New York Knicks

George Karl lost 19 of his first 21 games as an NBA coach. Tim Hardaway spent hours dribbling alone in an unfinished basement when it was too cold to go outside in his native Chicago. Theresa Grentz&rsquo;s family lost all its belongings in a 1970 house fire, leaving her with only the yellow pajamas she was wearing at the time.
There were no signs that basketball immortality awaited any of them.
Now, they&rsquo;re members of the most sought-after club in the game. Karl, Hardaway and Grentz are among 13 people who will be officially enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts on Saturday night -- a group that largely was tied together by what they overcame on their way to a long list of accomplishments that include NCAA titles, NBA titles and Olympic gold medals.
&ldquo;You learn from the adversity,&rdquo; Grentz said Friday. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t have to have everything perfect. You take what you have, make that work, make the most of what you have, not what you think you need. There we were, I had absolutely nothing, but yet tomorrow night &mdash; and I&rsquo;m a nervous wreck about this &mdash; I&rsquo;m going in the Hall of Fame.&rdquo;
Karl was one of five people selected by the North American Committee, alongside West Virginia coach Bob Huggins, the late referee Hugh Evans and&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/san-antonio-spurs-winter-olympics-nba-sports-massachusetts-b0c090443bd6a3a40518bd7340ecfbdb" target="_blank" rel="noopener">longtime NBA stars Manu Ginobili</a> and Tim Hardaway.
Swin Cash, Marianne Stanley and Lindsay Whalen were selected by the women&rsquo;s committee. Longtime coaches Del Harris and Larry Costello were picked by the contributor committee, while six-time All-Star Lou Hudson was chosen by the veterans committee. Grentz &mdash; who played for the legendary Immaculata program and guided Rutgers to the final AIAW title in 1982 &mdash; was chosen by the women&rsquo;s veteran committee and FIBA Hall of Famer Radivoj Korac by the international committee.
Karl&rsquo;s career as an NBA coach started in 1984 with the Cleveland Cavaliers, starting 0-9 and 2-19, but rallying that season to face Boston in the opening round of the playoffs. The Celtics won the series 3-1, and Karl remains of the belief that the Celtics got favorable whistles.
&ldquo;They got all the calls,&rdquo; Karl lamented.
Maybe so. But half a lifetime later, Karl got the Hall&rsquo;s call.
Harris&rsquo; coaching career included him working with numerous Hall of Fame players &mdash; Rick Barry, Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, Yao Ming and Magic Johnson among them &mdash; along with some sure-fire future ones like Dirk Nowitzki.
&ldquo;To think that still, somehow or another, I contributed to the game and not just played it or coached it, it&rsquo;s more humbling to me than anything I would have ever thought about,&rdquo; Harris said.
Hardaway was a finalist four other times for the Hall, never getting in. This year&rsquo;s call from Hall of Fame President and CEO John Doleva was one he didn&rsquo;t want to take, for fear that he was about to go 0-for-5.
&ldquo;Shaking, sweating, lot of emotions going on,&rdquo; Hardaway said of that moment. &ldquo;Saw the Hall of Fame number come through my phone. Did not want to answer the phone because I didn&rsquo;t want to take another rejection.&rdquo;
He&rsquo;ll never have to worry about that again.
Whalen, a four-time WNBA champion and now the coach at her alma mater Minnesota, said one of the first great teams she saw in person was the 2002 UConn Huskies &mdash; a team that featured Cash. And it wasn&rsquo;t lost on Whalen that she is entering the Hall alongside Cash, Grentz and Stanley, who also played at Immaculata before embarking on a long coaching career.
&ldquo;Myself and Theresa, Marianne, Swin, going in together, I think we represent a lot of what&rsquo;s been great with women&rsquo;s basketball over the years,&rdquo; Whalen said. &ldquo;And I think there&rsquo;s young girls and women right now that are sitting there that are seeing us and that can become a realistic goal and dream for them if they work hard.&rdquo;
Among the five presenters that Cash selected to be alongside her for Saturday&rsquo;s ceremony is her UConn coach, Geno Auriemma.
Cash lauded Auriemma for his constant pursuit of nothing but excellence.
&ldquo;You were trying to be the best and practices were always harder than a game,&rdquo; said Cash, a two-time NCAA champion, three-time WNBA champion, two-time Olympic gold medalist and now part of the front office with the NBA&rsquo;s New Orleans Pelicans. &ldquo;But that prepared you mentally to understand what you wanted to achieve. And every year, the bar was a national championship. With some people, the bar is a conference championship or &lsquo;Hey, we made the tournament.&rsquo; Whereas, at Connecticut, we hang banners.&rdquo;
Also now members of the Hall are three selections made by the Early African-American Pioneer Committee: Wyatt &ldquo;Sonny&rdquo; Boswell, Inman Jackson and Albert &ldquo;Runt&rdquo; Pullins &mdash; all of them, among other things, having been members of the Harlem Globetrotters.
