TORONTO — Two wildly popular basketball icons—one a pint-sized backcourt scorer, the other a 50-gallon drum of low-post diesel—have taken a major step toward entering the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
The Hall of Fame announced at its annual All-Star Weekend press event Friday that Allen Iverson and Shaquille O’Neal are the headliners in the 2016 class of finalists for induction. Final selections for induction will be made during the NCAA Final Four in April.
Iverson, 40, was a nine-time All-Star and four-time scoring champion who led the Sixers to the 2001 Finals. He retired from the NBA in 2010 with career averages of 26.