Vince Carter and Chauncey Billups headlined the 2024 NBA Hall of Fame class. Thirteen members were also inducted into basketball history at the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield on Sunday night. Other names included Michael Cooper, Doug Collins and WNBA icon Seimone Augustus.
Billups, the No. 3 pick in the 1997 NBA Draft by the Boston Celtics, was traded to the Toronto Raptors just four months after his rookie season began. He played on seven teams over the course of his 17-year career and is a 2004 NBA champion, five-time All-Star, 2004 NBA Finals MVP, a two-time All-NBA Third Team and two-time NBA All-Defensive Second Team.
“I thank God for giving me the courage to just be me,” Billups said Sunday during his enshrinement speech. “… My role model was my dad, my pops. He taught me every single thing he knew about the game.”
Billups thanked the Celtics for drafting him as high as they did despite trading him.
“Being drafted that high, it didn’t guarantee instant success in the NBA. The Celtics traded me in my rookie year. Toronto traded me at the end of my rookie season,” he said. “… Toronto traded me to my hometown Denver Nuggets, and the Nuggets traded me after just 58 games. It was tough. They traded me to Orlando. And I know none of y’all remember me in Orlando.”
Billups then thanked the Minnesota Timberwolves for putting their “arms around him.” He spent two seasons in Minnesota, but it’s there he learned to be a “true point guard.”
“Sam Mitchell taught me to be a pro, and that changed my life forever,” Billups said.
The Pistons were the team that “found” Billups. He spent eight seasons with Detroit where he won his lone championship.
“Thank you for seeing something in me that most people didn’t at the time,” he said. “… It was in Detroit where I became known as a winner, which is all I ever wanted,”
Billups helped lead the Pistons to the 2004 NBA championship.
Carter was drafted fifth-overall in 1998 by the Golden State Warriors and was immediately traded to the Raptors and helped lead the franchise to their first-ever playoff appearance in 2000. While he never won an NBA championship, Carter was an eight-time All-Star, the 1999 Rookie of the Year, made the All-NBA Second Team in 2001, the All-NBA Third Team in 2000 and the NBA All-Rookie First Team in 1999.
“This journey started as just a dream … and possibly play in the NBA,” Carter said on Sunday. “I played football, but my love was truly basketball. … My priority was basketball.”
Carter played other sports growing up including volleyball. He said it was a way to keep him in shape for basketball.
The new Hall of Famer thanked the teams he played for and called out his former teammates by name including Jason Kidd, Steve Nash and Grant Hill. Carter spent his first seven seasons with the Raptors and he had a lot of success with the franchise.
“Thank you for those six years, it all started there. There were some amazing moments with that organization which created ‘Vinsanity,’” Carter said. “That’s why, without a doubt, I’m into the Hall of Fame as a Raptor.”
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Here is the full list of inductees who were enshrined on Sunday night:
North American Committee
Chauncey Billups — 2004 NBA champion
Vince Carter — Eight-time NBA All-Star
Michael Cooper — Five-time NBA champion
Walter Davis — Six-time NBA All-Star
Bo Ryan — Four-time Big Ten Coach of the Year
Charles Smith — 1989 NBA All-Rookie First Team
Women’s Committee
Seimone Augustus — Four-time WNBA champion
Men’s Veteran Committee
Dick Barnett — Two-time NBA champion
Women’s Veterans Committee
Harley Redin — 2018 recipient of Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame John W. Bunn Lifetime Achievement Award
International Committee
Michele Timms — 1999 WNBA All-Star
Contributors Committee
Doug Collins — Four-time NBA All-Star
Herb Simon — Owner of Pacers Sports & Entertainment, longest-tenured owner in NBA history
Jerry West — Fourteen-time NBA All-Star, 1972 NBA champion
