Fans waved a German flag and chanted Dirk Nowitzki’s name when he walked the red carpet into Symphony Hall on Saturday night for the Basketball Hall of Fame enshrinement ceremony. In his acceptance speech, the former Dallas big man told his parents, “Danke.”
Tony Parker’s fans whooped it up when he took the stage to lead off the proceedings. “There are a lot of French people in town. Sorry,” the San Antonio Spurs point guard said.
Spain was well-represented, too, with Pau Gasol shouting out his national team – “mi familia” – before joining what may be the greatest international class of inductees in the Springfield shrine’s history.
“I want to give a special mention to those first Europeans, who came here, across the ocean, who took a chance,” said Gasol, who fell in love with the sport when the 1992 Olympics were held in his hometown, Barcelona. “I was 12. It changed my life. The Dream Team showed us how basketball could be played.”
The Class of 2023 brought a distinctly international flavor to the basketball hall.
Nowitzki was the first European-born player to win the NBA MVP award, in 2007. Parker’s NBA Finals MVP award that year in was the first for a European. In 2002, Gasol was the NBA’s first international rookie of the year.
The Spurs were well represented, too, led by longtime coach and five-time NBA champion Gregg Popovich, and Parker, the point guard on four of those title-winning teams. Becky Hammon, who after a career in the WNBA joined the Spurs as the first woman to serve as a full-time NBA assistant coach, was also honored. Gasol played his last two healthy seasons with the Spurs.
“Coach Pop – it starts with him,” Parker said.
Read moreFrance’s Tony Parker enters the NBA Hall of Fame: ‘It was an impossible dream’
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