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Ramona ShelburneFeb 12, 2026, 10:53 AM<\/p>\n
Close<\/a>Senior writer for ESPN.comSpent seven years at the Los Angeles Daily News<\/p>\n Multiple Authors<\/p>\n Candace Parker and Elena Delle Donne, both former WNBA MVPs and champions, headline the finalists for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2026 announced Wednesday.<\/p>\n Parker is the only player in WNBA history to win championships with three franchises (the Los Angeles Sparks<\/a>, Chicago Sky<\/a> and Las Vegas Aces<\/a>). One of the first true positionless basketball players, Parker was a phenom at every level — winning the dunk contest at the McDonald’s All American Game in high school, two national championships at Tennessee<\/a>, two Olympic Gold medals and two WNBA MVP awards.<\/p>\n She’s still the only player in WNBA history to win Rookie of the Year and MVP in the same season (2008).<\/p>\n Delle Donne is also a two-time league MVP (2015 and 2019) who became the first WNBA player to shoot 50% from the field, 40% from 3 and 90% on free throws. She led the Washington Mystics<\/a> to their first championship in 2019, cementing her legacy as one of the greatest pure shooters the game has seen.<\/p>\n Two members of the LA Clippers<\/a>‘ “Lob City” era were also named as finalists. Six-time All-Star Blake Griffin turned around the fortunes of the beleaguered franchise with an electric, high-flying style, punctuated by his win in the 2011 slam dunk contest in which he jumped over a Kia automobile.<\/p>\n Griffin grew into a far more complete player over his 14 seasons in the league, finishing his career with more than 14,000 points and 3,000 assists.<\/p>\n Doc Rivers, who coached many of those Lob City teams, was also selected as a finalist. Rivers, whose 1,114 (and counting) career coaching wins rank eighth on the all-time list, led the Boston Celtics<\/a> to an NBA championship in 2008. He is the current coach of the Milwaukee Bucks<\/a>.<\/p>\n A’mare Stoudemire is a finalist again. Stoudemire averaged 18.9 points and 7.8 rebounds in 846 career games over 14 seasons for Phoenix<\/a>, New York<\/a>, Dallas<\/a> and Miami<\/a>, the first eight of which were for the Suns.<\/p>\n The 6-foot-10 forward\/center was a six-time All-Star and an All-NBA first-team selection in 2006-07, forming one-half of a formidable pick-and-roll duo in Phoenix with point guard Steve Nash.<\/p>\n Stoudemire was also named the 2003 NBA Rookie of the Year after entering the league directly from high school.<\/p>\n Other player finalists include Kevin Johnson, Buck Williams and Marques Johnson. Official Joey Crawford is a finalist, as is Tal Brody, who helped shape Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball, and Mike D’Antoni, in the contributor category.<\/p>\n Other coaches besides Rivers include Gonzaga<\/a>‘s Mark Few, Houston<\/a>‘s Kelvin Sampson and Jerry Welsh, who coached Potsdam in upstate New York to NCAA Division III titles in 1981 and 1986. They’re joined by Gary McKnight and Dick Motta.<\/p>\n The 1996 gold medal-winning U.S. women’s national team will also be considered for induction, as will Jennifer Azzi, who was a member of that Atlanta Games team and is a finalist again as an individual. Accompanying her as a women’s committee finalist is Chamique Holdsclaw.<\/p>\n Molly Bolin-Kazmerm, the first player signed by the Women’s Professional Basketball League, is a returning finalist nominated by the women’s veterans committee.<\/p>\n The final Class of 2026 will be announced during the NCAA Final Four weekend in April, with the formal enshrinement ceremonies scheduled for August in Springfield, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n The Associated Press contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ramona ShelburneFeb 12, 2026, 10:53 AM CloseSenior writer for ESPN.comSpent seven years at the Los Angeles Daily News…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-474216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}