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The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame announced today that Chicago Bulls Head Coach Billy Donovan has been selected as part of its Class of 2025.

“Billy’s enshrinement into the Basketball Hall of Fame is a testament to a lifetime spent giving everything to the game. It goes beyond his incredible success as a coach—it’s about the relationships he’s built, the players he’s mentored, and the countless lives he’s touched along the way. Billy has a remarkable basketball mind, but what truly sets him apart is who he is as a person. He leads with humility, heart, and a genuine care for everyone around him. Whether it’s his players, his staff, or our community, he always puts others first. We’re incredibly proud to have him as part of the Bulls family, and on behalf of the entire organization, I want to congratulate him on this well-earned and well-deserved honor,” said Chicago Bulls Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf.

In addition to Donovan, the Class of 2025 also includes Carmelo Anthony, Micky Arison, Sue Bird, Danny Crawford, Sylvia Fowles, Dwight Howard, Maya Moore and the 2008 U.S. Men’s Olympic Basketball Team. The Class of 2025 will be enshrined during festivities on Sept. 5-6 at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.

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Billy Donovan named to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame

Sam Smith

The Bulls championship dynasty of the 1990s was the shimmering gold NBA skyscraper of the game that was both marveled over and held in reverent awe for its towering impressiveness.&nbsp;

Less remembered are the workers who dig the foundations for the great edifices of our lives, though they are no less important because no one succeeds without powerful supports. Generally they have moved on to other needs before the tower is topped off. So they’re not there amidst the shouting and celebration, though certainly in spirt and contribution.

Like Doug Collins, the Bulls head coach from 1986 through 1989 when the Bulls and Michael Jordan began stacking the wins and the legacy that produced their NBA glories. In each of Doug’s first two seasons with the Bulls, the team increased its win totals by double digits, a pattern which would repeat for Collins’ teams as head coach of four NBA franchises.&nbsp;

Doug Collins wasn’t around when the Bulls won their six NBA titles. He also wasn’t there for the championship season after making four consecutive All-Star teams for the Philadelphia 76ers as the NBA’s best shooting guard. Doug didn’t get to wear the gold medal in the 1972 Olympics despite converting what experts have called perhaps the two most pressure free throws in the history of basketball. This all before the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame recognized Collins, the former No. 1 overall pick in the NBA draft who represented turnarounds like perhaps no one ever in sports, with the Curt Gowdy Award for broadcasting excellence.

And now the Basketball Hall of Fame has dutifully doubled down by including Collins for basketball immortality and enshrinement in the 2024 Class of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. Ceremonies will be Sunday in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Collins, 73, is entering in the category of contributor, which he perhaps ideally defines through his excellence on every level of basketball from the then amateur game as an Olympian, and then as an  NBA All-Star professional, a decorated head coach and an award winning broadcaster and ambassador for the game given his many clinics and speaking engagements.

“Doug Collins’ basketball accomplishments are special,” said Bulls Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf. “Doug did enough to be an Olympic basketball star. He was one of the NBA’s best guards and an All-Star four consecutive seasons before knee surgery prematurely ended his playing career. He then became a premier NBA coach who coached an All-Star game and a Basketball Hall of Fame Gowdy Award winner for his broadcasting and TV game analysis. But Doug, who is a dear friend, also holds a special place in the hearts of Chicago Bulls fans and the franchise as the coach who started the climb toward the great dynasty of the 1990s by leading the Bulls and Michael Jordan to the franchise’s first 50-win season and conference finals appearance in more than a decade and later returning as an adviser and mentor to Bulls staff and coaches in the Tex Winter tradition. The Bulls congratulate Doug and are proud to have been a part of his legendary Hall of Fame career.”

It’s a long and sometimes torturous road to basketball’s Mount Olympus, and Doug Collins has exhibited the heart and experienced the heartache along the way.

But it’s truly special for the two-iron thin summer corn stalk of a kid, a small town sheriff’s son from Downstate Benton. He didn’t even start on his high school team until he was a senior, accepted the first full basketball scholarship to modest Illinois State University, which only moved to Division I after he was enrolled.

Doug, however, never stopped reaching for the brass ring of ultimate sporting success. Still, sometimes no matter how talented you are, the fates can conspire against you.

Like when Collins in the tragic 1972 Olympics for USA Basketball with the USSR running out the clock for the win stole a cross court pass and dribbled full court for the winning basket. He was mauled and mugged before he could get there, laid out by a burly Russian bear of a man amidst also the Cold War drama of the day. Collins recovered with three seconds remaining to march to the free throw line and gently swish both free throws. For the win?

Everyone thought so but the officials, who famously stopped the game and repeated the final USSR possession multiple times until the Russians finally completed a full court pass for the “win.” The USA team never would accept its fraudulent silver medal.

Collins then became the No. 1 selection in the 1973 NBA draft to the losingest team in NBA history, the nine-win Philadelphia 76ers. Which actually began Collins’ unprecedented record as basketball’s premier turnaround expert.

In his first season, the 76ers almost tripled their win total. By Collins’ third, he led the team in most points scored. And by his fourth season, the 76ers were in the NBA Finals and Collins was the NBA’s leading shooting guard, the 1970s version of Klay Thompson though better with the ball, shooting more than 50 percent overall in an era when centers got the most and best scoring opportunities. But after four consecutive All-Star appearances, Collins suffered a serious knee injury in an era when it meant the end of your career. He played fewer than half the games two more seasons and retired in 1981. The 76ers won the NBA title with mostly the same group of players minus Collins in 1983.

In fate and near fortune, Collins barely missed being a Bull in 1973.

The NBA draft wasn’t as noteworthy then as teams worried about losing top prospects to the ABA. So the 76ers had agreed to trade their No. 1 pick in that 1973 draft to the Bulls for center Clifford Ray and guard Bobby Weiss. The Bulls were set to select Collins, but the trade was called off when Ray failed his physical and required knee surgery. The Bulls ended up drafting Iowa center Kevin Kunnert, who was quickly traded for Princeton’s John Hummer. That didn’t work, either.&nbsp;

Collins, just 35 meanwhile in 1986, was named Bulls head coach with the team coming off a 30-52 record in Jordan’s injury-marred second season. The Bulls then won 40 games, and then 50 games, and then in Collins’ third season as Bulls coach to the sixth game of the conference finals in 1989 before the team moved on to Phil Jackson as coach. Again, two years later the Bulls won their first of six championships.

But Collins remained a winner, and carried his epoch abilities and competitiveness it to wherever he went.

In perhaps the most remarkable accomplishment in NBA coaching, Collins took over three more previously losing teams after the Bulls in the Detroit Pistons, 76ers and Washington Wizards. Each of those teams like the Bulls improved by double digit wins in Collins’ first season, Detroit and Washington by 18 wins and the 76ers by 14. Collins was NBA Coach of the Month multiple times and coached the All-Star team when he was in Detroit and the team led the league in wins at mid season. The Pistons finished with 54 wins after having won 28 games just two years earlier.

When Michael Jordan began his famous basketball comeback with the Washington Wizards in 2001, he asked only for Collins to be his coach. The Wizards came within one game of doubling their previous season’s win total in Collins’ first season there. And in 2008 when the so called Olympic Redeem Team restored the gold medal to the US, LeBron James asked Collins, then broadcasting for NBA, to join the team’s gold medal winning celebration for his mentorship with the 2008 team and the inspiration from his 1972 efforts.

