Dirk Nowitzki, Dwyane Wade top Basketball Hall of Fame finalists

SALT LAKE CITY — Dwyane Wade, Dirk Nowitzki, Pau Gasol and Gregg Popovich headline the list of finalists for the 2023 class of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, it was announced Friday as part of NBA All-Star weekend.

«I love the class,» Jerry Colangelo, chairman for the Hall of Fame, said in a news conference. «I think this is a loaded class.… I think this is unique in that we have a lot of first time people and it's unusual when somebody makes it on the first ballot. But this is going to be that unique of class. Because there could be four or five first timers. So, I'm very excited about it.»

Wade won three championships with the Miami Heat and was NBA Finals MVP in 2006, a 13-time All-Star and an Olympic gold medalist for USA basketball in 2008.

Nowitzki is No. 6 on the NBA's all-time scoring list with 31,550 points, was named league MVP in 2007 and won a championship with the Dallas Mavericks in 2011, when he was named Finals MVP.

Gasol won two championships with the Los Angeles Lakers alongside Kobe Bryant and was a six-time All-Star and two-time Olympic silver medalist for Spain.

Popovich is the NBA's all-time leader win coaching wins and guided the San Antonio Spurs to five championships.

Other player finalists included former Spurs point guard and 2007 Finals MVP Tony Parker; Becky Hammon, a six-time All-Star in her WNBA career; and Jennifer Azzi, a collegiate national champion at Stanford, an Olympic gold medalist for USA Basketball in 1996 and a five-year WNBA veteran.

Other coaching finalists included Purdue men's basketball all-time wins leader Gene Keady; Marian Washington, who amassed 560 wins in 31 years coaching the University of Kansas women's team; Gary Blair, who led Texas A&M to the