Six legends to be inducted into Naismith Hall of Fame: reports

Six NBA legendary figures will be inducted into the 2019 Class of Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, according to three different sources.

They are William Charles "Bill" Fitch, Chuck Cooper, Sidney Moncrief, Paul Westphal, Bobby Jones and Vlad Divac.

First, Mark Berman from Fox 26 posted on Twitter that Bill Fitch, who led the Boston Celtics to win the 1987 NBA Championship, was picked for the Hall of Fame. Fitch, 86, worked as a head coach for 25 years and won twice the NBA Coach of the Year Award (1976 and 1980). He received the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award in the 2012-13 season and was selected into Top 10 Coaches in NBA History in 1996.

Fitch is the league's first head coach to lose 1,000 games. His 1,106 losses were also the second most defeats in NBA history next to the 1,155 losses of Lenny Wilkens. Meanwhile, Fitch won 944 games as coach, the 10th most in NBA history.

Then ESPN's Marc J. Spears reported that Chuck Cooper, one of the first African-American players to join the NBA, along with Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton and Earl Lloyd. Cooper was also the first African-American player drafted by an NBA team: the Celtics selected him with the No.14 overall pick in 1950.

In the 409 regular season games he played, Cooper claimed 6.7 points, 5.9 rebounds and 1.8 assists on average per game. He also played 26 playoff games in which he could get an average of 5.3 points, 4.6 rebounds and 1.0 assists. On February 5, 1984, Cooper died at the age of 57.

The rest four came from ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski. Sidney Moncrief us a five-time-NBA All-Star and two-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year. He was selected by the Milwaukee Bucks with the No.5 overall pick in the 1979 NBA Draft and played 10 of 11 years of his career there.

Moncrief should be seen as the first "Michael Jordan stopper" because it was him who gave Jordan his first regular season loss and playoff knockout. "When you play against Moncrief, you're in for a night of all-around basketball. He'll hound you everywhere you go, both ends of the court. You just expect it," Jordan previously told Los Angeles Times.

Paul Westphal, also five-time NBA All-Star, received Phoenix Suns Ring of Honor and had his No.44 jersey retired by the Phoenix Suns. Though his top honor was winning the 1974 NBA Championship with the Celtics, Westphal's career had a bigger spot left for Phoenix.

He was seen as the first super star in the Suns' history, Westphal chose Phoenix as the first stop of his coaching career. Having worked for four years as assistant coach, he took over from Cotton Fitzsimmons as the new boss of Phoenix in 1992. Back then he had a fantastic squad consisting of Kevin Johnson, Dan Majerle, Richard Dumas, Danny Ainge and Charles Barkley, who won the NBA MVP in the 1992-93 season. Unfortunately, their opponent in the Finals was Jordan and the Chicago Bulls who were craving the third consecutive ring. In the end, Westphal and his team lost 4-2.

Bobby Jones, four-time NBA All-Star, eight-time NBA All-Defensive First Team, won the 1983 NBA Championship with the Philadelphia 76ers as the first NBA Sixth Man of the Year in history. His No.24 jersey was retired by the 76ers.

"Bobby Jones gives you two hours of his blood, showers and goes home," said former 76ers general manager Pat Williams to NBA Today. "If I was going to ask a youngster to model after someone, I would pick Bobby Jones. He's a player who's totally selfless, who runs like a deer, jumps like a gazelle, plays with his head and heart each night, and then walks away from the court as if nothing happened," said Julius "Dr.J" Erving.

Vlade Divac's case was a little bit special. Woj pointed out that the Serbian center came from the International category, meaning that Divac's international career contributed a lot to his induction into the Hall of Fame, though he's also one of the seven players who could get 13,000 points, 9,000 rebounds, 3,000 assists and 1,500 blocks in NBA history.

Divac won the 1992 and the 2002 FIBA Basketball World Cup championships with former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. However, to many NBA fans, the first thing they remember about him was that the Los Angeles Lakers traded him for Kobe Bryant in 1996.

The other three promising finalists for the 2019 Class of Hall of Fame, Marques Johnson, Ben Wallace and Chris Webber, missed the enshrinement, according to Woj.

(CGTN)