“I wished I could have been a Hall of Fame player,” Collins once told me, “but injuries cut short my career. I’ll admit sometimes I cared too much. But that has driven me to do the things I have done because I did care. The essence for me always has been a teacher, a coach. Coaching might be dismissed at times, but I am a product of coaches. The word coach to me is special, like doctor. It’s about respect and admiration and got me to where I am.” 

Which now appropriately is a member of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

Got a question for Sam?Submit your question to Sam at&nbsp;asksam@bulls.com

The contents of this page have not been reviewed or endorsed by the Chicago Bulls. All opinions expressed by Sam Smith are solely his own and do not reflect the opinions of the Chicago Bulls or its Basketball Operations staff, parent company, partners, or sponsors. His sources are not known to the Bulls and he has no special access to information beyond the access and privileges that go along with being an NBA accredited member of the media.

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Doug Collins named to Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2024

The Bulls have won the most NBA championships among teams from the first expansion era, which began with the Bulls first season in 1966-67. Only the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers have won more titles. The Golden State Warriors have won six titles like the Bulls with a title as the Philadelphia Warriors in 1956. The Warriors also claim a 1947 title in the BBA before the NBA was officially formed.

The Bulls can claim the player generally regarded as the best in NBA history, Michael Jordan, and the coach who has led teams to the most championships in NBA history, Phil Jackson. The Bulls 1995-96 championship team that dominated the NBA with a 72-10 record and then began the playoffs with 14 wins in its first 15 games on the way to the NBA title is widely regarded on most unbiased lists as the most dominant and best team in NBA history.

The Bulls essentially invented the in stadium NBA experience, and the team’s iconic introductory throbbing sequence featuring Sirius with the Alan Parsons Project has been the model in American sports and the most recognizable around the world. The Bulls logo has become one of the most identifiable around the world and turns up everywhere in popular culture from the office of the stars of the long running Law and Order TV series to in the private residences of world leaders. American tourists will report seeing Bulls hats and paraphernalia whenever they travel around the world.

The Space Jam movie and Last Dance documentary featuring Jordan and the Bulls were some of the most popular in the entertainment field.

So it’s special to be enshrined in the Chicago Bulls Ring of Honor. It’s been long in coming and here’s a look at the first class.

He’s the greatest. But don’t take our word for it. Any discussion of the GOAT -Greatest of All Time - in sports begins with Michael Jordan. He doesn’t have the most championships as a player, which was Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics. And he hasn’t scored the most points in the NBA, which is LeBron James lately of the Los Angeles Lakers. But no one influenced the game itself and the world well beyond basketball more that Michael Jordan. The high-flying, tongue-wagging, power dunking Jordan is likely the most popular athlete in American sports history, filling stadiums with his presence and avoiding the minefields of divisive debate. His universal appeal is something people can agree about. Jordan is the NBA’s all-time average per game scoring leader barely ahead of the legendary Wilt Chamberlain. The 6-6 Jordan has his share of awards from six Finals MVPs—every time he was there—five regular season MVPs, Defensive Player of the Year, Slam Dunk winner, his playing grace and panache hardly duplicated. But his model also changed the world from sneakers becoming fashion to men proudly being bald and wearing earrings. Everyone wanted to and still wants to be like Mike.

He was Jordan’s sidekick through the run of six championships in the 1990s, part of a legendary pairing that suggests classic duos from the worlds of entertainment, government and history. Pippen’s backstory is one of the most remarkable in sports, the product of a rural environment and one of 12 children growing up in a two-room house, not offered any college scholarships and attending small Central Arkansas University on a work-study grant where as a freshman he did team laundry and handed out towels to players in the locker room. Four years later, the spidery 6-8 forward was an NBA first round draft selection and on the way to becoming what most around basketball consider the greatest defensive small forward in NBA history and the primary playmaker for those six championship Bulls teams. Pippen was a nine-time NBA all-defensive player and when he was on the fabulous 1992 Olympic Dream Team Pippen was called by coach Chuck Daly the best player after Jordan.

The iconoclastic lanky backup forward from the championship New York Knicks teams of the early 1970s became the most successful championship coach in NBA history, guiding the 1990s Bulls to six championships with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen and then the early 2000s Los Angeles Lakers to three championships with Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. And then yet recalibrating to guide the Lakers to two more titles with Bryant and Pau Gasol. Known as the Zen Master for his embrace of Eastern philosophies and creative coaching methods, Jackson was as much a student of the game in taking Red Holzman’s pressure defense and unselfish offensive principles and in an alchemy with Tex Winter’s triangle offense both in Chicago and Los Angeles produced teams that dominated the NBA for more than two decades and became the legends of the game. Jackson’s roots were equally humble and unexpected, a product of the upper Midwest Dakotas who was virtually out of coaching and pro basketball working for the Albany Patroons of the defunct Continental Basketball Association and summers coaching in Puerto Rico when Bulls executive Jerry Krause brought him to the Bulls as an assistant coach and advance scout. Four years later, Jackson led the Bulls and Jordan to the franchise’s first NBA championships and six in eight years, interrupted only by Jordan’s hiatus to play professional basketball for two years.

Michael Jordan is the name most synonymous with the Bulls, but Jerry Sloan personified the franchise and the city more than anyone who ever played for the team. The team logo could have been Sloan’s visage instead of the angry Bull because the original intent of the logo was to demonstrate something the original chief executive wanted to represent of being mean, aggressive and strong. Certainly mean to opponents, if not teammates and the community. Sloan was the guard who couldn’t score who terrified the NBA’s stars. Hall of Famers Jerry West, Walt Frazier, Rick Barry, Billy Cunningham and JoJo White famously complained constantly about how rough and physically Jerry played them. Jerry would simply say they were more talented than he was so he just had to work harder than everyone else, citizen of broad shoulders. Forget a chip on the shoulder; Jerry’s was a two by four. He was a shy, small town kid from southern Illinois who walked 16 miles to grade school and who always led with his jutting jaw. He was recruited to play at the University of Illinois. But he left because Champaign-Urbana was too big for him, as was Carbondale when he left Southern Illinois University. Hew decided to go back home and work on an rig in the local oil fields. But his girlfriend persuaded him to give Evansville University a try. He starred with his gritty game and was drafted by the Baltimore Bullets, who’d left Chicago in 1963 as the Packers/Zephyrs. He didn’t play much and was left available in the expansion draft for the Bulls. And became their inspiration as a 6-5 guard routinely among the leading guards in rebounding while still averaging about 15 points and six times all-defense playing through injuries that would have most mortals in traction. He led the 1966-67 expansion Bulls to the playoffs, still the only NBA expansion team ever to make the post season tournament. He coached the Bulls briefly after his playing career and went on to a Hall of Fame coaching career with the Utah Jazz. His No. 4 was the first jersey retired in Bulls franchise history.

Smooth as butter, the scoring forward known as Butterbean teamed with Chet Walker to become the most potent forward pair in the NBA in the team’s early 1970s run of averaging more than 50 wins over a five-year period culminating in a bitter seventh game loss in the 1975 conference finals. The ambidextrous Love became one of the premier scorers in the NBA, averaging almost 25 points per game over a six-year run that left him at the time among points producers trailing only legends like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Elvin Hayes, Dave Bing, John Havlicek, Pete Maravich and Tiny Archibald. Love battled a serious speech impediment for years that likely set back his early career years, though he would eventually triumph there, too, and become a motivational speaker for the Bulls. He started at a HBCU, Southern University and was a fourth round draft choice of the then powerful Cincinnati Royals. He couldn’t stick and went to the minor league Eastern League for $50 per game, eventually working his way back to Milwaukee in the expansion draft and then traded to Chicago where he was greeted by boos because he was traded for fan favorite Flynn Robinson. The Bulls traded for Bob Kauffman to take the place of the former overlooked Love. But the determined 6-8 forward with his transition game play won the job and became an all-league defensive team player three times, multiple All-Star and iron man who played at least 81 games four of his first five seasons with the Bulls and three times all 82.

