With the NBA season on indefinite hold, we'll take the month of April to celebrate the life and career of Kobe Bryant, who passed away earlier this year. Kobe Month continues with a look at the 2020 Hall of Fame inductee list, which includes Bryant, and how it stacks up against the great Hall classes of the past.
Editor's note: As is the case with our Hall of Fame eligible player ranking, this list only utilizes a player's NBA and/or ABA contributions, while Hall of Fame induction also takes into account collegiate and international careers. Their current ranking on our list of all-time greatest players is in parentheses.
16) 1996: George Gervin (#42), Gail Goodrich (#134), David Thompson (#110), George Yardley (#108)
While Chris Webber currently tops our ranking of greatest eligible players not yet inducted, Gervin will likely forever sit atop the list of greatest players to wait five years or more for induction. The other three stars in his class would be high on that list as well. Despite winning four scoring titles and finishing in the top five in MVP voting four times, Gervin wasn't inducted until 1996 even though he was eligible starting in 1991. Perhaps it was disrespect to his ABA past, to his nondescript NCAA days, or to his lack of NBA Finals appearances. When he finally made it into the Hall, he was joined by three other great players who had been waiting a while in Goodrich (in his 12th year of eligibility), Thompson (seventh year), and Yardley (31st year).
15) 1979: Wilt Chamberlain (#4)
14) 1975: Bill Russell (#2)
Upon their respective retirements in 1969 and 1973, Russell and Chamberlain had easily separated themselves as the two greatest players of all time, and the Hall of Fame cleared the deck for them to be inducted essentially alone (both classes also included some coaches and early contributors). Their careers were so strong that their solo inductions were enough to land on this list and in both cases it caused a long-time star teammate to have to wait for their own call to the Hall. For Russell it was Sam Jones, who also retired after the Celtics' 1969 championship but didn't get enshrined in Springfield until 1984. For Chamberlain, it was Hal Greer, who was his teammate on the '66-'67 champion 76ers and wasn't inducted until 1982.
13) 1990: Dave Bing (#92), Elvin Hayes (#38), Neil Johnston (#81), Earl Monroe (#135)
This is one of several classes on this list where no one player stands out as an all-time legend but there's enough great players to lift it as a whole to inclusion. In fact, Hayes was the only player in this class to be enshrined in his first year of eligibility, having retired from the Rockets in 1984. Bing and Monroe were both getting in after a few years of waiting, while for Johnston, a three-time scoring champion and star of the '55-'56 champion Warriors, it was decades, as he was first eligible in 1965. This was the final Hall of Fame class not to include at least one coach, contributor, female player, or international player.
12) 2006: Charles Barkley (#22), Joe Dumars (#100), Dominique Wilkins (#45)
An MVP, a Finals MVP, and arguably the greatest dunker of all time walk into a Hall of Fame... (they were also joined by legendary women's college coach Geno Aueriemma and legendary Italian coach Sandro Gamba).
11) 1993: Walt Bellamy (#153), Julius Erving (#16), Dan Issel (#105), Dick McGuire (#268), Calvin Murphy (#200), Bill Walton (#98)
One of the largest classes in Hall history, with Erving and Walton getting inducted in their first year of eligibility. McGuire and Bellamy were Veterans Committee picks, both had starred in the early days of the league. McGuire was actually inducted one year after his brother, Al, who was the lesser player but the greater coach. Murphy is arguably the worst modern era player in the Hall and his induction had a lot to do with his popularity amongst the media. Issel was also a controversial pick, joining Erving as the first ABA stars to be inducted but getting in three years ahead of the superior resume of George Gervin. There was a mix of quantity and quality here, but it swayed more towards quantity.
10) 1987: Rick Barry (#33), Walt Frazier (#48), Pete Maravich (#103), Bobby Wanzer (#292)
Any class that includes three players that were part of the NBA 50 Greatest Players in 1996 is sure to make it onto this list. Though he still ranks in the top 30 all-time according to our metrics, Barry was somehow not a first ballot Hall of Famer, as his eligibility started in 1986. Perhaps it was owing to his noted surliness, but it's arguably even more shocking that the ever popular Frazier had to wait through two years of eligibility before finally getting in. Though Maravich's pro career was ultimately a disappointment, he had done more than enough in his prep career to still be inducted, while Wanzer and Houbregs were early stars for the Pistons and Royals.
9) 1995: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (#3), Vern Mikkelsen (#130)
Abdul-Jabbar on his own would have been enough to make it onto this list (see the entries for Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain above for proof) but Mikkelsen was also an early star of the league with the Minneapolis Lakers. 1995 was also notable for the induction of two of the greatest women's players of all time: Cheryl Miller, who was still only 31 years old at the time and would soon continue her career in the WNBA, and her 1984 Olympics teammate, Anne Donovan.
