Seven basketball legends and an illustrious coach were officially inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame as members of the Class of 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The prestigious Enshrinement Ceremony was held at the Kraftwerk Berlin, alongside the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup 2026 Draw, celebrating the enduring legacy of the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This year’s Class included Sue Bird (USA), C\u00e9line Dumerc (France), Clarisse Machanguana (Mozambique), Dirk Nowitzki (Germany), Ludwik Mi\u0119tta\u2011Miko\u0142ajewicz (Poland), Ismenia Pauchard (Chile), Hidayet T\u00fcrko\u011flu (T\u00fcrkiye), and Wang Zhizhi (China).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bird expressed on the global dimension of the FIBA Hall of Fame: “I’ve been lucky to have a lot of meaningful moments in my career, but this one feels different because it isn’t about one team, or one league, or one city. It’s about the game on a global level.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bird was the heartbeat of an all-conquering USA side for almost two decades. This is no better underlined than by her headline and epic haul of five consecutive Olympic gold medals – plus no fewer than four FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup titles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The guard was also a serial winner at club level, lifting EuroLeague Women silverware five times – including a stunning four straight titles with storied Russian juggernauts, Sparta&K M.R Vidnoje.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her sparkling resume was also decorated with four WNBA Championship titles – all attained with Seattle Storm where she spent her entire WNBA career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During his induction speech, Nowitzki reflected on the deeper impact of sport, saying: “Sport has a unique way of shaping qualities like integrity and character. When I look back at my own journey today, I realize I owe sport so much more than this honor tonight. I wasn’t discovered through sport, through sport I discovered life and the world.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dirk Nowitzki represented Germany for two decades and was MVP of the FIBA Basketball World Cup in 2002 and at FIBA EuroBasket 2005.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Seven basketball legends and an illustrious coach were officially inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame as members<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[103,52],"class_list":["post-11953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-release","tag-awards","tag-basketball"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/FIBA-Hall-of-Fame-2026-scaled.jpg",2560,1707,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/FIBA-Hall-of-Fame-2026-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/FIBA-Hall-of-Fame-2026-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/FIBA-Hall-of-Fame-2026-768x512.jpg",640,427,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/FIBA-Hall-of-Fame-2026-1024x683.jpg",640,427,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/FIBA-Hall-of-Fame-2026-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/FIBA-Hall-of-Fame-2026-2048x1365.jpg",2048,1365,true],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/FIBA-Hall-of-Fame-2026-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/FIBA-Hall-of-Fame-2026-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"Press Release<\/a>","tag_info":"Press Release","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/FIBA-Hall-of-Fame-2026-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11953"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11955,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11953\/revisions\/11955"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}