Nobody had a second act quite like the famously rumpled one-time scout known as the sleuth for his clandestine ways that made him perhaps the most famous general manager of his era in assembling the personnel to support Michael Jordan and the Bulls to their six NBA championships. Chicago native Krause was first a scout for the 1961-63 Packers/Zephyrs franchise that moved to Baltimore and now is in Washington. He then scouted for the Bulls and worked his way to personnel director before losing his job in a confused supposed coaching recruitment of DePaul’s Ray Meyer. Krause returned to baseball scouting, his first love, and was working for the Chicago White Sox as a scout when the Jerry Reinsdorf group purchased the franchise in 1985. Krause prepared a plan for the Bulls, who had recently drafted Michael Jordan. It surreptitiously was basically a long term rebuild without portfolio. It created friction between he and Jordan because Jordan was committed to compete for titles immediately. Krause knew the talent wasn’t there and second line veterans couldn’t match a powerful Eastern Conference dominated by Larry Bird and the Celtics, Moses Malone and Julius Erving and the 76ers and Isiah Thomas and the Pistons. So Krause accumulated draft picks, not as popular a strategy at the time as it is now. It landed Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant, and the veteran trade for Bill Cartwright for another draft pick, Charles Oakley, produced the first championship in franchise history in 1991. Krause from year to year subtly replaced players around Jordan and Scottie Pippen to maintain the dynasty through the 1990s and twice was voted Executive of the Year by his peers

The first coach of the expansion Bulls in 1966 directed the team to the playoffs, a feat no coach in the NBA has done before or since. He was named NBA Coach of the Year. But Kerr was much more than a coach. A multiple All-Star and NBA champion as a player after the Chicago native starred at the University of Illinois, Kerr was the NBA’s original iron man, playing in 844 consecutive games until his final season in the NBA when his coach, even though he was not injured, benched Kerr because the coach decided the streak was getting too much publicity. Kerr was among the first NBA players to accumulate more than 10,000 points and 10,000 rebounds and was a three-time All-Star while playing in the same conference as Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell. Kerr was an executive with the ABA franchise that first signed Julius Erving and George Gervin and left to join the Bulls front office in 1975. He became a broadcasting color man shortly thereafter and the face of the Bulls on television, in public and in the broadcast booth for the next 35 years, a close friend with Michael Jordan who wrote a book about Jordan and who engaged with Jordan in his colorful pregame rituals. Kerr was one of the NBA’s most popular speakers and called upon by the league and the Bulls frequently as a toastmaster and host and league representative for his good humor and wit.

He represented the renaissance of the original Bulls from an expansion curiosity to a serious championship contender and one of the most feared teams in the NBA with the Jerry Sloan/Norm Van Lier backcourt, Walker and Bob Love at forward and assists-minded Tom Boerwinkle at high post center. Walker was a main part of one of the great teams in NBA history, the 1966-67 Philadelphia 76ers who set the record with 68 wins and broke the record championship winning streak of the Boston Celtics. The 6-7 forward in Philadelphia was a multiple All-Star and scoring sidekick for Wilt Chamberlain out of Bradley U. Though called Chet the Jet, Walker’s scoring style was deliberate with multiple fakes that rivaled that of Elgin Baylor. Trades and management changes ended the 76ers run, and when Pat Williams became Bulls general manager his first priority was to trade for Walker. Walker led a cellar-dwelling Bulls team after the initial expansion era excitement to respectability and excellence with his scoring. He became the team's closer and big shot maker. Only Jordan has more higher scoring games in franchise history than Walker’s 56. Walker was born in Mississippi, the 11th child of a sharecropper family who migrated to Michigan for auto industry work. He lived as a social champion working with Martin Luther King and retiring prematurely in a dispute over his right to have a say in his future. He was a part of the group that fought for NBA free agency in the Oscar Robinson suit. He moved to Los Angeles where he became an actor and Emmy award winning movie producer who worked on films with Muhammad Ali.&nbsp;

Often regarded as the league’s strongest man, the taciturn 7-2 center came to the Bulls as the No. 1 pick in the ABA dispersal draft and was four times an All-Star in his six Bulls seasons. He was part of the team that coined the phrase the Madhouse on Madison Street for the run of the 1976-77 team that lost to the eventual champion Portland Trailblazers in the playoffs. Portland star center Bill Walton often said the Bulls series was their toughest on the way to the title. Facing the segregation and discrimination in the South, Gilmore attended junior college and then went to Jacksonville U., where they shocked the nation in the NCAA tournament before losing to John Wooden’s UCLA dynasty in the final game. Gilmore then basically provided credibility for the fledgling ABA in becoming the first true big man to play in the league that had bene populated by mostly smaller forwards. He was immediately ABA Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player over Julius Erving. He was an ABA All-Star game MVP, playoffs MVP and multiple times leader in rebounding and shooting. He led his Kentucky team to the 1975 ABA title. Two other times they lost in their finals. Gilmore was traded by the Bulls to San Antonio and twice was an All-Star with the Spurs before finishing his career in Europe where he again was an All-Star in Italy.

No one has gone faster from a community’s Public Enemy No. 1 to America’s Sweetheart than Dennis Rodman with Chicago. Talk about a guy who wormed himself into their hearts. Like the transformational purity of putting on a wedding dress. The Detroit Pistons Bad Boy rebounding machine was a fierce rival of the charging pre-championship Bulls. And when the Bulls finally concluded a sweep of the dreaded Pistons in the 1991 playoffs, it was the 6-7 Rodman throwing Scottie Pippen into the stands, a fitting scene as the Bulls turned the other cheek and the defeated bullies slinked away in shame. Four years later amidst the tumult of Michael Jordan’s retirement and return and Rodman's seeming banishment from the game in San Antonio, it was Rodman saving the Bulls championship run. The lack of a power forward when Jordan returned doomed the Bulls until they acquired Rodman, who finished off seven consecutive seasons leading the league in rebounding for the three-time 1996-98 Bulls NBA champions. It further established Rodman as one of the greatest retrievers in basketball history. Previously a two-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year with the champion Pistons, Rodman was seven times first team all-defense including in 1996 with the Bulls. The Bulls and Rodman were a match made in basketball heaven since they needed one another so badly, the Bulls for Rodman’s floor ferocity and memorable defensive stands in the playoffs against Shaquille O’Neal and Karl Malone and Rodman the welcoming family he lost with his departure from Detroit and separation from coach Chuck Daly. The flamboyant Rodman who captivated the media and fans with his antics from professional wrestling to relationships with Hollywood stars was at heart a shy kid who needed a welcoming hug. The Bulls and coach Phil Jackson were there to provide it and Rodman reciprocated with the toughness and rebounding of a champion.

