It seems likely at least one Buck will be a part of this year’s class in Springfield.
Catching up on some news we missed over the transition from NBA Cup bliss and the ensuing holiday here in the US, back on December 19th, the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame announced their list of candidates for the 2025 class. Unlike in some recent years, we’ve got multiple players and coaches associated with the Bucks on the ballot, including two currently very prominent names: head coach Doc Rivers, TV analyst and former All-NBA forward Marques Johnson, former TV analyst and original Buck Jon McGlocklin, and former All-Star forward Terry Cummings. Rivers is a first-time nominee.
I hate to break it to a certain segment of the Bucks fanbase and many other NBA fans around the league, but Doc Rivers is going to be in the Hall of Fame someday. While he had a decorated playing career, he’s of course nominated as a coach, already having been named one of the Top 15 Greatest Coaches in NBA history as part of the NBA 75th anniversary team back in 2021. And while you can make all the 3-1 blown lead jokes you want (which is fair) or whatever other criticism you might have, his credentials are rock-solid. Sure, he has only one title in 2008 and one Coach of the Year way back in 2000 (his first year in Orlando), but facts are facts. He’s 1130-796 in regular season action and 113-108 in the postseason, which is good enough for eighth and fourth all-time in wins, respectively. That’s a Hall of Fame coach, bar none.
Then we have two far less controversial figures in franchise history, known to most current Bucks fans as color commentators on TV broadcasts. Marques Johnson has become a beloved figure since returning to Milwaukee in 2015 and becoming a steadily increasing presence in the team’s media as he went full-time with the analyst gig, now hosting the excellent podcast Hear District. But as has long been discussed, he’s good enough to get in as a player too. We’ll explore his case some more on the site in the weeks to come, but his NBA résumé includes five All-Star appearances, three All-NBA selections (including first team in 1979), and the final NBA Comeback Player of the Year award in 1986. He has been a finalist several times before, most recently in 2022.
However, this is the Basketball Hall of Fame, not the NBA Hall of Fame, so we mustn’t discount his collegiate body of work at UCLA. That includes National Player of the Year in 1977, two All-American selections, and a national championship in the legendary John Wooden’s final year of coaching. He’s already a member of the College Basketball Hall of Fame, where he was inducted in 2013. Had he not suffered a serious neck injury at age 30, he likely would be in Springfield already with another year or three of similar production.
Finally, we have Jonny Mac, who has been synonymous with the Bucks and Wisconsin sports for over 50 years. Let’s give McGlocklin his due as a player as Milwaukee’s first All-Star in their first year of existence, selected in the 1968 expansion draft after three years in the NBA split between the Cincinnati Royals and San Diego Rockets. Known for his “rainbow” jumper from the corner, which would have worth another point if three-point line existed during his career, he was a key starter on the 1971 championship team, its fourth-leading scorer behind three Hall-of-Famers. He retired as a Buck in 1976 after 11 seasons.
While neither his accolades nor raw numbers aren’t enough to merit induction, he’s being nominated as a contributor, and what McGlocklin has done since retirement is probably even more important to the game as a whole. Until he started working part-time in 2013, he was on the Bucks broadcast team for 37 seasons. Next to play-by-play men Eddie Doucette and Jim Paschke, he was a beloved NBA broadcaster in his own right. Most crucially, though, he and Doucette established the Midwest Athletes Against Childhood Cancer (MACC) Fund in 1976 at his retirement ceremony. In no small part due to the over $45m in the fight against childhood cancer, the overall cure rate for all forms of childhood cancer rose from 20% to 80% during the first 50 years of the MACC Fund’s existence, per Translational Pediatrics.
Cummings hasn’t been a finalist for the Hall yet, but he’s on the ballot. He spent six years in Milwaukee across two separate stints, and was actually traded to the team for Marques Johnson in 1984 after two seasons with the Clippers. Teaming with Hall of Famers Sidney Moncrief and Jack Sikma, Cummings became one of the Bucks’ main stars upon arrival. He led the team in scoring and/or rebounding from 1984–89, picking up two All-Star and All-NBA (second and third team) selections in that span. Cummings played until 2000 with five other teams but never replicated his success in Milwaukee, where he spent one final year at age 34.
You can view the press release here. The finalists will be announced on February 14th at All-Star weekend, and those who then are selected for Springfield are unveiled on April 5th at the Final Four. I’m sure Doc will make it in very soon, if not on his first ballot. Not sure how likely McGlocklin’s induction is right now and Cummings will likely never get in, but ESPN’s Kevin Pelton thinks this may finally be Johnson’s year. Congrats to these three NBA and Milwaukee legends!