A trailblazing women’s class enters the Hall: 1996 US Olympic team, Parker, Delle Donne, Holdsclaw

Audio By Carbonatix

UNCASVILLE, Conn. (AP) — Dawn Staley and the 1996 Olympic women's basketball team paved the way for the WNBA and players such as Candace Parker, Elena Delle Donne and Chamique Holdsclaw.

The team that started the Americans' 30-year Olympic dominance will be enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on Saturday along with Parker, Delle Donne and Holdsclaw. They will be joined by NBA player Amar’e Stoudemire, longtime NBA official Joey Crawford, NBA coaches Doc Rivers and Mike D’Antoni and Gonzaga coach Mark Few in the Hall of Fame.

It's the second consecutive year that a stellar class of women will be enshrined in the Hall of Fame as Sue Bird, Maya Moore and Sylvia Fowles were inducted in 2025. Parker won three titles in the WNBA with three different teams: Los Angeles, Chicago and Las Vegas. She is the only player in league history to win both the MVP and Rookie of the Year in the same season.

She also won two titles while playing in college for Tennessee under Hall of Fame coach Pat Summitt, plus two Olympic gold medals and two WNBA MVP awards.

Delle Donne won two league MVP awards in 2015 and 2019, the second of which came when she led the Washington Mystics to their lone WNBA championship. Delle Donne became the first player in league history to shoot more than 50% from the field, 40% from behind the 3-point line and 90% from the free-throw line.

Holdsclaw won three straight titles at Tennessee from 1996-98, the first team to accomplish that. The 1998 championship was Tennessee’s first undefeated season at 39–0 and the Vols also set an NCAA record for the most wins in a season. Holdsclaw went on to have an 11-year WNBA career.

Crawford’s numbers were incredible: He officiated more than 2,500 regular-season games, nearly 400 more in the postseason and 50 of those were in the NBA Finals during his 39-year career.

Rivers won 1,194 regular-season games as an NBA coach, which is the sixth most in league history. He also led the Celtics to a championship in 2008.

Stoudemire, who was the only NBA player in this year’s class, was the NBA Rookie of the Year in 2003 and six-time All-Star. He spent the first eight years of his career with the Phoenix Suns, where he teamed with D’Antoni.

Few has won more than 770 games at Gonzaga in his career at the school. He set the NCAA Division I men’s coaching record by winning 81 games in his first three years at the school.

___

See AP’s full sports coverage here