By Rob Peterson, Jenna West and Rebecca Tauber
Carmelo Anthony, Dwight Howard, Sue Bird, Maya Moore and Sylvia Fowles capped off their illustrious careers by being named to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as part of the 2025 class announced at the men’s Final Four in San Antonio on Saturday.
“It’s such a big honor. I’m just so happy, man, this is crazy. I made it to heaven,” Howard said as he teared up in an interview on ESPN after the announcement.
The 2025 class also includes coach Billy Donovan, who won two national championships at Florida and is the current longtime coach of the Chicago Bulls; longtime NBA referee Danny Crawford, who officiated more than 2,000 NBA games over 32 seasons, including 30 finals games; and Miami Heat owner Micky Arison, who has seen his franchise win three titles (2006, 2012, 2013) and seven Eastern Conference championships, including four consecutive from 2011 to 2014. The 2008 “Redeem Team” that took gold at the Beijing Olympics will also be inducted.
Jeff Twiss, the Boston Celtics’ longtime public relations executive, received the John Bunn Award, the Hall’s single-highest award short of enshrinement in the Hall itself. He’s been with the franchise for more than 40 years and is regarded as one of the great professionals on his side of the player-media divide.
Melo doesn’t need an NBA title to enter the Hall
There had been recent online scuttlebutt regarding Anthony’s Hall of Fame credentials because he had never won an NBA title. (He never appeared in an NBA Finals, let alone won a ring.)
But let’s be real here: Anthony entering the Hall of Fame on his first try shouldn’t surprise anyone who paid attention. In 2003, he was named the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player before leading Syracuse to its only men’s NCAA title. Selected third in the legendary 2003 NBA Draft, Anthony used one of the silkiest shooting strokes to accumulate 28,289 points, 10th on the NBA career scoring list. He’s also a four-time Olympic medalist in men’s basketball, three of them gold in 2008, 2012 and 2016.
The list of players who have scored 28,000-plus points and won an NCAA title, an NBA scoring title (28.7 points per game in 2013) and three Olympic gold medals is a party of one: Anthony.
In a “ringz” culture, it would be easy to cite the lack of an NBA championship (“I’m at peace,” Anthony told Sports Illustrated in 2023) on Anthony’s 19-year career résumé or a major individual award (one top-three MVP finish in 2013) as a reason to downplay his Hall credentials. Still, the 10-time All-Star and six-time All-NBA player built a storied career few, if any, can match.
Howard built his HOF résumé early in his career
Like Anthony, there have been questions about Howard’s Hall of Fame worthiness as people point to his late-career journey. He played for six teams in seven seasons (including the Los Angeles Lakers twice, winning a title with them in the 2020 bubble) and put up pedestrian numbers (11.1 points per game, 10.0 rebounds and 1.2 blocks in 433 games). He was even waived twice, once by Brooklyn in 2018 and once by Memphis in 2019, without playing a game for either franchise.
But Howard built his résumé for Springfield, Mass., early in his career. The Orlando Magic tabbed Howard with the No. 1 pick in 2004, and he made an immediate impact for the franchise. He played in 567 of 574 games in his first seven seasons, led the Magic to the 2009 NBA Finals and won Defensive Player of the Year in three consecutive seasons from 2009 to 2011. Starting with the 2007-08 season, he led the NBA in rebounds five of six seasons, was named First Team All-NBA for five straight seasons and was top-five in MVP voting for four consecutive seasons.
Howard also led the NBA in blocks in 2009 and 2010. His three DPOY awards place him second behind Dikembe Mutombo, Ben Wallace and Rudy Gobert, who each have four. Wallace and Mutombo are in the Hall of Fame; Gobert is still in the NBA. Howard’s 14,627 rebounds put him 10th on the NBA’s career list, and his 2,228 blocks place him 13th all time.