The invaluable sixth man and frequent replacement for injured or suspended Dennis Rodman with the three-time champion Bulls from 1996 through 1998 arguably was the most talented player ever to come to the NBA from Europe. But after winning basically every Europe league award and multiple times with championships and MVPs of the regular season and playoffs and finals, the seven footer who was a magician with the ball joined a Bulls team that with Michael Jordan’s return had no starting jobs available. Before Jordan’s return, Kukoč even led the NBA as a rookie in game winning shots. And in Kukoč’s sophomore Bulls season, he was second behind Pippen as the team leader in scoring, rebounds and assists. But with no starting position and a need for a power forward, the point forward known as the waiter for the way he delivered to teammates sacrificed for the betterment of the Bulls and was a vital contributor to the championships and winner of the NBA Sixth Man award. Though in those three championship seasons Kukoč started almost 100 games for the Bulls and 22 playoff games. His playing style and abilities were similar to that of current Dallas Mavericks star Luka Doncic. But Kukoč was needed by the Bulls as a rebounder and spot and clutch shooter. Phil Jackson once said Kukoč was the only player at times he regretted not giving the last shot even when Jordan was playing. Kukoč was part of 11 championship teams in Europe and most valuable player in most of those leagues and tournaments. He was traded by the Bulls to the Philadelphia 76ers, where he was on the way to what seemed like the Finals in 2001 as the scoring mate for Allen Iverson before an injury to another 76ers player forced another trade that season to Atlanta. He finished his career playing in Milwaukee and became a Bulls franchise ambassador.

Winter, GM Jerry Krause’s first hire when he became the Bulls chief basketball executive in 1985, was the premier practitioner of the triangle offense that Phil Jackson used and massaged to lead the Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers to 11 championships with Winter by his side for the first nine. The coaching centric Winter was a basketball savant for decades before that playing at USC with future championship coaches Alex Hannum and Bill Sharman where they studied the famed offense under originator Sam Barry. Then as Tex was an all-American pole vaulter at USC and previously an Olympics rival of the famed Bob Richards in 1944 before the war cancelled those games. Even in high school Winter worked for celebrated coach Pete Newell. Winter became a Navy test pilot and then became the youngest college head coach in the nation at 24 at Marquette and later a strategic genius at Kansas State where his less regarded team knocked out Oscar Robertson and mighty Cincinnati in the NCAA tournament and in a famed rival in-state game for when only one conference team went to the tournament denied Kansas and Wilt Chamberlain a chance to go, thus helping lead to Chamberlain’s eventual decision to leave college early. Winter also coached the University of Washington, Long Beach State, Northwestern and the Houston Rockets before joining the Bulls. Winter was such a serious student of the game that in one famous incident when the Bulls team plane hit a pocket and dived and the oxygen masks were deployed, Winter kept pushing his mask to the side since it blocked the screen where he was studying opponent plays.

Klein was basically the inventor of the Bulls and the incubator for the fighting spirit the franchise came to represent and produce in its infancy as Klein from the start described the team he envisioned—and eventually named—as tough, physical, and unrelenting, transcending its expectations much like he did as a small town kid from southeast Iowa. The size of an offensive lineman, Klein was a natural athlete who was one of the Big 10’s leading scorers playing basketball at Northwestern while at the same time dabbling in professional baseball as a pitcher in the Cleveland Indians organization. After serving in World War II, he played basketball professionally for the Chicago American Gears of the ABL and minor league baseball. When the basketball league folded and George Mikan was gone from Chicago, Klein set up a successful sales promotion business. But his dream was the NBA. He tried to purchase the Packers/Zephyrs in 1963, but they moved to Baltimore. The NBA wasn’t particularly sanguine about Chicago with the demise of the American Gears, then the Chicago Stags and the Packers/Zephrys escaping Chicago after two seasons because of continued fan disinterest. Klein persisted even as the NBA remained reluctant to give Chicago another chance. Klein with his Chicago business contacts recruited a group of investors who were some of the wealthiest people in the nation like Dan Searle, and Lamar Hunt. Recognizing the possibilities, the NBA tripled the proposed expansion price from about $500,000 to $1.6 million. Klein still met it and beat out offers from Pittsburgh and Cleveland. The league’s board of governors agreed in a January, 1966 session to add Chicago. Klein first tried to lure Ray Meyer from DePaul before hiring Tilden High School’s Johnny Kerr as coach. Klein also hired for marketing a former Illinois basketball player, Jerry Colangelo. Klein being a basketball junkie named himself general manager like Jerry Jones is with the Dallas Cowboys these days. Though Klein was not the majority owner of the team. Klein hired Weber State U. coach Dick Motta to replace Kerr, and Motta eventually led a revolt with the owners to push out Klein and become general manager and coach. Klein eventually scouted in Phoenix for his former staffer, Colangelo.

The 1995-96 Bulls were the greatest sports team in American history. This is frequently debated and impossible to verify or prove with candidates ranging from the Boston Celtics with 11 titles in 13 years, the 1980s Larry Bird Celtics and Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Los Angeles Lakers, Philadelphia 76ers teams in 1983 and 1967 or a 33-wins-straight Lakers teams. Not mentioning New York Knicks of the 1970s and San Antonio Spurs and Miami Heat of recent vintage. But no team in NBA history, if not all of sports and perhaps even worldwide, captured the public consciousness like that nearly unbeatable 1995-96 Bulls team. Forget even the record 72-10 and then steaming through the playoffs as it did to start at 14-1 with the only loss in overtime. The Bulls eased off the pedal then to finish the inevitable Finals in six games. But there never was anything like it nor will there ever be for public acclaim and fascination with the player most widely regarded as the game’s greatest and the figure often deemed the most bizarre and mystifying. This was more than a basketball team. It was a &nbsp;must-see happening. No team ever has drawn stares and attention like that Bulls team. There was the unique conjunction of Michael Jordan’s fame, Scottie Pippen’s flair and Dennis Rodman’s fatuity. They were a cultural touchstone in the original definition of transcending all that came before. And to sprinkle into that mix some of the spicy ingredients like the man to become the winningest coach ever, Phil Jackson, with the penchant for unconventional methods of coaching and motivation. There was also Toni Kukoč, regarded as one of the most talented and celebrated players ever to come out of Europe, and a pastiche of handymen to help shoot, rebound and help produce the greatest show in sneakers.

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Introducing the Chicago Bulls inaugural Ring of Honor class

childukich

Three-time NBA Champion and one of the most decorated players in international basketball, Toni Kukoč, will be enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame class of 2021. It is long overdue and well deserved.

It was late into a difficult night. The Last Dance season—and the Bulls 1990s championship run—now was going to end in Salt Lake City. The Bulls had their chance to dance for the last time in front of their home fans in 1998; Chicago was so expectant. But the Utah Jazz had breath when Michael Jordan missed a long last chance shot with a second left. And the Utah Jazz ran out of the United Center on the way back home now trailing just 3-2 in the NBA Finals.

Phil Jackson was replaying so many moments when John Paxson wanted to talk. What about Toni for that last shot, Paxson wondered. Jackson smiled to himself. Kukoč, the Croatian sniper, had made more of those shots over the years than anyone else among these Bulls. "It was almost unreal," Jackson recalled when I spoke with him recently. "It really was beyond imagination Toni's ability to fulfill in the clutch. He would just walk into and make 25 and 30-foot shots; he was that good a distance shooter."

But even Jackson that 1998 June night had been caught up in the narrative and the notoriety. Michael Jordan, last shot, last game. Jackson was kicking himself. He knew what he should have done. "Toni was 11 for 13, had 30 points. He kept us in that game," Jackson recalled. "That was Michael's thing, the last shot. That was a big mistake on my part. Toni was a special player."

