Toni Kukoč Officially Becomes A Member of the Basketball Hall of Fame

The ceremony of the induction of the class of 2021 was held in Springfield, Massachusetts. The Split-born former basketball star was joined by other superstars – Chris Bosh, Yolanda Griffith, Lauren Jackson, Paul Pierce, Ben Wallace, and Chris Webber, and coaches, referees and contributors Rick Adelman, Bill Russell, Jay Wright, Val Ackerman, Howard Garfinkel, Cotton Fitzsimmons, Bob Dandridge, Pearl Moore and Clarence “Fats” Jenkins. As we’ve previously written, Kukoč was introduced to the Hall of Fame by his former team-mate, Michael Jordan, who recently visited Toni’s home town of Split, and Jerry Reinsdorf, Chicago Bulls owner for the past 35 years.

In his emotional speech, Toni remembered his childhood in Split and the importance of Hajduk Split in his youth. He also mentioned numerous coaches and other people who have helped him become the biggest European basketball superstar before his move to the NBA. He also remembered the 1992 Olympics finals, in which Croatia played against the original (some would say, the only) Dream Team, and how much Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen “kicked his butt” in the game, which made him work even harder to make sure he’d become a valuable Chicago Bulls player. That story is told wonderfully and with a lot of humour in the last year’s hit documentary series “Last Dance“. Toni thanked his former teammates and now both Hall of Famers, Dino Rađa and Vlade Divac, for being present at this ceremony.

You can see the entirety of Toni Kukoč’s speech below:

Toni Kukoč started his basketball career in Split’s Jugoplastika team, and he became Yugoslavia champion four times and won the European championship three times in a row (the team changed its name). After playing for Benetton Treviso for two years, he went to the Chicago Bulls, who drafted him as the 29th overall pick in 1990. With Bulls, he won the three NBA championships, and in 1996 was given the title of the “Sixth man of the year”. After the Bulls, he played for the Philadelphia 76ers, Atlanta Hawks, and Milwaukee Bucks. With the Yugoslavia and Croatia national teams, he won two Olympic silver medals (1988 in Seoul and 1992 in Barcelona), became a World Champion (1990 in Argentina), and was also the MVP of that entire tournament. Toni retired from active basketball in 2006, and is currently a special advisor to the President and COO of the Bulls, Michael Reinsdorf.

With Toni’s induction, Croatia is now the second nation, behind the USA, with the most people in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall Of Fame! The list of Croatian Hall of Famers includes the late great players Krešimir Ćosić (inducted in 1996) and Dražen Petrović (2002), legendary coach Mirko Novosel (2007) and Toni’s friend and long-time teammate Dino Rađa (2018). And there are some other names on the list of the Hall of Famers, such as George Mikan (inducted in the inaugural year, 1959!) and Rudy Tomjanovich (2020) who are known to be of Croatian descent. It will be interesting to see when the next Croatian player will become a member of the prestigious group since we have not had any major basketball success or any superstars for what feels like decades now.

 

Subscribe to our newsletter

the fields marked with * are required

Email: *
First name:
Last name:
Gender:	Male Female
Country:
Birthday:	[DD] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 [MM] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 [YYYY] 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023

Please don't insert text in the box below!