{"id":30120,"date":"2016-04-05T08:01:12","date_gmt":"2016-04-05T15:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/iverson-oneal-yao-lead-group-elected-into-hall-of-fame\/"},"modified":"2016-04-05T08:01:12","modified_gmt":"2016-04-05T15:01:12","slug":"iverson-oneal-yao-lead-group-elected-into-hall-of-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/iverson-oneal-yao-lead-group-elected-into-hall-of-fame\/","title":{"rendered":"Iverson, O’Neal, Yao lead group elected into Hall of Fame"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOUSTON<\/strong> \u2014 Despite being elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame on Monday, Allen Iverson knows he still won\u2019t be able to shake his infamous rant about practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m in the Hall of Fame and I can go outside today and go to a restaurant or whatever and somebody will say to me: \u2018Practice? We talking about practice,\u2019\u201d he said with a laugh, adding that even his children mock him for the 2002 news conference in which he repeated the phrase about 20 times. \u201cMan, I am a Hall of Famer and that\u2019s all you can think about \u2014 me saying practice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with Iverson, Shaquille O\u2019Neal, Yao Ming, Sheryl Swoopes, Tom Izzo and Jerry Reinsdorf were elected to the Hall of Fame on Monday.<\/p>\n

The selections were announced in Houston in advance of Monday night\u2019s NCAA Tournament championship game between North Carolina and Villanova.<\/p>\n

Iverson, selected by the Philadelphia 76ers with the first overall pick in the 1996 NBA draft, was named rookie of the year and went on to become an 11-time All-Star. John Thompson, his coach at Georgetown, was there to celebrate the latest honor with his former player.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m proud of the fact of knowing him as a person and knowing the challenges he\u2019s had to overcome,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cAllen is legitimate. There\u2019s a lot of impersonators of what he is. But he is a kid who came from basically nothing and had to be thrust into a whole different way of life and been successful as he has been in his profession.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iverson was asked to reminisce on the impressive dunking he did in his career despite being only 6-feet tall.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t even touch the backboard now,\u201d the 40-year-old lamented.<\/p>\n

\u201cI ain\u2019t lying. Like I can\u2019t even touch the backboard. It is over.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neal, the top overall pick in the 1992 draft by the Orlando Magic, was the NBA MVP in 2000, a three-time NBA Finals MVP and 15-time All-Star. When he was introduced Monday at the media event, the jokester scolded the announcer for not mentioning his work in the 1996 movie \u201cKazaam,\u201d in which he played a genie.<\/p>\n

The man who has a plethora of nicknames was asked if he hopes to get a new one when he\u2019s inducted into the hall in September.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, just Hall of Famer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neal had a simple mindset when he entered the NBA, one that he got from his love of karate movies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn all your karate movies, you\u2019ve got the young karate warrior and he goes all these places and he sees all these masters and he has to take them out,\u201d O\u2019Neal said. \u201cSo I was gunning for everybody. I was gunning for all the superstars, I was gunning for all the big guys, because I wanted their spot and that was my motivation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yao, the top overall pick in 2002 by the Houston Rockets, was an eight-time All-Star. He did not attend the event because he was in Shanghai.<\/p>\n

Swoopes helped Texas Tech to a national title, won four WNBA titles with the Houston Comets, was a three-time WNBA MVP and won three Olympic gold medals.<\/p>\n

She grew up in the small West Texas town of Brownfield and hopes that her election can be an inspiration to children from small towns everywhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me to be sitting here today as a Hall of Famer I hope that all those kids out there that have ever doubted that things like this can happen to you, I\u2019m a living example and living proof that if you trust in God and you work hard and believe in yourself and you surround yourself with the right people, anything can happen,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Izzo, Michigan\u2019s State coach, won a national title in 2000 and has taken the Spartans to the Final Four seven times.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the biggest thrill of my life,\u201d Izzo said. \u201cI needed a lot of other guys to help me get here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reinsdorf has been the owner of the Chicago Bulls and White Sox for more than two decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn award like this has to be the most important accomplishment you can have,\u201d he said. \u201cThe fact is I\u2019m here because of what a lot of other people did.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HOUSTON \u2014 Despite being elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame on Monday, Allen Iverson knows he still won\u2019t be able to shake his infamous rant about practice. \u201cI\u2019m in the Hall of Fame and I can go outside today and go to a restaurant or whatever and somebody will say to me: \u2018Practice? We […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-30120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30120"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=30120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}