The Bulls didn't have to wait long for theirs and Jordan's dramatic moment two days later with that most magical last minute in Game 6 and posed winning shot for the sixth championship.

Kukoč's wait for immortality was somewhat longer.

But it's finally here now as the three-time Bulls champion and one of the greatest winners in the history of professional basketball—11 international titles and rings—will be enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame class of 2021.

Ceremonies will be in September after this weekend's ceremonies to honor last year's enshrines.

"I feel enormously proud and happy," Kukoč said from Croatia upon receiving the news. "It is a perfect ending to my basketball life as a player. I went to see my old Jugoplastika Split play last week. And entering the arena reminded me of the great team I was part of in the late 1980s and 90s. I love the fact this is happening while my parents are still alive, especially my dad, who is absolutely thrilled about this award. And I'm back as a cool dad again with my kids."

Kukoč joins Jordan and Scottie Pippen as the only Bulls players in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame who played the majority of their NBA years with the Bulls.

Kukoč also finally joins in the Hall of Fame the so called Big Six of international basketball from the 1980s who were the pioneers of the European and international invasion that led to the globalization of the game that today is reflected in the NBA.

Those six are Vlade Divac, Dino Radja, Drazen Petrovic, Sarunas Marciulionis, Arvydas Sabonis and Kukoč.

"Toni meant a lot," Divac told me last year when he still was an executive for the Sacramento Kings. "He was one the best who played in Europe, specifically, but also internationally playing for the national team. He won basically everything. Toni is one of the most important people who changed the game. He sacrificed his ego to come to the NBA. He was a big, big thing in Europe and he came here and sacrificed to be a role player.

"Dino got in (in 2018) and I got in (in 2019)," noted Divac, who played for 16 years in the NBA, mostly with the Lakers and Kings. "In all fairness, Toni deserved to be in there even before me and Dino."

History doesn't measure when as much as how much. There are few even in the Hall of Fame who can match the accumulated successes of Toni Kukoč.

It's perhaps fitting that Kukoč sacrificed with the Bulls, mostly playing power forward and even center because Kukoč's perimeter skills were occupied by pretty proficient scorers and ball handlers, like Jordan and Pippen. But Kukoc's basketball life, essentially, was one of sacrifice as the facilitator for champion teams throughout Europe and for then Yugoslavia.

So he gave to the Bulls for the good of the team. Before the early 1990s breakup of the country, Kukoč's Yugoslavia national team with the likes of Divac, Radja, Drazen Petrovic and others who played in the NBA like Zarko Paspalj, Sasha Danilovic and Stojko Vrankovic were so dominant it led to the 1992 entry of pros in the Olympics and the 1992 USA Dream Team. Other than a compilation of perhaps the best ever NBA players could not beat these skilled Europeans who were dominating international competitions.

And perhaps none was more skilled and successful than Kukoč, the 6-11 guard with the remarkable shooting range and Magic Johnson-like passing and ball handling skills. Kukoč was MVP when Yugoslavia won the FIBA Under 19 against a USA team that included future Hall of Famer Gary Payton and collegiate star Larry Johnson. His 1988 team sent the Americans with David Robinson and Mitch Richmond to a bronze medal. Toni was MVP in the 1990 Worlds when Yugoslavia beat the Americans with Alonzo Mourning and Christian Laettner. His Yugoslavia team won the World University games over a USA team with Sean Elliott, Danny Ferry and Richmond. And then even on home USA soil in Seattle, Kukoč's Yugoslavia team in the 1990 Goodwill Games defeated a USA team with the likes of Mourning, Kenny Anderson, Billy Owens and Bobby Hurley.

Toni Kukoč playing against the Boston Celtics in the 1988 McDonald's Championships in Madrid, Spain.

This was at a time Kukoč was winning basically every award in European basketball, five times best male player, three times the media's award for best player, Euroleague Final Four MVP three times, Eurobasket MVP, FIBA World Championship MVP. Make it four Yugoslavia championships, three Euroleague titles and an Italian league championship before coming to the Bulls and earning NBA Sixth Man winner in 1996 with the first of his three Bulls championship teams.

He says Kukoč still is upset with him for making him a reserve on those teams.

Which is one reason why Kukoč doesn't sound like a Hall of Famers to many Americans.

His statistics in a 13-year NBA career were pedestrian, 11.6 points, 4.2 rebounds and 3.7 assists for mostly the Bulls and later the 76ers, Hawks and Bucks. Kukoč's highest scoring average in seven seasons with the Bulls was 18.8 with seven rebounds and 5.3 assists in the lockout season after the dynasty ended in 1998-99. The following season, Kukoč was averaging 18 points when the Bulls began their rebuilding project and traded him to the Philadelphia 76ers for a first round draft pick.

Kukoč was becoming a reliable scoring option off the bench for the 76ers team that would go to the 2001 NBA Finals when center Theo Ratliff was injured. The 76ers, then seeking a center, traded Kukoc to Atlanta to acquire Dikembe Mutombo for their run to the Finals. Kukoc finished up that season in Atlanta with his highest NBA scoring average of 19.7 per game. He played his last four seasons in Milwaukee in a reserve role so he could be closer to home. He still lives in Chicago's north suburbs and now is a team ambassador for the Bulls.

But even as Kukoč was closing out his NBA career in Milwaukee, NBA veterans knew his value.

"My assistant Frank Hamblen always used to say we need to get Toni with those Lakers teams," Jackson recalled. "Those were good Lakers teams, and when we played against Toni we never could do anything with him."

"Having A Bud" with Toni Kukoč and Bill Wennington.

It's also why Kukoč played such a significant, if often unappreciated, role with those championship Bulls teams.

Kukoč, albeit reluctantly, finally joined the Bulls for the 1993-94 season just as Michael Jordan was retiring the first time to play baseball.

Kukoč was a controversial second round pick in the 1990 draft at a time NBA teams weren't particularly welcoming to Europeans. It would play out even on the Bulls as Kukoč received a vicious hazing from Jordan and Pippen, presumably directed at then executive Jerry Krause. But also encompassing the elements of American resentment of European players being recruited and eventually paid well.

Many European stars came to the NBA and quickly left or got stuck on benches. The great Petrovic did as in Portland until being traded to the lowly Nets and getting an opportunity. Kukoč was starring and winning titles in Europe, making a lot of money. He wasn't sure about the risk.

"Would I go to a Chicago Bulls team winning a championship and I might be sitting on the bench and not playing for the best part of my career?" Kukoč wondered. "Maybe at 31 or 32, I thought it would be worth it. I wasn't sure at 24."

Toni Kukoč dunks against the Miami Heat in a game at the Untied Center in 1996.

As it happened with injuries in his first month with the Bulls, Kukoč got five starts and averaged 16 points in those games. Kukoč returned to the bench, though in the playoffs he famously won Game 3 of the conference semifinals in the game in which Pippen sat out in protest of not getting selected for the last shot. Jackson had quickly recognized how good Kukoč was with those last second desperation shots. Even better than Jordan, which was why Jackson was kicking himself about that Game 5 in the 1998 Finals.

Earlier that 1993-94 season, Reggie Miller with less than a second left made a shot for a two-point lead. Miller then famously bowed in all four directions to the fans in the Chicago Stadium. Kukoč then banked in a three at the buzzer for the winner, running off the floor triumphant as he would against the Knicks in the playoffs.

