The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame is set to welcome its newest class of inductees this weekend. The initial announcements for this esteemed group were made in April, coinciding with the NCAA Men`s Final Four.
While the 2025 NBA class, featuring Carmelo Anthony and Dwight Howard, is relatively small by modern standards, these two players left an indelible mark on basketball throughout the 2000s and 2010s. Their combined accolades include 18 All-Star selections and 14 All-NBA honors.
Concurrently, the WNBA`s historic three-player class—Sue Bird, Sylvia Fowles, and Maya Moore—is truly exceptional. All three were recognized as part of “The W25” during the WNBA`s 25th-anniversary celebration and were ranked among the top 10 players in league history at that time.
Ahead of the enshrinement ceremonies, we`ll take a closer look at how this year`s class stacks up on both the NBA and WNBA sides.
Anthony, Howard: Undisputed Hall of Famers
This year`s two-player NBA class is somewhat unconventional compared to recent years, especially under the direction of Hall of Fame chairman Jerry Colangelo, who has significantly expanded the pool of inductees. The last time a class featured so few former NBA players was in 2017, when George McGinnis and Tracy McGrady were honored.
However, the 2025 class stands out for including players whose Hall of Fame induction would be undeniable regardless of the criteria. According to the author`s method of evaluating careers by “championships added,” both Anthony and Howard surpassed the 0.5 mark, placing them among the top 100 players in league history. It`s noteworthy that most classes since 2017 have included at least one player who fell short of this threshold, and these two surpass all players inducted in 2024, except for Chauncey Billups.
This might surprise some in Howard`s case, given that the latter half of his NBA career was less stellar, which arguably contributed to his inexplicable omission from the league`s 75th-anniversary team chosen in 2021. Nevertheless, Howard`s Hall of Fame worthiness is cemented purely by his dominant first eight seasons with the Orlando Magic.
Although that period didn`t result in a championship title, Howard accumulated 0.8 “championships added” with Orlando, earning the Defensive Player of the Year award three times and making the All-NBA First Team every season from 2007-08 through 2011-12. While it might be tempting to attribute these successes to a perceived “center drought” in the league at the time, Howard also consistently finished in the top five for MVP voting for four consecutive seasons, peaking at second in 2010-11—a season where the author believes he should have won the award, which ultimately went to Derrick Rose.
Had Howard retired after his initial trade, he would rank 41st all-time in “MVP award shares” and 52nd in “championships added.” Howard didn`t significantly add to these totals during his tenure with six different teams after leaving the Magic, including three separate stints with the Los Angeles Lakers, where he eventually secured a title playing a key bench role in 2020. Despite this, he still finished in the top 40 all-time for “championships added,” considerably ahead of Anthony.
Carmelo Anthony, despite his consistent presence throughout his 19-year NBA career (which overlapped with Howard during their shared final season with the Lakers in 2021-22), never reached the same individual peak as Howard. Anthony only made the top five in MVP voting once (a third-place finish in 2012-13, when he led the New York Knicks to their only 50-win season between 2000 and 2024) and never earned an All-NBA First Team selection.
However, thanks to his 10 All-Star appearances and six All-NBA nods, Anthony still ranks 66th in “championships added” (based on awards estimates) and among the top 100 overall—making him an obvious Hall of Famer. And that`s just his NBA career. As one of the first modern “one-and-done” prospects in an era where players like Howard jumped directly to the league from high school, Anthony`s Hall of Fame résumé also includes leading Syracuse to a national championship as a freshman and a distinguished legacy with USA Basketball. (More on that shortly.)
While Anthony and Howard`s class may not compare to those comprised entirely of “inner-circle” Hall of Famers, such as the 2020 class (Kobe Bryant posthumously, Tim Duncan, and Kevin Garnett), only three classes since 2010 have surpassed this year`s in terms of average “championships added.”
Historic WNBA Class
Among this year`s three former WNBA players—the largest WNBA class ever—there is no trade-off between quality and quantity. Fowles and Moore, who together won two of Moore`s four championships with the Minnesota Lynx, were both MVPs, while Sue Bird arguably had the best career possible without reaching that specific award level.
When I ranked WNBA players using the “championships added” metric during the league`s 25th-anniversary season in 2021, all three players were in the top 14 all-time, with Moore (fourth) and Fowles (ninth) securing spots in the top 10.
In some respects, Maya Moore`s career offers a more extreme version of my hypothetical “Magic-only Howard career.” She played just eight WNBA seasons, stepping away from the game in her prime to dedicate herself to social justice issues and to help overturn the wrongful conviction of her now-husband, Jonathan Irons. Despite her brief career, Moore amassed seven All-WNBA selections and four top-three finishes in MVP voting. At the time of her retirement, she ranked second all-time in “playoff wins above replacement player (WARP)” according to my metric.
It is fitting that Sylvia Fowles, a four-time Defensive Player of the Year, is inducted alongside Dwight Howard, a three-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year. Fowles managed to sustain her dominance in the paint on both ends of the floor longer than Howard, earning her last Defensive Player of the Year award in 2021 and making the All-WNBA Second Team in 2022, her farewell season. This brought Fowles` total All-WNBA selections to eight, tied for sixth-most in league history with (among others) Sue Bird.
Sue Bird`s career spanned over two decades, with her 19 active playing seasons (excluding two missed due to injury) matching Anthony`s longevity, despite WNBA rules requiring Bird to play four seasons at UConn before being drafted first overall in 2002. Bird led the Seattle Storm to their last of four championships as their point guard in 2020, remaining an elite player into her 40s.
Bird, the WNBA`s all-time leader in assists, also holds the top spot for games played, minutes, and All-Star appearances (13, a number influenced by the WNBA often foregoing All-Star Games during years with international competitions). Fowles, meanwhile, was the league`s all-time rebounding leader upon her retirement, before being surpassed by Tina Charles last year.
As noted back in April, there is no doubt this is the greatest class of women`s basketball players ever to enter the Hall. The closest precedents were in 2021, when two MVPs (Yolanda Griffith and Bird`s long-time Seattle teammate Lauren Jackson) were inducted together, and pre-WNBA duos in 1993 (Ann Meyers and Soviet star Uljana Semjonova) and 1995 (Anne Donovan and Cheryl Miller).
With the WNBA continuing to grow in prominence, we should eventually see larger classes become the norm. For now, however, the Class of 2025 stands out for its remarkable WNBA accomplishments.
Shared Olympic Legacy
There`s a significant point of convergence between this year`s NBA and WNBA classes: their Olympic gold medals. All five players won at least one gold, with Bird (five), Fowles (four), and Anthony (three) ranking among the most decorated basketball players in Olympic history.
Only long-time teammate Diana Taurasi`s six gold medals surpass Bird`s total. On the men`s side, “Olympic Melo” shares second place with LeBron James, trailing Kevin Durant`s four gold medals.
Furthermore, Anthony and Howard are being honored by the Hall twice this year. Both will be inducted as part of the 2008 USA Basketball “Redeem Team” that clinched gold in Beijing, after falling short in Athens in 2004 (Anthony`s first Olympics) and the previous two FIBA Basketball World Cups. Bird and Fowles were also gold medalists in 2008, with Moore joining them in 2012 and 2016.
While Olympic success wasn`t strictly necessary for the induction of any of these five honorees, it undoubtedly reinforces the historic nature of this class.