(670 The Score) Former Bulls forward Toni Kukoc has been selected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Kukoc will be inducted in the class of 2021 by the Hall of Fame’s international committee. Kukoc played seven of his 13 NBA seasons for the Bulls (1993-2000) and was a key part of championship teams in 1996, 1997 and 1998. He was also the Sixth Man of the Year in 1995-’96.
“When Toni joined the Bulls in 1993, he had already established himself as one of the best players ever to come out of Europe,” Bulls chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said in a statement. “While we knew what kind of player he was, we were not sure how he would adapt to the NBA. He quickly proved that his game was suited to play with the best players in the world. He was a star player on his championship teams in Europe, and one of the best sixth men in the NBA on our second three-peat championship teams in Chicago. There are not many players in the history of the game who have excelled at the level that Toni has. Congratulations on this very well-deserved honor.”
Kukoc had a storied career in Europe before coming to the NBA, and he won two silver medals in the Summer Olympics as well – one in 1988 for Yugoslavia and one in 1992 with Croatia. He’s a five-time Euroscar European Player of the Year (1990, 1991, 1994, 1996, 1998) – awarded to the best male European basketball player. In 1991, Kukoc was named one of FIBA’s 50 greatest players in 1991.