NBA Fanatics Billy Crystal And Spike Lee Awarded Basketball Hall Of Fame Status

LOADINGERROR LOADINGSPRINGFIELD, Mass.(AP) — Honored for his devotion to a basketball team that doesn’t have a Hall of Fame history, Billy Crystal couldn’t help but note the irony.“How strange to be getting a ring before any of the Clippers,” he said.The actor is being added to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame’s James F.

Goldstein SuperFan Gallery and took part in a ceremony Sunday along with fellow entertainer and filmmaker Spike Lee and Philadelphia businessman Alan Horwitz.Longtime Lakers fan Jack Nicholson is also being added but the three-time Academy Award winner was not able to attend.Advertisement Crystal wore a sports jacket and slacks, while Lee and Horwitz dressed as if they were sitting courtside.

Lee, with an orange vest over a New York sweatshirt and topped by a black Knicks bucket hat, sparred with the opposition as if he was in his seat at Madison Square Garden.“I saw some Boston Celtic green.Uh-uh,” he said, before showing the fans that he had brought coach Red Holzman’s 1973 NBA championship ring, the last one won by the Knicks.“It’s been a long time, but I think this year it’s going to be orange-and-blue skies,” Lee said.(L-R) Inductees Spike Lee, Billy Crystal and Philadelphia businessman Alan Horwitz attend a SuperFan ceremony during the 2024 Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame enshrinement celebrations on October 13, 2024.Joe Buglewicz via Getty ImagesHorwitz, known as the 76ers’ Sixth Man, wore a 76ers sweatshirt, a blue Sixers hat and blue-and-white colored sneakers.

He got choked up while thinking about how proud his mother would have been had she known about his honor.Advertisement Their time as basketball fans goes back more than five decades.Horwitz watched the Philadelphia Warriors when Wilt Chamberlain was a rookie in 1959.

Crystal was in high school a couple of years earlier when he was drawn to another high schooler, Larry Brown, who would later be enshrined after winning championshi...