Huggins &mdash; who, like Whalen, is also coaching at his alma mater &mdash; deflected credit for his 916 career wins as a college coach, 844 of those coming at the Division I level.
&ldquo;Good players,&rdquo; Huggins said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been fortunate.&rdquo;

George Karl, Tim Hardaway and Manu Ginobili headline this year's class of Basketball-Hall-of-Fame inductees.

Basketball Hall of Fame set to welcome 13 new inductees

In the 2020 Summer Olympics, which took place in 2021 due to COVID, France matched up with Team USA in the men&rsquo;s basketball gold-medal game for the third time.
The first gold-medal meeting between the two nations took place was in 1948, with France <a href="https://www.usab.com/history/national-team-mens/games-of-the-xivth-olympiad-1948.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noopener">losing 65-21 in that final</a>.
Despite having been historically good since then, it took another 52 years for the Frenchmen to return to that stage for a second time; unfortunately, Team USA awaited again. The game was much closer in 2000 than in 1948, but the Americans &mdash; led by Vince Carter, Kevin Garnett, Alonzo Mourning and Ray Allen among others &mdash; outlasted Antoine Rigaudeau, Laurent Sciarra, Frederic Weis and France, 85-75.
(No, that wasn&rsquo;t the game Carter <a href="https://youtu.be/WihbbVEmppI" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dunked on Weis</a>; that was earlier in The Games.)
And in last year&rsquo;s gold-medal game, in the countries' third meeting on that stage, France <a href="https://www.espn.com/mens-olympics-basketball/boxscore/_/gameId/401347899" target="_blank" rel="noopener">got even closer</a>.
France's best Olympic team ever was defeated by the Americans, 87-82. Team USA started Damian Lillard, Jrue Holiday, Devin Booker, Kevin Durant and Bam Adebayo, answering the French quintet of Nando De Colo, Evan Fournier, Nicolas Batum, Guerschon Yabusele and Rudy Gobert.
Contributions from the U.S. bench came from Jayson Tatum, Zach LaVine, Draymond Green and Khris Middleton, while Timoth&eacute; Luwawu-Cabarrot, Frank Ntikilina, Thomas Heurtel and Moustapha Fall were key components of France's second unit. The Frenchmen trailed by as little as 3 points with just eight seconds remaining before Durant iced the game with two free throws.
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Now imagine that game with Joel Embiid... playing for France.
The 28-year-old NBA MVP candidate, who was born and raised in Cameroon and has never played for his home national team (despite <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/things-to-monitor-as-the-next-fiba-world-cups-next-qualifying-window-arrives">coming close in 2017</a>), is reportedly <a href="https://www.si.com/nba/2022/05/02/joel-embiid-could-change-nationality-play-french-national-team-report">eyeing an opportunity to suit up for France</a>.
Embiid has family in France, and is <a href="https://rmcsport.bfmtv.com/basket/basket-joel-embiid-superstar-de-nba-se-rapproche-de-l-equipe-de-france_AV-202205020664.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">considering changing his nationality</a> in order to play for the Frenchmen in the 2024 Olympic Games, where they&rsquo;d enter as one of the favorites to challenge Team USA again for the gold. According to French basketball general manager Boris Diaw, Embiid is <a href="https://actucameroun.com/2022/05/03/boris-diaw-manager-general-de-lequipe-de-france-confirme-les-demarches-entamees-par-joel-embiid-pour-jouer-avec-les-bleus-en-vue-des-jo-2024/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">taking the necessary steps</a>.
(Looks like we won't ever see the Embiid-Pascal Siakam tandem for Cameroon, unfortunately.)
In FIBA, each team is allowed one naturalized player on its roster. Current and recent instances of this include American-born players to suit up for different countries, such as Javonte Green (Montenegro), Matt Costello (Ivory Coast), Anthony Randolph (Slovenia) and Andray Blatche (Philippines). Non-American examples include Congolese center Serge Ibaka playing for Spain, Cuban native Ismael Romero playing for Puerto Rico and French-born Aaron Cel playing for Poland. Another famous occasion where this occurred saw Hakeem Olajuwon playing with Team USA in the 1990s.
Regarding American-born WNBA players, known examples include Bria Hartley representing France, Becky Hammon representing Russia and Leilani Mitchell representing Australia. Non-American examples in the women&rsquo;s game include Bahamian Jonquel Jones playing for Bosnia and Herzegovina and Senegal native Astou Ndour playing for Spain.
