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Source:www.usatoday.comDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Scottie Pippen considers himself a double winner. He'll enter basketball's Hall of Fame as an individual and a member of the Dream Team on the same day.
"I'll be able to take one trip and kill both," Pippen said with a laugh.
Pippen, Karl Malone and two of the best U.S. Olympic teams — including that famed 1992 Dream Team — were selected Monday as part of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame's class of 2010. Malone and Pippen, both eligible for election for the first time, were part of that '92 Olympic team.Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss, high school coaching great Bob Hurley Sr., and WNBA star Cynthia Cooper also were in the class announced at the Final Four. NBA veterans Dennis Johnson and Gus Johnson and international star Maciel "Ubiratan" Pereira will be honored posthumously.
The 1960 and 1992 U.S. Olympic teams, which both won Olympic gold medals, will be part of the induction ceremony on Aug. 13.
The 1960 team, led by Jerry West and Oscar Robertson, won eight games by an average of 42.4 points in the Rome Olympics. The Dream Team, the first Olympic team made up primarily of NBA players, was even more dominant, with an average margin of victory of 43.8 points in sweeping eight games in Barcelona.
"Playing for your country is the ultimate," said Larry Bird, who represented the team at Monday's ceremony. "Our team was pretty special. We had some pretty good players."
Bird also was thrilled by Dennis Johnson's inclusion in the hall of fame.
