{"id":465893,"date":"2026-02-13T08:31:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T08:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/465893\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T08:31:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T08:31:10","slug":"naismith-hall-of-fame-class-of-2026-finalists-blake-griffin-doc-rivers-candace-parker-among-21-candidates-left","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/465893\/","title":{"rendered":"Naismith Hall of Fame Class of 2026 finalists: Blake Griffin, Doc Rivers, Candace Parker among 21 candidates left"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame&#8217;s Class of 2026 is coming into focus, <a data-i13n=\"cpos:1;pos:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hoophall.com\/news\/naismith-basketball-hall-of-fame-announces-finalists-for-class-of-2026-election\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:with a list of 21 finalists announced Wednesday;cpos:1;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">with a list of 21 finalists announced Wednesday<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a diverse group of recent NBA and WNBA stars, top coaches, older names and other contributors. The headliners include Blake Griffin, Candace Parker, Elena Delle Donne, Mike D&#8217;Antoni and Kelvin Sampson, <a data-i13n=\"cpos:2;pos:1\" href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/nba\/article\/blake-griffin-amare-stoudemire-doc-rivers-and-candace-parker-among-hall-of-fames-eligible-candidates-for-class-of-2026-235530277.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:all of whom are first-time nominees;cpos:2;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">all of whom are first-time nominees<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Doc Rivers and Amar&#8217;e Stoudemire are among the bigger names getting a second look for induction. The lone referee nominated is the long-controversial Joey Crawford, while the team in the running is the 1996 U.S. women&#8217;s national team, whose Olympic dominance helped launch the WNBA the following year.<\/p>\n<p>One of those 1996 players, Jennifer Azzi, is also up for individual induction.<\/p>\n<p>The finalists will have their fate decided by the Hall&#8217;s 24-member Honors Committee. The new class will be announced on April 4 during Final Four weekend.<\/p>\n<p>Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2026 finalistsPlayers<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>CoachesRefereesTeams<\/p>\n<p>1996 United States Women\u2019s National Team*<\/p>\n<p>* denotes a first-time nominee<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame&#8217;s Class of 2026 is coming into focus, with a list of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[216852,21403,3028,8261,18521,178142,216851,216849,97680,216850,180442,99,434],"class_list":{"0":"post-465893","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-amar39e-stoudemire","9":"tag-blake-griffin","10":"tag-candace-parker","11":"tag-doc-rivers","12":"tag-elena-delle-donne","13":"tag-jennifer-azzi","14":"tag-joey-crawford","15":"tag-kelvin-sampson","16":"tag-michael-reaves","17":"tag-mike-d39antoni","18":"tag-naismith-hall-of-fame","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}