Big games and big times became common for Kukoč even as much as he was overshadowed by the circus festival of having the greatest player, the greatest sidekick, the greatest coach and the greatest miscreant on the same team. But with Dennis Rodman's suspensions and injuries, Kukoc started 87 games in the three championship seasons. He also was part of the closing lineup the Golden State Warriors would make more famous, but which Jackson originated with Rodman at center and Kukoč at power forward with Jordan, Pippen and Ron Harper. Everyone able to switch and offense coming from just about every spot in the triangle offense. It was death to opponents those last three title years.

And then there were times like Game 7 of the 1998 Eastern Conference finals with the Indiana Pacers, just the second Game 7 for the Bulls in those 90s runs. And it looked like the Last Dance would end without the final center stage dance for the champions. It was a grueling series with the Pacers, and Jordan and Pippen seemed spent. The Bulls couldn't get anything going, and the Pacers began to pull away after halftime. Until Kukoč put a stop to it, scoring 14 of the Bulls 21 points in the third quarter to keep the Bulls in the game until the Bulls could finally maintain some control in the fourth quarter.

But that was Toni, making the play so others could be remembered.

Now it's Toni's turn to step into the limelight. It's well deserved.

finally-toni-kukoc-named-to-naismith-basketball-hall-of-fames-class-of-2021

Finally! Toni Kukoč named to Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame's Class of 2021

It's not like Rod Thorn didn't know point guards. His acquisition of Jason Kidd got the New Jersey Nets to a pair of NBA Finals and helped Thorn be selected for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and enshrinement Friday along with Kidd.

Chicagoan Maurice Cheeks from DuSable High School also is being enshrined in the Hall of Fame Friday. It's mostly because of his playing career with the Philadelphia 76ers, with whom Cheeks became a champion and among the NBA's all-time leaders in steals and assists.

"It's my first draft as Bulls general manager in 1978 and we take Reggie Theus in the first round, good player," Thorn was saying Thursday afternoon at a Hall of Fame media reception in Springfield while Cheeks sat nearby also answering media questions. "Second round, I take Marvin Johnson from New Mexico. Never played for us. In the preseason, (coach Larry) Costello tells me he can't play and we cut him. But back at the draft, Mr. Cheeks is sitting in the front row at the Bismarck Hotel. Stupidest thing I've ever seen. We're sitting out in front of a big crowd doing the draft.

"Mr. Cheeks from the first row after we make our picks stands up and says, but in a nice way, 'You're going to regret not taking Mo Cheeks.' And then he gets up and leaves. I didn't know who he was. Someone tells me it's Mo's father. Our scouts and we felt Mo was OK, but we didn't see him being a terrific NBA player.

"When I got to the Bulls we had Wilbur Holland at point guard," recalled Thorn with a bit of a wince. "He was deaf in one ear and Wilbur would run up the court and Costello would call out a play and Wilbur would not hear or act like he didn't hear what the play was. We tried Reggie at point guard, but he wasn't a point guard. We ended up getting Ricky Sobers, who helped us. But Cheeks with Reggie would have been a heck of a backcourt and we had Artis (Gilmore), who could score. Mo would have been great."

As Thorn was relating the story Thursday afternoon, Cheeks walked by and stopped with some friends and family.

"Yeah, I heard about it," he said with a smile. "I was just trying to get picked by anyone. I didn't know I was going to get picked at all. I guess he (father) knew more than I did. Rod did OK. He got Michael Jordan later on."

mo-cheeks-and-reggie-theus-it-almost-happened

Mo Cheeks and Reggie Theus, it almost happened

We've all experienced those moments, brief flashes of time that we know would have changed our lives. We call it different things, chance, luck, providence, fate, karma, destiny. We often come to believe, perhaps to reconcile our place in the world, it was meant to be, that some force was guiding the result. It was going to be that way, anyway, right?

Hesitating before stepping off a curb before a speeding bus, taking the path that led to the clearing and not the cliff, calling heads when you know you should have been calling tails.

"Any time I had ever called anything myself with a coin, I always called tails," Rod Thorn was musing the other day. "That was the ironic part of it."

Thorn, the longtime NBA and New Jersey Nets executive who was an elite collegiate star before an eight-year NBA playing career, will be enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Friday in an illustrious class that includes Jason Kidd, Steve Nash, Ray Allen, Charlie Scott, Lefty Driesell and Maurice Cheeks. Thorn's seven-year tenure as Bulls general manager would barely be an asterisk on his impressive resume if not for in his final season with the Bulls drafting Michael Jordan.

But if not for the way a coin landed, Thorn would likely be entering the Hall of Fame, if not long before this, as probably the most accomplished general manager in Bulls and perhaps NBA history. While likely having done so for the world's wealthiest ownership group with names like Wirtz, Steinbrenner, Crown, Klutznick and Hunt and in the midst of likely the greatest individual conference rivalry ever featuring the Boston Celtics' Larry Bird and the Bulls' Magic Johnson.

"Yes, we would have been a high level contender," says Thorn. "The Bird and Magic rivalry would have been intense with more regular season games. Ownership definitely would have kept the team, definitely. There's a distinct possibility Rod Thorn would have been a more celebrated general manager.

"Yes, there are instances when you think of things you do and why you did them; that one was not in my control," Thorn acknowledged. "But it changed a lot of peoples' lives; no doubt about it."

It's the simple story of the coin flip for the first pick in the 1979 draft, a footnote in Bulls history that could have been NBA headlines for years. The Reinsdorf group likely never would have gotten a chance to purchase the Bulls, the Los Angeles Lakers, like they were in the 1960s and 1970s, would have been more contender than dynasty, Jerry Krause would have monitored baseballs for 20 more years and Michael Jordan probably would been a Dallas Maverick or Philadelphia 76er.

"Life is full of ironies and so if we had won the coin flip and gotten Magic, we never would have gotten Michael. So the Bulls had to delay being good for a few years," said Thorn. "Obviously, it worked out great for both teams."

Could it have worked out better for the Bulls?

The Bulls of the late 1970s were an underrated team with a Hall of Fame center and future All-Star shooting guard. Led by Artis Gilmore, they barely lost in the 1977 playoffs to the eventual champion Portland Trailblazers. Bill Walton and coach Jack Ramsey called the Bulls their toughest opponent in those playoffs. But with injuries and a coaching change in the 1978-79 season, the Bulls collapsed to a 31-51 record and last in the Eastern Conference.

In that era, there was a coin flip for the No. 1 draft selection between the teams with the poorest record in each conference. In the Western Conference, it was the New Orleans Jazz. But from a prior transaction, the signing of free agent Gail Goodrich, the Lakers held the Jazz pick.

It wasn't a great Lakers team at the time. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had forced his way out of Milwaukee to the Lakers, but the trade stripped the Lakers of their depth. They averaged fewer than 50 wins in Abdul-Jabbar's first three seasons and he seemed to be tiring of the load and expectations, even hinting at retirement. The Lakers were third in their division and fifth in the conference, nowhere close to title contention. They had Abdul-Jabbar and future Hall of Famer Jamaal Wilkes, but a mish mash of older veterans like Adrian Dantley and Lou Hudson. Norm Nixon was their point guard.

The Bulls roster led by Gilmore and Theus arguably was close in talent, almost comparable.

Johnson was the missing piece for the Bulls as well.

In subsequent years, Johnson has been quoted, including in one of his several autobiographies, saying he would have returned to Michigan State if the Bulls won the coin flip, that he wanted to play for the Lakers. But that seems more about loyalty to his longtime employer.

