Steve Nash, Jason Kidd, Ray Allen Headline 2018 Basketball Hall Of Fame Finalists

The NBA announced Saturday the finalists for the 2018 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame class, and it’s a pretty sweet group: the 13 finalists include Steve Nash, Jason Kidd, Grant Hill, Ray Allen, and Chris Webber, among others:

The complete list of nine finalists from the North American Screening Committee includes: players Ray Allen, Maurice Cheeks, Grant Hill, Jason Kidd, Steve Nash and Chris Webber; coaches Charles “Lefty” Driesell and Rudy Tomjanovich; and referee Hugh Evans. The four finalists from the Women’s Screening Committee includes: players Katie Smith and Tina Thompson, coach Kim Mulkey, and Wayland Baptist University as a team.

I tend to take a more expansive view of sports halls of fame, and so it certainly looks to me like all 13 finalists should go in, perhaps even by virtue of being finalists. In fact, before today I probably would’ve guessed that both “Lefty” Driesell and Rudy Tomjanovich were already in. 11 of 14 finalists from 2017 were inducted: the four who weren’t—Evans, Webber, Mulky, and Tomjanovich—are finalists again this year. I will be extremely annoyed if any of the NBA players among the finalists are not inducted.