Add in eight All-Star selections, eight All-NBA teams and a 2008 Olympic gold medal during his 18-year career, it’s easy to see why Howard is headed for the Hall. —
Bird enters Naismith as assists leader
Bird enters the Hall after retiring from a 21-year career with the Seattle Storm, during which she won four WNBA titles. From 2002 until her retirement in 2022, Bird tallied a league-leading 3,234 assists and appeared in 580 games.
Before the Storm selected her with the first pick of the 2002 draft, Bird was a star at UConn, guiding the Huskies to two NCAA titles. She also boasts Olympic gold medals from five consecutive Summer Games.
“In the same moment that I’m thinking about the next generation, inspiring them, I’m thinking about those that came before and inspired me,” Bird said in an ESPN interview after the announcement.
Moore built a legacy on and off the court
Moore won four WNBA championships with the Minnesota Lynx, who drafted her with the No. 1 pick in 2011. She was the league’s 2014 Most Valuable Player and won the WNBA Finals MVP in 2013. Moore also won two Olympic gold medals for the U.S.
“It’s just such a humbling thing, because it really makes you feel the bigness of the family of basketball,” Moore said on ESPN.
Moore was a member of UConn’s 90-game winning streak, going 150-4 with the Huskies during her college career.
In 2019, Moore paused her career to advocate for criminal justice reform, helping free her now-husband, Jonathan Irons, from prison due to a wrongful conviction. Moore was also a leader in the Lynx’s protests against police brutality in 2016, helping set the stage for growing political activism across the WNBA in future years.
Fowles stood out with dominant defense, double-doubles
Fowles was a two-time champion with the Lynx and a two-time WNBA Finals MVP. She won four Olympic gold medals for the U.S. and is an eight-time All-Star over her 15 seasons in the league. She was the league’s Defensive Player of the Year four times and led the WNBA in blocks twice.
Fowles is second in WNBA career rebounds at 4,006. In college, she led LSU to four Final Four appearances before being drafted second in 2008 by the Chicago Sky.
In 2018, Fowles became the first player on the Lynx to achieve a 20-point, 20-rebound stat line, with 23 points and 20 rebounds in a game against the Dallas Wings.
“I don’t think neither one of us go into this thinking that we’re gonna be Hall of Famers,” Fowles said on ESPN. “You just do your job, and you go out there and have fun and you enjoy the company, and then when it’s all said and done, the job is complete. And here we are.”
Enshrining ‘The Redeem Team’
Between the Dream Team’s debut in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics through the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, USA Basketball’s men’s team was a dominant force in international basketball, winning three Olympic gold medals and the 1994 FIBA World Championship. That dominance ended in 2002 with a sixth-place finish at the FIBA World Championships, the first time NBA professionals lost in an international competition. (NBA players were locked out in 1998, and weren’t allowed to participate in the FIBA World Championships that year.)
At the 2004 Athens games, the men’s team was filled with talent — Tim Duncan, Allen Iverson, LeBron James, Anthony and Dwyane Wade — and finished with a bronze medal.
With that third-place finish, USA Basketball was determined to get back to gold medal status and began to require multi-year commitments from players to build a better organizational culture. With James, Anthony and Wade committing through the 2006 FIBA World Championships and the 2008 Beijing Olympics, that trio saw the U.S. finish third in 2006.
In 2008, with those three cornerstones, Team USA added Chris Bosh and, most importantly, Kobe Bryant in their quest to recapture Olympic gold. Bryant provided a razor-sharp competitive edge to a group of young players who needed it. The team, also featuring future Hall of Famers Jason Kidd and Howard, won its five pool play games by an average of 32.2 points. In the medal rounds, the Americans crushed Australia by 30 and Argentina by 20 in the semifinals before defeating Spain 118-107 in what is considered by some as one of the greatest basketball games ever played.
The Redeem Team is the third U.S. men’s Olympic team enshrined in Springfield, with the 1960 gold medal team featuring Oscar Robertson and Jerry West, and the Dream Team.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Orlando Magic, New York Knicks, Chicago Bulls, Denver Nuggets, Minnesota Lynx, Seattle Storm, NBA, Men's College Basketball, WNBA
2025 The Athletic Media Company
