broadcast announcing Kobe’s enshrinement. “Every accomplishment he had as an athlete was a stepping stone to be here.”
“No amount of words can fully describe what Kobe Bryant meant to the Los Angeles Lakers,” said Lakers co-owner and governor Jeanie Buss. “Kobe was not only a proven winner and a champion, he gave everything he had to the game of basketball. His fierce competitiveness, work ethic and drive were unmatched. Those qualities helped Kobe lead us to five titles – and have now brought him to the Hall of Fame, where he will be enshrined with the greatest to have ever played the game. No one deserves it more.”
Kobe’s resume was nearly unparalleled: Five-time NBA champion, two-time Finals MVP, 18-time NBA All-Star, 11-time All-NBA First Team, the 2008 NBA MVP, nine-time NBA All-Defensive First Team member, he is fourth on the NBA All-Time scoring list, plus Bryant earned two Olympic gold medals.
One of the few guys who can put up a resume anywhere close to that is Tim Duncan, the face of a two-decade San Antonio Spurs dynasty. He is a five-time NBA champion and three-time Finals MVP, two-time NBA MVP, he was a 15-time NBA All-Star, an eight-time NBA All-Defensive First Team member, Rookie of the Year, and Duncan is the only player in NBA history with 1,000 or more wins with one team. At Wake Forest, he was a three-time First Team All-American and won the AP College Player of the Year award.
There also was never any doubt about the resume of Garnett: An NBA champion, NBA MVP, 15-time All-Star, nine-time NBA All-Defensive First Team selection, Defensive Player of the Year, and he has an Olympic gold medal.
“It’s just the culmination, just the culmination,” Garnett said on the broadcast of the announcement. “You put countless hours into this, you dedicate yourself to the craft, you take no days off, you play through injuries, you play through demise, you play through obstacles, give no excuses for anything, you learn, you build, this is the culmination.”
“This is an honor so well deserved. We congratulate Kevin on being selected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame,” Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor said. “From the day we drafted him in 1995, we knew there was something special about him that Minnesota had never experienced before. I’ve watched Kevin grow on and off the court and will forever be grateful for his contributions to the Timberwolves organization. He was beloved by our fans in a way that only few players experience and will always have a place at Target Center.”
Those three alone make this an insanely good and distinguished class, but it goes beyond them into other deserving people. Also elected to the Hall of Fame are:
• Tamika Catchings. A WNBA MVP and champion, she is a 10-time WNBA All-Star and won four gold medals with Team USA.
• Rudy Tomjanovic. A legend of the Houston Rockets, he is the only person in NBA history to score 10,000 points as a player and win 500 career games with two championships as a coach. He coached two Rockets teams to titles and the 2000 Olympic team in Sydney to gold.
“Congratulations to Rudy T on his well-deserved and long overdue selection to the Hall of Fame,” said Rockets owner Tilman J. Fertitta. “As a longtime Rockets fan, I admired Rudy’s tenacity as a player and loved watching his attention to detail in coaching the back-to-back championship teams in the 90’s. Heart of a champion! This is an exciting day not only for Rudy and his family, but for Rockets fans everywhere.”
• Kim Mulkey. She coached the Baylor Bears to three national titles, and she won one herself as a player.
• Barbara Stevens. The coach of Division II powerhouse Bentley University, she is the fifth coach in NCAA women’s basketball history to reach 1,000 career wins.
• Eddie Sutton. He coached four schools to NCAA Tournament and won more than 800 games as a college coach.
Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan, Rudy Tomjanovic reportedly elected to Hall of Fame
This is going to be as impressive and deserving — and, for voters, obvious — a Hall of Fame class as we have seen in recent memory.
Kobe Bryant? Lock. Tim Duncan? Lock. Kevin Garnett? Lock.
When the Hall of Fame class of 2020 is formally announced on Saturday (at noon Eastern), it’s no surprise that those three guys got in, reports Shams Charania of The Athletic. What is a surprise is that Rudy Tomjanovic finally got in after falling short for multiple years, according to Mark Berman of Fox News 26 in Houston (who has been well connected on Rockets’ stories).
Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett will be inducted into the Naismith Basketball @Hoophall Class of 2020, sources tell @TheAthleticNBA@Stadium. Formal announcements will be made on Saturday.
Tomjanovich has been on the ballot two of the past three years but never got over the threshold of votes (from an anonymous group of voters). He is the only person in NBA history to score 10,000 points as a player (he was a five-time All-Star) and win 500 career games with two championships as a coach. His resume is impressive and legends of the game such as Gregg Popovich have stumped for Tomjanovic to make it.
Tamika Catchings also is up for nomination and likely will get the nod. Legendary coaches Kim Mulkey, Barbara Stevens, and Eddie Sutton also are nominated.
Kevin Durant tips off ‘NBA 2K Players Tournament’ Friday night; start time and more
NBA players can’t get together right now on a real court for some playoff basketball, but they can get together virtually for an NBA 2K Tournament.
The first-ever “NBA 2K Players Tournament” tips off tonight and in the current desert of sports programming, plus the fact we’re all forced to be home, this esports event becomes must-watch NBA content. There are 16 NBA players — including Kevin Durant, Trae Young, Donovan Mitchell, Zach LaVine and Devin Booker — going head-to-head in a tournament that will stretch out for eight days. All of it will be televised on some platform.
Here are the details.
Broadcast Schedule (all times Eastern)
FIRST ROUND: Friday, April 3 on ESPN:
• 7-7:30 p.m.: NBA 2K Players Tournament Preview Show
• 7:30-8:30 p.m. ET: Derrick Jones Jr. (16) vs. Kevin Durant (1) On ESPN2:
• 8:30-11:30 p.m.: Other matchups
Sunday, April 5 on ESPN2:
• 12-4 p.m.: Other first-round matchups
QUARTERFINALS
Tuesday, April 7 on ESPN2:
• 7-11 p.m.
SEMIFINALS & FINALS
Saturday, April 11 on ESPN:
• Timing to be announced.
.@NBA2K's "Players-Only" tournament will air starting this Friday on @ESPN. Here are the brackets – who do you think is gonna take it all? pic.twitter.com/51ltOfjeqR
The first two rounds are single elimination, then the semifinals and finals are a best-of-three.
Each player had to submit eight teams he can choose to play with during the tournament.
However, and this is a big part of the strategy, each player can only use each team once. Meaning players may not want to burn using the powerhouse teams — the Lakers, Bucks, etc. — in the early rounds of the tournament. If both players try to choose the same team, the away team gets the first choice.
