Miami Heat Legend Tim Hardaway Opens Up On Long Road To Hall Of Fame: ‘I’m Still Speechless’
Five-time All-Star point guard Tim Hardaway Sr. waited a little longer than expected, but he finally reached his objective of reaching the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
Hardaway — one of the best players of his generation and a crossover dribble great — was finally elected to the Hall of Fame in 2022 after a long road of rejection. In fact, Hardaway was turned down a total of five times before he was finally enshrined.
While speaking during a one-on-one interview at NBA All-Star weekend in Indianapolis, the Miami Heat and Golden State Warriors legend opened up on the long struggle of making it to the Hall of Fame and how much it meant to him to finally make it in after being eligible for nearly 15 years prior to induction.
“Words can’t describe…I’m still speechless,” says Hardaway after he received the phone call informing him of his induction back in 2022. “Every time I talk about it, I can’t tell people, because people can’t feel how I felt when I received the call.”
Hardaway — who ranked fourth in assists and fifth in three-point field goals made during the decade of the 90’s — opened up on what the process was like after being rejected multiple times.
“After being rejected four, five or six times, you’re coming up on your last time,” said Hardaway. “And when the call is coming through — because it says Hall of Fame on your phone — I didn’t want to answer the phone. Because I didn’t want to take another rejection. The same guy always calls. I get really emotional when I tell this story because it’s tough. He would call and say, ‘Hey Tim, I’m sorry. You didn’t get enough votes.’ He had talked to me, tried to console me, we’d have five-to-seven minute conversations. It was cool on his part, I always thanked him for that.”
Hardaway details the phone call in 2022 from that same person that led to his Hall of Fame induction.
“When I picked up this time, he said, ‘I finally have some good news for you.’ And we talked another four or five minutes,” explains Hardaway. “I never met him in person, but we became friends over the phone, just by him always calling to say ‘sorry, Tim.’ But this time he was so happy to say i’ve got some good news for you.”
Despite a prolific 13 seasons in the NBA and an unwavering confidence during his playing career, Hardaway admits doubt started creeping in when it came to whether or not he would make it into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
“Of course,” said Hardaway regarding doubt on whether or not he would make it in. “People are lying to themselves if they never think that the possibility of never getting in is there. It’s always there. The possibility of not making it is always there. It crossed my mind a lot. I knew it was winding down to that final call.”
Hardaway says the unwavering support from his from Warriors teammates, Chris Mullin and Mitch Richmond, along with family members and friends are what kept his spirits high as he awaited induction into the Hall of Fame.
“That’s what your friends are there for,” says Hardaway. “The ones that truly care for you. I knew that in the back of my mind that I was supposed to be there. I wanted my parents to be there (for his induction). That’s the only thing I wanted — for my parents to be there to enjoy the moment with me. That was just a joyous moment.”
Hardaway — who was speaking on behalf of his partnership with Panini, the sponsor of this year’s NBA Rising Stars Game — says that while he didn’t grow up collecting trading cards, it’s since become a hobby once his playing career began.
“I never collected trading cards (growing up), says Hardaway. “I first kept my card back in ’85, ’86 when I went to El-Paso Texas. (UTEP). I have a bunch of my cards, I have a bunch of all the NBA guys, like MagicMAGIC Johnson, Isiah Thomas, all those people, all the way up to around 2000, when I stopped playing. I have a bunch of cards. It’s so heavy, it’s in a suitcase and it’s in my basement.”
The Hall-of-Fame point guard reveals that his favorite card isn’t from his NBA career — it’s his first one back when he played at UTEP during his college days.
“Personally, your first card is always your favorite card,” says Hardaway. “My first card that I saw I was on, that’s my favorite with the UTEP No. 10 on it. I know that’s my favorite. Because when I first saw it, I was like ‘Wow, I have a card.'”
The 57-year-old was notable not just because of his trademark crossover — dubbed the “UTEP two-step” — but also due to the fact he was a leader of two notable teams during the 90’s. He began his career creating highlight plays on a nightly basis with his “Run-TMC” Warriors, also featuring fellow Hall of Fame players such as Mullin and Richmond.
The group made their mark because of their ridiculous offensive scoring outputs — the Warriors led the league in scoring in Hardaway’s first season (116.3 points per game) in 1989-90 — and their highlight reel plays.
Hardaway made an immediate impact upon entering the NBA in 1989, being named to the All-Rookie First Team after ranking ninth in the league in assists per game. He followed that up by increasing his assists per game in each of the next three seasons, with All-Star and All-NBA selections in each one of those years.
While an ACL injury temporarily derailed his success with the Warriors, Hardaway would eventually be traded to the Heat. Both Hardaway and Alonzo Mourning would pave the way for “Heat Culture” and lead a young franchise to high amounts of success, winning division titles in four consecutive seasons. Hardaway ranked fourth in MVP voting after leading the Heat to the third-best record in the NBA (61-21) during the 1996-97 season.
Although Hardaway spent an even amount of time with both the Warriors and Heat — six seasons apiece — the crossover legend singles out Miami as the best stretch during his illustrious career.
“The best stretch of my career is of course with the Miami Heat,” says Hardaway. “For six seasons I was with the Heat and went to six consecutive playoffs. We had the crowd rocked, rowdy. We were one of the upper echelon teams in the NBA, top three. No question it was the Heat.”
Hardaway is fond of his time in Golden State, but says it was a mistake to trade Richmond. In fact, Hardaway says he would have remained with the Warriors had they never traded the 1988-89 Rookie of the Year and eventual six-time All-Star with the Sacramento Kings.
Following the team’s trade of Hardaway to Miami during the 1995-96 season, the Warriors didn’t make it back to the postseason again until the 2006-07 season.
“I can’t take anything away from the Golden State Warriors,” says Hardaway. “If we would have kept Mitch Richmond, I would have never been in Miami. I would have been trying to win championships in Golden State. Once we traded Richmond, that was the beginning of the end for us as an organization. Not just as a trio, but as an organization.”
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