Candace Parker, Elena Delle Donne, Chamique Holdsclaw and the 1996 U.S. Olympic women’s basketball team are among the latest inductees to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
The Hall announced the selections Friday during halftime of the UConn–South Carolina game at the women’s Final Four. Parker, Holdsclaw and members of the 1996 Olympic squad were in attendance for the reveal. Also named to this year’s class were Amar’e Stoudemire and coach Mike D’Antoni, longtime NBA referee Joey Crawford, coach Doc Rivers and Gonzaga’s Mark Few.
Parker’s resume spans college, international and professional success. She won two NCAA titles at Tennessee under Hall of Famer Pat Summitt, earned two Olympic gold medals, captured two WNBA MVP awards and is the only player in WNBA history to be named MVP and Rookie of the Year in the same season. Parker has also won three WNBA championships with three different franchises — Los Angeles, Chicago and Las Vegas.
Delle Donne broke new ground in the WNBA with two MVP seasons (2015, 2019) and led the Washington Mystics to the franchise’s lone championship. She also became the first player in league history to post a 50/40/90 season, shooting better than 50% from the field, 40% from three and 90% from the free-throw line.
Holdsclaw was a central figure on Tennessee teams that captured three straight national championships from 1996–98, including an undefeated 39–0 season in 1998, and later enjoyed an 11-season WNBA career.
Amar’e Stoudemire is the lone NBA player in this class. He was the 2003 NBA Rookie of the Year, a six-time All-Star and spent his first eight seasons with the Phoenix Suns, where he formed a high-scoring partnership with coach Mike D’Antoni.
Doc Rivers, with 1,192 career victories, ranks among the game’s winningest coaches and led the Boston Celtics to the 2008 NBA title; he later coached the Los Angeles Clippers during the “Lob City” era. Mark Few has compiled more than 770 wins at Gonzaga and set an NCAA Division I men’s coaching mark by winning 81 games in his first three seasons at the school. Joey Crawford finished a 39-year officiating career having worked 2,561 regular-season games and 50 NBA Finals contests before retiring in 2016.
The Hall of Fame enshrinement ceremony is scheduled for August in Springfield, Massachusetts.