The 2026 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Class Includes Mike D'Antoni, Doc Rivers, and Amare Stoudemire
The 2026 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame class includes eight individual inductees, four of whom have NBA ties: Joey Crawford, Mike D'Antoni, Doc Rivers, and Amare Stoudemire. The other four individual inductees are men's college basketball coach Mark Few, and women's players Elena Delle Donne, Chamique Holdsclaw, and Candace Parker. The 1996 United States Women's National Team that won the Olympic gold medal is also being inducted; six members of that team--Teresa Edwards, Lisa Leslie, Rebecca Lobo, Katrina McClain, Dawn Staley, and Sheryl Swoopes--have already been inducted individually.
This website focuses primarily on the NBA, so this article will focus on the Hall of Fame inductees who have NBA connections.
Joey Crawford served as an NBA referee from 1977-2016, officiating in 2561 regular-season games, a record 374 playoff games, and 50 NBA Finals games. In 2005, he became the sixth referee to officiate in at least 2000 games, joining Mendy Rudolph, Jake O'Donnell, Dick Bavetta, Earl Strom, and Tommy Nunez. O'Donnell's career ended in disgrace after he openly had a vendetta against Clyde Drexler--culminating in ejecting Drexler from a 1995 playoff game for no good reason--and Crawford nearly met a similar fate, being suspended by Commissioner David Stern in 2007 after ejecting Tim Duncan without just cause. After the suspension, Crawford showed contrition, sought help, and was reinstated by Stern without missing any regular season games--but 2007 was the only year between 1986 and 2015 that Crawford did not officiate a game in the NBA Finals. The NBA was better off when it had a Commissioner who made decisions based on the best interest of the game, and not based on trying to be popular with media commentators (many of whom criticized Stern for suspending Crawford, and for other actions that they deemed to be too harsh). Crawford had a quick "hook" in terms of technical fouls/ejections, but in general he was respected as an excellent referee who was not swayed by the crowd; referees who are impacted by crowds are one reason that home court advantage exists, so players and coaches prefer referees like Crawford who do not pay attention to crowd reactions.
Mike D'Antoni won the NBA Coach of the Year award in 2005 with Phoenix and in 2017 with Houston. He ranks 22nd all-time in NBA regular season coaching wins (672), 32nd in regular season winning percentage (.560, minimum 400 regular season games), and 24th in NBA playoff coaching wins (54). He did not reach the NBA Finals in 16 seasons as a head coach, and he only reached the Conference Finals twice (2006 with Phoenix, 2018 with Houston). D'Antoni's teams posted a .491 playoff winning percentage.
I enjoyed interviewing D'Antoni in 2007 and having a conversation about that year's MVP race featuring Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki, and Kobe Bryant. D'Antoni unsurprisingly advocated for his player, Nash, but he acknowledged that the Suns would win at a high level if they had Bryant instead of Nash; that seems obvious in retrospect, but many media "experts" at that time questioned if then three-time NBA champion Bryant could lead a team as well as Nash, who won two regular season MVPs without reaching the NBA Finals during his career. Bryant finally won the regular season MVP in 2008, and he led the Lakers to two more NBA titles (2009, 2010).
D'Antoni received praise for his "Seven Seconds or Less" offense in Phoenix, as his Suns pushed the ball up the floor and shot as quickly as possible. He was lauded for his innovative offenses, but those offenses tended to sputter when it mattered most in the playoffs, and seemed better suited to pumping up individual players' statistics as opposed to generating championship level team success, as I noted in 2020 after D'Antoni's Rockets fizzled against the Lakers in the second round:
One might argue that D'Antoni is a master at developing players, but if that were the main story here then the players he "developed" would presumably retain what they had learned even after they no longer played for D'Antoni. No, the pattern above suggests that D'Antoni installs an offensive system that generates impressive individual statistics for his guards. It must be noted that D'Antoni has yet to reach the NBA Finals. In contrast, Phil Jackson's Triangle Offense did not elevate Michael Jordan's statistics but rather improved the team's offensive efficiency, resulting in six championships. Jackson's Triangle Offense had the same effect for the L.A. Lakers--the team improved (after failing to reach the Finals under previous coaches), as opposed to the individual players running amok outside of the context of playing championship level basketball...
Under D'Antoni, average point guards put up All-Star numbers, and All-Star point guards get vaulted into the MVP conversation. Steve Nash is a more durable Mark Price--and that is no slight: Price was a great player, but no one gave him serious MVP consideration during his career, and no one gave Nash serious MVP consideration before or after the time he played for D'Antoni.
Dave Berri and other "stat gurus" expected D'Antoni to turn around the flailing New York Knicks, but I correctly noted that the Knicks were unlikely to improve under D'Antoni unless D'Antoni emphasized defense for the first time in his career. The Knicks posted a 121-167 regular season record under D'Antoni, making the playoffs once in four years--and they got swept 4-0 in that lone postseason appearance. D'Antoni coached the L.A. Lakers for two seasons, and then spent four seasons coaching the Houston Rockets, resulting in James Harden posting gaudy regular season statistics before flaming out each year in the playoffs, which has been Harden's pattern throughout his career.
Doc Rivers is a favorite target for casual fans on social media and for media members who don't understand basketball, but his coaching resume is impressive: 1192 regular season wins (sixth most all-time), 114 playoff coaching wins (fourth most all-time), and two Eastern Conference titles with the Boston Celtics (2008, 2010). He led the Celtics to the 2008 NBA title. Rivers' teams have reached the playoffs 22 times in his 27 coaching seasons. In 2022, Rivers was selected as one of the 15 greatest coaches in NBA history. Rivers' critics point out that he is the only coach in NBA history whose teams have blown multiple 3-1 playoff series leads, but they leave out the fact that Rivers' teams were the underdogs in two of those three series. Those who assert that Rivers can only be successful with stacked team forget or ignore that Rivers won the 2000 NBA Coach of the Year award after leading the "heart and hustle" Orlando Magic to a 41-41 record with Darrell Armstrong, a young Ben Wallace, Bo Outlaw, John Amaechi, and Tariq Abdul-Wahad as the five primary starters.
Amare Stoudemire was the high-flying, rim-running center for D'Antoni's Phoenix Suns. Stoudemire won the 2003 NBA Rookie of the Year award, and averaged 21.4 ppg and 8.9 rpg while shooting .544 from the field in 516 regular season games with the Suns. As a Sun, Stoudemire earned four All-NBA Team selections (including First Team honors in 2007) and made the All-Star team five times. Stoudemire earned his fifth All-NBA Team selection and made his sixth All-Star team in 2011 while playing for D'Antoni in New York. Injuries limited his availability and productivity--he did not play in more than 65 games in a season or average more than 18 ppg after the age of 29--but during his prime years he was a force in the paint on offense.
Labels: Amare Stoudemire, Basketball Hall of Fame, Doc Rivers, Joey Crawford, Mike D'Antoni, Phoenix Suns
posted by David Friedman @ 3:37 PM
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