Thorn and longtime Bulls executive Irwin Mandel said they always were confident Johnson would play for the Bulls. "Magic had said he wanted to go into the pros, that there was nothing more he could do in college as he already won a national championship; I did not remember the Bulls being worried," recalled Mandel, now retired.

Johnson's Chicago attorney at the time, George Andrews, said Magic actually seemed to prefer the Bulls.

"He thought at the time Artis was comparable to Kareem," said Andrews. "He thought he could win with Artis. Magic was very positive about Chicago because it was close to home as a Lansing, Michigan guy. It would have been an interesting situation. Reggie would have played fine with him. Artis, those were his prime years, and Reggie became an All-Star. If the Bulls had Magic, Reggie and Artis and with Jerry Sloan becoming coach that season, they would have been very good. That would have been a tough team to match up with."

"We needed a point guard," agreed Thorn. "That's what Magic obviously did, one of the best ever in setting other people up. I think it might have taken us a few years as Magic wasn't a very good shooter when he came in. But we would have been very good within a couple of years."

Of course, the Lakers didn't have much shooting, either, in 1979-80 and then won the championship even with Abdul-Jabbar sitting out the clinching game.

"The Lakers were just OK without Magic," Thorn pointed out. "Magic is one of the 10 best players ever. I do think we would have been terrific."

It was April 19, 1979, about 10 days after the end of the season. There were no draft TV shows then.

The Bulls had plummeted after the heady 1976-77 season that had become known as the Miracle on Madison Street. In 13 of the last 15 home games in 1978-79, the Bulls failed to draw 10,000. So in trying to engage the fans, the Bulls promoted a contest for fans to vote whether the team should call heads or tails.

"Bill Sharman and I were on the call with the league," Thorn recalled. "He was representing the Lakers at the time. The people in New York were asking us who wanted to call it. I immediately said we had this fan vote and, ‘Bill. if it's OK with you, let me call it.' Bill said fine. So I called it heads. It came out tails."

Not quite like the stillness back then in the Bulls offices at 333 North Michigan Avenue. There wasn't much Bulls staff then. Brian McIntyre, who went on to work with Thorn in the league office, was there as was Bulls broadcaster Johnny Kerr. Perhaps Kerr was the bad luck. He was a witness in the previous most famous draft coin flip when the Suns Jerry Colangelo first came up with the idea of the fan vote. The Bulls should have learned. The Phoenix fans voted for heads; Colangelo called heads. It was tails. The Milwaukee Bucks in 1969 selected Abdul-Jabbar and had a title, their only one, by 1971. The Suns got Neal Walk.

"Hey," Kerr brightened at the time, trying to cheer up Colangelo, "maybe they'll talk Neal Walk."

"Johnny was trying to make Rod feel better," recalled McIntyre. "But Rod's way south of morose. So Johnny says, 'The same thing happened to us in Phoenix. We polled the fans and they wanted to go one way. The fans won and we lost.' So Johnny says, ‘Rod, there's a moral to this story. That is if you listen to the fans too much you'll wind up sitting with them.'"

The Bulls selected David Greenwood No. 2. The Knicks picked Bill Cartwright No. 3, but with Gilmore, the Bulls didn't need another center. Greenwood had a 12-year NBA career, six with the Bulls before being traded for George Gervin in 1985. Greenwood came off the bench for the Pistons 1990 champions.

The Bulls would go on a nice run under Sloan, winning 45 games in 1980-81 and sweeping the Knicks in the playoffs before losing to the eventual champion Celtics.

"We got Ricky Sobers (for point guard) and with Theus we had a nice team," said Thorn. "Ricky and Reggie were  a heck of a backcourt and with Artis it looked like we were  ready to go."

But it wouldn't be much of anywhere with coaching changes, personnel problems with players using drugs and a collapse in the 1983-84 season. Bulls managing partner Jerry Reinsdorf likes to tell the story of his baseball owning colleague George Steinbrenner approaching him one day in 1984 about getting rid of this albatross of a franchise that was losing games and money and embarrassing the so called "Magnificent Seven" of owners of Steinbrenner, Lester Crown, Lamar Hunt, Jonathan Kovler, Arthur Wirtz, Walter Shorenstein and Phil Klutznick. They'd drafted Jordan, but they had top 10 draft picks for years and still embarrassment. So Reinsdorf cobbled together a group of investors to take the Bulls—perhaps some symmetry with the Chicago White Sox—and Jordan off their hands. Before the end of the 1984-85 season with the Reinsdorf group assuming control, Reinsdorf fired Thorn and replaced him with a baseball scout, Jerry Krause.

Thorn went on to a prominent role with the NBA and then resurrecting the Nets to a pair of Finals appearances after trading for Jason Kidd.

"I'm very humbled, very proud (to be going into the Hall of Fame)," Thorn acknowledged. "I feel great about it and particularly for me getting in the same time as Jason Kidd, who had a lot to do with me getting in. And Rick Welts, who I worked with in the NBA office and is a good friend. So I feel great about it."

And the Bulls ending up doing OK, as well.

"All's well," agreed Thorn, "that ends well."

the-coin-flip-that-could-have-changed-bulls-history

The coin flip that could have changed Bulls history

I remember how Johnny Kerr used to say about the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. If they wait until after he’s dead, well, he’d show them by not attending the enshrinement ceremony.

It’s about time the Hall of Fame rectifies one of its most blatant omissions and adds a smile to Kerr’s memory.

The Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame hosts its annual enshrinement ceremony Friday in what will be a celebrated class featuring, among others, Steve Nash, Jason Kidd, Ray Allen, Grant Hill and Chicago’s Maurice Cheeks. The Bulls get a mention with the induction of onetime general manager Rod Thorn, who famously drafted Michael Jordan in 1984 before a long career in the league office and as an executive with the New Jersey Nets.

Thorn will be inducted in the contributor to basketball category along with fellow league official and now Golden State Warriors president Rick Welts.

Which again leads me to wonder, hello, where’s Johnny Kerr?

It’s an annual exercise with the announcement of the newest Hall of Famers to consider the most overlooked.

I have Johnny Kerr at the top of my list as someone who could also have been considered as a player for a career that included a collegiate Final Four, multiple NBA All-Star appearances, an NBA championship and being the original iron man of the NBA with a streak of 844 consecutive games played, ended only in his final playing season when his coach decided it was a distraction even though Kerr wasn’t injured.

Kerr went on to set standards in NBA coaching, as an ABA executive and eminently as a Bulls broadcaster and the league’s unofficial toastmaster. Kerr was honored by the Hall of Fame with the John Bunn lifetime achievement award just before Kerr’s death from cancer in February 2009.

Here’s my top 10 list of those who should be in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

He was regarded as one of the best passing big men ever. One of the greatest Chicago winners, Kerr led Tilden High School to a city championship, the U. of Illinois to the Final Four and the Syracuse Nationals to the NBA title in his rookie season. He was a three-time All-Star at center despite playing in the same conference with Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain. Kerr went on to become the coach of the expansion Bulls and remains the only coach in NBA history to take an expansion team to the playoffs. He was instrumental with the ABA Virginia Squires in signing little known collegians Julius Erving and George Gervin. Kerr then was the face of Bulls broadcasting for more than 30 years and a longtime NBA goodwill ambassador and speaker. He checks every box as the ultimate contributor to the game.

