Brazilian legend Oscar Schmidt, a three-time Olympic scoring champion and 1980s Italian league star, was among five people announced Friday as 2013 inductees to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
The announcement of five selections by special committees and 12 finalists for general induction to the sporting shrine came at the start of NBA All-Star Game festivities in Houston ahead of Sunday's showdown of elite superstars.
Schmidt, Russ Granik, Roger Brown, Richard Guerin and Edwin Henderson will be among those inducted in September at the Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts. Other inductees will be announced on April 8.
Schmidt, elected by the international committee, averaged 42.3 points a game at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. He was named one of FIBA's 50 greatest players in 1991 and entered the global sport governing body's hall of fame in 2010.
In 1979, Schmidt led Brazilian side Sirio to the world club crown. He was drafted by the NBA's New Jersey Nets in 1984 but chose to play in Europe and led the Italian league in scoring seven times from 1984 to 1992, winning the Italian Cup with Casserta in 1988.
Schmidt finished his career in Brazil, leading his homeland's league in scoring eight times from 1996 until his retirement in 2003.
Granik, named in the contributor category, spent 30 years with the NBA starting as a staff lawyer in 1976 and entering as deputy commissioner. He played a major role in growing the league globally and sorting out details of having NBA players compete in the Olympics starting in 1992 at Barcelona.
Brown, nicknamed "The Rajah", was a 1970s star with the Indiana Pacers in the American Basketball Association, an NBA rival league. Brown, who once hit 21 shots in a row from the field, died of cancer in 1996.
Henderson was a US pioneer of the sport who learned the game at Harvard University in 1904 and brought the sport to inner-city youth in Washington and New York a century ago.
Guerin spent 13 seasons in the NBA, six times earning All-Star honors, and was 1968 NBA Coach of the Year for the St. Louis Hawks, who moved to Atlanta for the following season.
Source: AFP