Now, it may be long before we see Embiid actually playing for France if this process gets finalized, or less than we think if he decides not to wait for the Olympics.
The next major European basketball tournament is EuroBasket 2022, <a href="https://www.fiba.basketball/eurobasket/2022">which will run from Sept. 1-18 later this year</a> across Italy, Germany, Georgia and the Czech Republic. France will be one of 24 teams competing, but seeing Embiid there would be surprising.
The 2023 FIBA World Cup, which France is <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/where-things-stand-after-the-second-window-of-fiba-world-cup-qualifiers">currently attempting to qualify for</a>, will take place from Aug. 25 through Sept. 10, 2023. Qualifying for the World Cup will run through next February before the final pool of 32 teams gets decided.
And the 2024 Summer Olympics, assuming we avoid another global pandemic, is expected to actually run that summer. The host of the Games? France, who will automatically qualify for the tournament <a href="https://www.fiba.basketball/pr-n34-brazils-national-teams-granted-automatic-places-at-2016-olympic-basketball-tournament" target="_blank" rel="noopener">by rule</a>. Embiid will be 30 years old by the next Olympics.
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Since Embiid is reportedly targeting the 2024 Games, let&rsquo;s look at some players who might be his teammates.
The oldest players from the silver-medal-winning squad last summer were De Colo and Batum, who&rsquo;ll be 37 and 35 by the 2024 Games, so expect many of the same players to run it back if possible. One name that could join the fray is Boston Celtics second-round pick Juhann Begarin, who is just 19 years old and was the No. 45 overall selection last summer. Isma&euml;l Kamagate and Hugo Besson, both of whom are 21, are in the 2022 NBA Draft pool; the same goes for 18-year-old Ousmane Dieng, who is quickly rising up draft boards. There's also plenty of hype surrounding fellow 18-year-old, ASVEL star and 7-foot-2 sensation Victor Wembanyama &mdash; a lock to be a high draft pick in 2023.
<a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/draft">BasketballNews.com Sr. NBA Draft Analyst Matt Babcock</a> has Dieng going No. 21 overall, Kamagate at No. 40 and Besson at No. 51.
But really, there&rsquo;s one question we need to answer, and it has to do with a three-time Defensive Player of the Year already on the roster who holds down the 5 position. Could an Embiid and Gobert frontcourt lead France over Team USA?
If you haven&rsquo;t realized, the American pool of bigs is slighter than you think.
Many of the best centers in the NBA aren&rsquo;t American and don&rsquo;t represent America internationally. Examples include Embiid, Gobert, Nikola Jokić (Serbia), Karl-Anthony Towns (Dominican Republic), Nikola Vučević (Montenegro), Kristaps Porziņģis (Latvia), Clint Capela (Switzerland) and Jonas Valančiūnas (Lithuania).
The best centers that have represented Team USA, and/or have Team USA eligibility, have been Adebayo, Green, Jarrett Allen and JaVale McGee. Deandre Ayton (Bahamas) is a player to watch <a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/nba/suns/2021/06/22/suns-big-deandre-ayton-ideal-team-usa-2024-summer-olympics-paris/5307682001/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">who could represent Team USA in the future</a>, along with younger bigs like Evan Mobley and Chet Holmgren.
Assuming health, so the 2024 American team could start either Adebayo, Ayton or Allen, if not 2 of the 3. Team USA is generally harder to guess in advance, but your starting lineup could look like some combination of Ja Morant, Anthony Edwards, Booker, Tatum and Adebayo. Maybe, to match size, Ayton gets in there instead of Edwards.
Maybe a Trae Young, LaMelo Ball, Bradley Beal, Jaylen Brown and Donovan Mitchell sneak into the backcourt instead. Maybe someone we&rsquo;re not projecting to make another huge leap does &mdash; like Jordan Poole, Tyler Herro or Tyrese Maxey &mdash; or maybe Jaden Ivey or Jabari Smith are more ready than we think by 2024. Even so, you&rsquo;d throw, at best, Adebayo, Ayton, Allen, and Mobley at the Embiid-Gobert combo, and that tandem could be backed up by Dieng, Yabusele, and Vincent Poirier for France.
It&rsquo;s a lot to project, no doubt, but giving <a href="https://www.fiba.basketball/rankingmen" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the No. 4 team in the world</a> a top-four player in the world could be what it takes for someone to snatch the gold medal away from Team USA in the Olympics for the first time since 2004.
But a lot can happen in two years, so we'll table this... for now.&nbsp;
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