Washington, April 5 Five-time NBA champion Kobe Bryant and former International Basketball Federation (FIBA) secretary general Patrick Baumann are both to be posthumously inducted into the Naismith Basketball Memorial Hall of Fame.
Bryant and Baumann headlined a nine-person group announced on Saturday as this year's class of enshrinees into the Hall of Fame, Xinhua news reports.
Bryant, 41, who died in a helicopter crash in California in January, played for 20 years with the Los Angeles Lakers and won five NBA titles. He is considered one of the best basketball players of all time, and was part of the US team that won Olympic gold medals at Beijing 2008 and London 2012.
Baumann, 51, a former International Olympic Committee member, died after suffering a heart attack while attending the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires. Joining Bryant and Baumann in the Hall of Fame are three-time NBA Finals MVP Tim Duncan, 15-time NBA All-Star Kevin Garnett, two-time NBA champion coach Rudy Tomjanovich, four-time Olympic medalist Tamika Catchings, three-time NCAA National Championship coach Kim Mulkey, college basketball coach Barbara Stevens and Eddie Sutton, former Oklahoma State men's coach.
( With inputs from IANS )