Nine more people will be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame this year.
NBA players Paul Pierce, Chris Bosh, Chris Webber, Ben Wallace, coaches Rick Adelman, Jay Wright and Bill Russell and WNBA players Yolanda Griffith and Lauren Jackson have been officially named as the class of 2021 inductees.
Pierce, 43, follows fellow Celtics Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett from the 2008 championship team to enter the Hall of Fame. Pierce spent 15 of his 19 seasons in Boston, where he was a 10-time NBA All-Star and 2008 NBA Finals MVP. He is a four-time All-NBA selection and is 16th all time with 26,397 career points.
Bosh, who was forced into an early retirement in 2016 due to a blood clot issue, joins Pierce after a 13-year career with the Toronto Raptors and Miami Heat in which he was an 11-time All-Star and two-time champion with the Heat.
Webber, 48, finally gets the Hall of Fame nod after retiring from a 17-year career in 2008. The former Sacramento Kings star was a five-time All-Star and five-time All-NBA player. He won the Rookie of the Year in 1993-94 while with the Golden State Warriors.
Webber also had an impressive collegiate career at the University of Michigan, where he was the star of the famous “Fab Five” team that made back-to-back national championship appearances, but failed to win each time.
Wallace, 46, also gets the nod after retiring from a 16-year career that spanned with multiple teams, most notably the Detroit Pistons — where he was a four-time All-Star and four-time Defensive Player of the Year. Wallace won an NBA title with the Pistons in 2004.
Russell, 87, is a Hall of Famer for his accomplishments as a player, but he is now being recognized for his career as a coach. He was a player-coach for the Celtics from 1966-69, which made him the first Black coach in North American professional sports and also the first to win a championship.
Russell also coached the SuperSonics from 1973-77 and Sacramento Kings from 1987-88.
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