8) 2008: Adrian Dantley (#77), Patrick Ewing (#26), Hakeem Olajuwon (#15)
Rivals throughout the late '80s and '90s, culminating in their 1994 NBA Finals face-off, Ewing and Olajuwon were both considered first ballot shoo-ins when they retired in 2002. Two of the greatest centers of all-time were also joined by Dantley, who surprisingly had to wait over a decade to be enshrined, despite being a six-time All-Star, two-time scoring champ, and one of the great offensive forces in league history. Joining Ewing in the Hall was his legendary coach on those '93-'94 Knicks, Pat Riley.
7) 1971: Bob Cousy (#19), Bob Pettit (#14)
Their careers were linked in many ways, not just for their sharing of the same first name. Cousy and Pettit were two of the earliest superstars of the NBA, won the first two MVPs ever awarded (in 1956 and 1957) and faced off in the 1957, 1958, 1960, and 1961 NBA Finals. They then became the first players to get inducted on their first ballot, though for Cousy it was in a circuitous way. He initially retired in 1963 and would have been eligible in 1969 but opted to make a brief comeback that year as a player-coach for the Cincinnati Royals. The Hall of Fame decided to give him a waiver for that season (most people, especially Cousy, would prefer to have it wiped from history) and declare him eligible in 1971. Therefore, he became the first and likely only player to be inducted only one year after his official retirement.
6) 2018: Ray Allen (#78), Maurice Cheeks (#129), Grant Hill (#72), Jason Kidd (#35), Steve Nash (#34), Charlie Scott (#201)
The floodgates really opened in 2018, as the five-year waiting period was shortened to three, leading to the biggest player class in Hall history. This was the transitional year for that rule, meaning that Nash, Allen, Kidd, and Hill were all getting inducted in their first year of eligibility, even though they hadn't all retired in the same season. Between Nash and Kidd you already had two of the greatest point guards of all time, plus they also added in the Philly floor guard legend Cheeks, who had been waiting since 1999 to make it in.
5) 2016: Zelmo Beaty (#150), Allen Iverson (#27), Yao Ming (#173), Shaquille O'Neal (#10)
While Yao's influence on the game internationally is undeniable, his NBA career on its own was probably not Hall worthy and doesn't help much in this list. It was certainly solid though, with five appearances on the All-NBA team. Meanwhile, two of his induction mates, O'Neal and Iverson, are easily amongst the 40 greatest players of all time, while Beaty was also a great player in his own right at the NBA and ABA levels. While Shaq and Yao were both inducted in their first year of eligibility, Iverson had to wait one year which is ridiculous.
4) 1980: Jerry Lucas (#64), Oscar Robertson (#13), Jerry West (#12)
The careers of Robertson and West are inexorably linked. They were simultaneous stars in college for Cincinnati and West Virginia, respectively, teammates on the 1960 Olympics team, battled it out for the '60-'61 Rookie of the Year award (Robertson won), then were longtime NBA rivals as the league's two premier point guards of the '60s. Both stars then retired in 1974 after finally winning a title late in their career, and were inducted together as friends in 1980. At the time of their Hall ceremony, they were arguably the third and fourth greatest players in basketball history, behind only Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain. Lucas was a longtime (sometimes antagonistic) teammate with Robertson on the Royals (he was also on that legendary 1960 Olympics team) before also garnering a title as a mercenary in the '70s for the Knicks. This was the standard bearer for greatest Hall class for a long time until the huge stars of the '80s and '90s started retiring.
3) 2010: Dennis Johnson (#57), Gus Johnson (#112), Karl Malone (#11), Scottie Pippen (#28)
Rivals in the 1997 and 1998 NBA Finals but also teammates on the 1992 U.S. Olympic Dream Team (which was also inducted this year collectively, along with the 1960 team that included Jerry West and Oscar Robertson), Malone and Pippen hit the Hall together in 2010 after both retiring in 2004. Just their presence alone would have made this class an all-timer, but they were boosted by the inclusion of Dennis Johnson, the 1979 Finals MVP and longtime Celtics defensive stopper. For 14 years, he had been the quintessential example of a Hall snub and unfortunately his finally getting inducted was posthumous, as he passed away in 2007.
2) 2009: Michael Jordan (#1), David Robinson (#24), John Stockton (#32)
It took only 11 years for this class to be topped but it seemed inconceivable at the time that it would ever be bested. You had the unquestioned greatest player of all time in Jordan, who infamously gave a passionate, weirdly bitter acceptance speech. Then you also had the all-time assists leader in Stockton, and a top 25 all-time player in Robinson, who won the '94-'95 MVP trophy. Stockton and Robinson had both retired in 2003 on the same respective team with which they had spent their entire careers, while Jordan could have been eligible in 2004 but had it deferred due to his brief comeback with the Wizards. Stockton's longtime Jazz coach Jerry Sloan was also inducted this year.
1) 2020: Kobe Bryant (#7), Tim Duncan (#8), Kevin Garnett (#20)
There's not much left to say about this class except that it's unsurprising that it goes down as the all-time greatest. The trio has four league MVPs, five Finals MVPs, and 11 championship rings between them.