Kobe. Timmy. KG.
The full names weren't necessary. The first name, or even the initials, were enough. Such was the star power that Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett carried throughout their basketball careers and beyond. Each was an NBA champion, an MVP, an Olympic gold medalist, an annual lock for All-Star and All-Defensive teams.
And now the ultimate honor comes their way: On Saturday night in Uncasville, Connecticut, all of them will officially become members of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, each as a first-ballot inductee.
"I like to think that all three of us pushed each other to be the best that we could be," Garnett said last year, shortly after learning he was part of the same class with Bryant and Duncan. "To be going in such a class like this, I'm more than honored."
The combined numbers for the trio are impressive: 11 NBA championships (with Bryant and Duncan getting five apiece), 48 All-Star nods, more than 86,000 career points and roughly $900 million in NBA salaries - a figure that doesn't take into account their off-court earnings. Bryant is the No. 4 scorer in NBA history, Duncan 15th, Garnett 18th.
"When we selected this group for induction, we immediately knew that this would be, maybe, one of the great classes of all-time," said Jerry Colangelo, the chairman of the Hall of Fame's Board of Governors. "I mean, the people going in, the three headliners in Kobe and Garnett and Tim Duncan ... that says it all."
There are nine members of the class that will be enshrined Saturday, a year later than planned due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Alongside Bryant, Duncan and Garnett will be new LSU women's coach and former Baylor coach Kim Mulkey, former Bentley coach Barbara Stevens, four-time Olympic gold medalist Tamika Catchings, two-time NBA champion coach Rudy Tomjanovich, three-time Final Four coach Eddie Sutton and former FIBA secretary general Patrick Baumann. Bryant, Sutton and Baumann will all be enshrined posthumously.
Duncan averaged 19.0 points, 10.8 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 2.2 blocks per game in 19 NBA seasons with the San Antonio Spurs. He was the NCAA player of the year in 1997 at Wake Forest, the NBA's top rookie the following year, a champion a year after that - and the accolades just kept coming.
"On a professional level, the most concise way to put it is, 'No Duncan, no championships,'" said Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, who coached Duncan for his entire career. "And on a personal level, I love the guy."
Duncan never sought the spotlight as a player. Last season, when he returned to the Spurs as an assistant coach for a year, he shunned almost anything that would have brought attention his way. He prefers to keep things simple, and what made him click with the Spurs - and with Popovich - is a shared belief that the simple way isn't an impediment to greatness.
Duncan's formula for winning, he said in an interview with the Spurs ahead of this weekend's ceremony, wasn't that complicated: "I just loved playing, hated losing - that's a big one, I don't think it gets enough credit - and an organization kind of committed to putting the best things in place to give a city, a team, a player like myself an opportunity to win year in and year out."
AP file photo by Winslow Townson / Kevin Garnett played for the Minnesota Timberwolves, Boston Celtics and Brooklyn Nets during a 21-year NBA career that will be celebrated with induction Saturday night into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. He'll be joined by former San Antonio Spurs star Tim Duncan and late Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant as the big three names in the nine-member 2020 class being inducted a year late due to the pandemic.Garnett was different. Demonstrative, loud, talking trash, he pushed opponents' buttons with ease. Like Bryant, he went straight to the NBA out of high school and didn't need much time before making an impact. He played 21 seasons - he had stints with the Minnesota Timberwolves, Boston Celtics and Brooklyn Nets - and averaged 17.8 points, 10.0 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game.
"I never accepted losing," he said.
Philadelphia 76ers coach Doc Rivers, Garnett's longtime coach in Boston, including for the 2008 title season, said the same thing in a different way: "The thing about Kevin, he only wanted to win."
Bryant averaged 25.0 points, 5.2 rebounds and 4.7 assists per game in his 20 NBA seasons, all with the Los Angeles Lakers. On Jan. 22, 2006, he poured in 81 points against the Toronto Raptors, second on the league's list of single-game scoring performances. Ten years later, he scored 60 against the Utah Jazz in his final NBA game - two years before winning an Academy Award as his second act as a storyteller was becoming an instant success.
His death with eight others, including 13-year-old daughter Gianna, in a helicopter crash on Jan. 26, 2020, came less than 24 hours after Lakers star LeBron James passed Bryant to reach No. 3 the NBA's career scoring list.
Bryant was, and is, iconic. Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid, an MVP candidate this season, remembers the first NBA game he ever watched - and who starred in that game. It was Bryant, and Embiid immediately had a hero.
In his formative years, smitten with watching Bryant play, Embiid would sometimes defy the 9 p.m. bedtime edict in his home, sneak into the TV room, turn on the tube and turn off the volume so he could watch his favorite player. And this, mind you, was before Embiid even started playing the game himself.
Half a world away, Bryant was planting seeds for basketball greatness into the psyche of a kid who thought at that time his future might be in soccer.
"That was also when I fell in love with basketball, and that's why he became my favorite player," Embiid said. "I mean, I would say that I am probably here because of him. ... He was my favorite player. When you watch the way I play basketball and the moves that I've added, especially when it comes from fadeaways over both shoulders, that comes from a lot of tapes of Kobe's games.
"I miss him a lot. I wish he was still here with us."