The U. of Michigan forward was one of the prototypes of the modern NBA power forward with shooting range and speed. He set university rebounding records and went on to be one of the leading scorers in Houston Rockets history with a seven-year stretch averaging more than 20 points and playing in five All-Star games. His career was limited by the infamous Kermit Washington punch, but then he went on to coach the Rockets to two NBA titles and more than 500 wins. He also was the gold medal Olympic coach in 2000.

The seven footer from Kankakee and Illinois Wesleyan was one of the most accurate shooting big men ever who even led the league in free throw shooting one season. He made seven All-Star teams and averaged 16.2 points and 14.8 rebounds in the 1979 Finals for victorious Seattle, just barely missing averaging a double/double for his career. He played 14 seasons and was an elite three-point shooter in an era when even guards didn’t shoot many.

Perhaps the winner of the unofficial most underrated ever. The slashing forward was a pivotal player on championship teams for the Washington Bullets and Milwaukee Bucks and in nine straight seasons in the 1970s averaged between 18.4 and 21.5 points while always defending the opponent’s top scorer and an all-defensive player. He played in four Finals in the 1970s and was the leading Finals scorer for the decade. He averaged more than 20 points in 98 playoff games and 18.5 in his 13-year career.

It’s surprising he’s been overlooked being the best player of his 1930s era before the NBA was formed. At 6-5, he was the dominant big man of his pre-George Mikan era with his hook shot and scoring that led to the three-second rule in the lane. He set scoring records at the U. of Kentucky and for Oshkosh of the National Basketball League (which merged with the Basketball Association of America in 1949 to form the modern NBA), was three-time league MVP and led his team to six titles. He was the leading scorer in 33 games against the famed New York Rens in which Oshkosh won 17, becoming the historic and Hall of Fame Reds toughest rival.

Really, these guys are not in the Basketball Hall of Fame?

Jones can make the case as a four-time All-Star, eight times first team all-defense, a championship with the Philadelphia 76ers and playing in three NBA Finals and one in the ABA. The lanky, 6-9 Jones was arguably the best fundamental big man defender in league history, an unselfish teammate who went on to win the league’s first Sixth Man award and a versatile defender who was annually among the league leaders in blocks and steals and still scoring in double figures. Perhaps more than anyone, Jones symbolized the ultimate team player, defending, doing all the so called little things and blue collar work that leads to success. None of his teams ever missed the playoffs.

Another inspirational player, though in a different way. Love was one of the premier scorers of his era, averaging more than 20 points in a seven-year run with the Bulls from 1969-70 through 1975-76. In a three-year stretch, he averaged just under 25 points while making three All-Star teams and was named all-defense three times. He was often overlooked in his era because of a severe stuttering problem that limited media contact. Love overcome that and went on to become a motivational speaker.

His candidacy appears generally to be a victim of his unpopularity with media combined with his colorful emotional outbursts. The Naismith Hall of Fame considers achievements beyond just professional basketball, and Aguirre was one of the greatest college players ever, leading DePaul to the Final Four as a freshman and then twice the national player of the year. He was selected for the 1980 Olympic team when the U.S. boycotted that Olympics in a dispute with Russia. Aguirre averaged 20 points over 13 NBA seasons with a six-year run early in his career with the Dallas Mavericks when he averaged more than 25 points per game. He started for two NBA champions with the Detroit Pistons and led Dallas to a seven game conference finals against the champion Lakers. He averaged 23 points in 45 playoff games for Dallas.

He was the epitome of the physical power forward of his era, but who still averaged almost a double/double in a 14-year career in the ABA and NBA. He led Marquette to the NCAA title game and was drafted by the Bulls, but signed instead with the ABA. He was a prime player for the 1977 champion Portland Trailblazers. He was a five-time All-Star and all-defensive team player.

I also had Paul Westphal, Sidney Moncrief, Gus Williams, Terry Cummings and Austin Carr on my list for the NBA. They deserve to be added eventually, I defer for women’s basketball, also holding a prominent and deserved place in the Hall of Fame, since I have not watched enough. But for international play, the most obvious omission has been the former Bull, Kukoc. His NBA statistics are modest but sturdy, averaging 11.6 points in a 13-year career. He played for three Bulls championship teams and was a Sixth Man winner who started 17 playoff games for the Bulls in their 1998 title season. But it was in international play where Kukoc was a pioneer and one of the founding elites who legitimized European play in the NBA along with Hall of Famers Drazen Petrovic and Sarunas Marciulionis. Kukoc’s international resume exceeds all as a three-time Euroleague champion, five-time player of the year, three-time final four MVP, Euroleague finals top scorer, Italian league champion and four-time Yogoslav league champion. He also has multiple Olympic and World Championship medals, including two silvers in the Olympics and a gold in the 1990 FIBA World Cup where he was MVP.

sam-smiths-top-ten-omissions-to-the-naismith-basketball-hall-of-fame

Sam Smith's top ten omissions to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame

Jerry Krause on a gorgeous late summer day, the shuffling clouds parting for bright blue skies, really was smiling down on his wife, Thelma, and the Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2017 Thursday as the inductees were presented their emblematic blazers on the eve of the official enshrinement at the Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.

"One of the first things I saw was his picture," Thelma Krause said about entering for the Naismith Hall of Fame for a press conference and gathering of the new class. "He smiled at me, so hopefully he does know. I'd like to think he does. He would be thrilled and honored and so happy his children and grandchildren were here to participate; he loved sports, he loved scouting and being part of organizations.

"I am so honored for him," Thelma said. "I know how much this would mean for him."

It was a joyful, yet bittersweet day for Thelma and the Krause family as Jerry, the Bulls general manager who oversaw six championships in the 1990s as part of a long executive career in basketball, received the ultimate basketball honor. But he was not there to celebrate since he passed away, actually just shortly before the announcement.

"I would have preferred at least he knew about it," said Thelma. "I think that's the saddest thing; not that he isn't here, which is sad in of itself, but the fact it was just a couple of weeks difference for when he passed away and the announcement was made."

Though it doesn't diminish the honor or the feeling of pride for his family.

"If the family wasn't here it wouldn't have the same meaning," said Thelma. "That helped me get through it. They were in the audience and I could look at them and it would have meant everything to Jerry, too."

Though it was the job first, and because it was and it was such a passion, the honor was perhaps inevitable.

"His accomplishments," Thelma said when asked about the sources of professional pride for Jerry. "The fact he really loved what he did and had the ability to do it and that he just was able to because of Jerry Reinsdorf; to do the job he knew how to do. It's fabulous he was able to be accomplished in both sports (with baseball scouting for multiple teams). He worked hard and got results. He knew his job and when he was allowed to do it he did it well; the results speak for themselves.

"He would say, 'I never worked a day in my life,'" recalled Thelma.  "He was a kid in candy store."

Though Thelma acknowledged sometimes even Jerry admitted he stayed too long.

"He lived it," she said about Krause's legendary manic work ethic. "There was little separation. He admitted in his later years that he had his priorities wrong, that he gave far too much to whatever job he was doing, that he did not prioritize his family the way he later came to recognize he would have wanted to. I think what bothered him (overall) was the misperception, the willingness of people to never believe him and believe the other people who were more popular."

Still, Thelma didn't hesitate when asked of what Jerry was most proud.

"Giving Stacy away at her wedding," she said. "That's the most proud."

thelma-krause-accepts-hall-of-fame-jacket-on-behalf-of-her-late-husband-jerry-krause

Thelma Krause accepts Hall of Fame jacket on behalf of her late husband, Jerry Krause

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