-
Tim BontempsESPN
Cleveland – San Antonio Spurs legend, four-time NBA champion Manu Ginobili, WNBA legend Swain Cash and Lindsey Wallen topped 11 finalists from North America and the Women’s Committee in the 2022 Naismith Hall of Fame category.
The other eight finalists are: former Los Angeles Laker Michael Cooper; former Milwaukee Bucks striker Marquis Johnson; Longtime NBA referee Hugh Evans. longtime college coach Bob Huggins; George Carle is a longtime NBA coach. college girls and WNBA coach Marianne Stanley; five-time All-Star Tim Hardaway; and Texas girls’ high school basketball coach Lita Andrews.
Ginobili – one of two people, along with Hall of Famer Bill Bradley, to win the Euroleague title, an NBA title and a gold medal – became one of the faces of the Spurs dynasty, along with Hall of Famer Tim Duncan and future Hall of Famer Tony Parker, taking home the medal Gold with Argentina in 2004, and bronze in 2008. His willingness to come off the bench for the majority of his career helped turn San Antonio’s second units into devastating weapons.
Cash won three NBA Championships, an NCAA Championship and two Olympic gold medals on her way to being named one of the 20 best WNBA players of all-time in 2016. She was also a two-time All-Star Player, and a four-time All-Star. Whalen, like Cash, was also a three-time WNBA champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist, making five All-Star teams and three WNBA first teams during her 15-year career with the Connecticut Sun.
Cooper was one of the defensive correspondents for the great Lakers teams in the ’80s, winning five NBA championships while receiving five Nods to the All-Defensive Team and the Major League Player of the Year award in 1987. Johnson made five All-Star teams with the Bucks, and won a national championship During his collegiate career at UCLA, while Evans was a referee in the NBA for 28 years, a streak in which he refereed 170 playoffs, 35 NBA Finals, and four NBA All-Star games.
A five-time All-Star Gold Medalist in the Olympics, Hardaway has decimated opponents throughout his 13 seasons in the NBA, primarily with the Golden State Warriors and the Miami Heat. Karl had the sixth most wins of any NBA coach, 1,175, and reached the NBA Finals with the Seattle Supersonics in 1996—one of six stops during his 27 seasons as an NBA coach. Huggins was the head coach in Cincinnati, Kansas, and West Virginia, one of six Division I coaches to win at least 900 games, reaching the fourth final in 1992 and 2010.
Stanley, the head coach for the WNBA’s Indiana Pfeiffer, won a college national championship at Old Dominion in 1985 and later coached at Penn, USC, Stanford and Cal. Andrews spent 51 years coaching high school girls’ teams in Texas, racking up 1,416 wins—more than any high school coach, male or female, ever.
The Class of 2022 will be officially revealed on April 2 in New Orleans during Final Four, and will be dedicated in the hall on September 10 in Springfield, Massachusetts.