{"id":605205,"date":"2026-02-15T21:48:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T21:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/605205\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T21:48:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T21:48:19","slug":"former-nets-blake-griffin-buck-williams-finalists-for-naismith-hof","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/605205\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Nets Blake Griffin, Buck Williams finalists for Naismith HOF"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Brooklyn Nets<\/a> have had plenty of great players take the floor for the franchise over the organization’s history whether the team was in New Jersey or in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is waiting for the next time that the franchise can compete for a championship with hopefully a historic player, but the good news is that two great former Nets<\/a> players will be given the ultimate honor.<\/p>\n

The Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame recently announced<\/a> the finalists for the 2026 class and among those finalists are two players that spent some time with the Nets. Those two players are forward Blake Griffin and forward Buck William as they join finalists that includes people like former NBA referee Joey Crawford, Milwaukee Bucks<\/a> head coach Doc Rivers, and former WNBA legend Candace Parker.<\/p>\n

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Griffin was with the Nets from 2021 to 2022 and while his time<\/a> in Brooklyn was after his prime days with the Los Angeles Clippers<\/a> and Detroit Pistons<\/a>, he still brought some exciting moments to the Nets fanbase. Griffin averaged 7.5 points, 4.3 rebounds, and 2.0 assists per game while shooting 45.0% from the field and 30.5% from three-point land in 82 games played with the team.<\/p>\n

Williams spent<\/a> the first half of his career with the Nets, then in New Jersey, after being selected with the third overall pick in the 1981 NBA Draft out of Maryland. In 635 games played for the Nets, Williams averaged 16.4 points, 11.9 rebounds, and 1.1 blocks per contest while shooting 55.0% from the floor and 64.9% from the free-throw line before going on to play for the Portland Trail Blazers<\/a> and New York Knicks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While Griffin and Williams have made it as finalists for the class of 2026, they will still have to be put forth in front of the Honors Committee to see who will actually be inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame. Assuming that both of them make it when the class is announced in April during the Final Four, the Nets could have two more players making it into the Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Nets Wire: Former Nets Blake Griffin, Buck Williams finalists for Naismith HOF<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Brooklyn Nets have had plenty of great players take the floor for the franchise over the organization’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3767],"tags":[7,1688,2545,670,247,3803,80642,188,2660,7149,135,121,6,671,191,471,4333],"class_list":{"0":"post-605205","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn-nets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-basketball-hall-of-fame","10":"tag-blake-griffin","11":"tag-brooklyn","12":"tag-brooklyn-nets","13":"tag-brooklynnets","14":"tag-buck-william","15":"tag-detroit-pistons","16":"tag-doc-rivers","17":"tag-finalists","18":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","19":"tag-milwaukee-bucks","20":"tag-nba","21":"tag-nets","22":"tag-new-york-knicks","23":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","24":"tag-the-nets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}