Consecration for Tony Parker. The former San Antonio Spurs point guard became, on the night of Saturday August 12 to Sunday August 13, the first French player to join the “Hall of Fame”, the World Basketball Hall of Fame, where the greatest legends of the orange ball are inducted. The ceremony, which takes place every year, took place in Springfield (Massachusetts).
Arrived in the NBA in 2001, at the age of 19, the Frenchman will have passed 18 seasons on the other side of the Atlantic, including 17 with the San Antonio Spurs franchise. As part of this team, Parker won four times the NBA and was picked six times to appear in the All-Star Game. After a summary in pictures of his career that brought tears to his eyes, Tony Parker launched into a speech, which he prepared for many weeks.
“I wanted to dream big. I wanted to go to the NBA and be the first European point guard to win there.. When you talk to someone about your dreams and they don’t make fun of you, it’s because you’re not dreaming big enough,” explained the Frenchman, voted best player at the NBA Finals in 2007. “When I I was in France, they always told me ‘you are too small, too frail, you won’t make it’. Now I’m the one laughing,” said the former basketball player.
Very special moment for “TP”
Very happy to enter the “Hall of Fame”, Tony Parker invited a hundred people to a private party at his villa in San Antonio in the middle of the week. Thierry Henry was invited there. Also present at the ceremony, ‘Titi’ was greeted by the basketball player. “You’re my big brother. You’ve always been there for me,” Parker said.
Like the Frenchman, the German Dirk Nowitzki and the Spaniard Pau Gasol, former partner of Parker in San Antonio, are also part of this vintage 2023. The emotion was particular for the Frenchman who saw his lifelong coach, Gregg Popovichalso entering the Basketball Hall of Fame tonight.
“He was always a fighter and what I like about him is that when I went too far, he didn’t hesitate to tell me. He knew how to communicate. He’s a smart guy. He is special to me“, assured the coach about his former player. Next goal for the coach? Take the young French prodigy Victor Wembanyama to the heights, as he has already done with Tony Parker.
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2023-08-13 10:33:09
#Frenchman #Tony #Parker #officially #inducted #Hall #Fame
