The two longtime rivals enter the hall together.
By The Associated Press

BOSTON – James Worthy was an eighth-grader when he first saw Robert Parish play college basketball. It left a lasting impact.

“Robert Parish was a 7-foot center and really exemplified everything that I wanted to be as a player at the time,” Worthy said. “I thought it was very cool that he wore double-zero.”

From his college days at Centenary, Parish went on to a brilliant career with the Boston Celtics.

Worthy starred with the Los Angeles Lakers after playing at North Carolina.

And they were in the middle of the fiercest NBA rivalry of the 1980s.

On Friday night, Parish and Worthy will be among seven people inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.

“I’m really proud to receive basketball’s highest award,” Parish said. “I’m proud and excited.”

The other inductees are Meadowlark Lemon of the Harlem Globetrotters, NBA pioneer Earl Lloyd, longtime Louisiana Tech women’s coach Leon Barmore, Italian player Dino Meneghin and the late Chick Hearn, who broadcast 3,338 consecutive Los Angeles Lakers’ games, many involving Worthy and Parish.

Worthy joined the Lakers in 1982, two years after Parish went to the Celtics.

They met in the NBA finals three times with Boston winning in 1984 and Los Angeles winning in 1985 and 1987.

Each team had two other players, in addition to Parish and Worthy, among the top 50 in NBA history and who went to the Hall of Fame – Larry Bird and Kevin McHale with the Celtics and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson with the Lakers.

In 1984-85, he and Worthy averaged 17.6 points each.

“Hatred would be a strong word. We really respected each other,” Worthy said. “I liked the game the way it was then. It was more respect for your opponents and your own teammates. The game was played way differently. It was played as a team and it seems there was a lot more loyalty to teams.”

Worthy averaged 17.6 points a game in his 12 NBA seasons, all with Los Angeles. He won titles in 1985, 1987 and 1988, being named the series MVP in the last one. He retired after the 1993-94 season.

Parish averaged 16.5 points in 14 seasons with Boston, ending in 1993-94. He also won three championships, in 1981, 1984 and 1986.

He played his first four seasons with Golden State then followed his Celtics career with two years at Charlotte and one at Chicago and ended with a 14.5-point average.

The taller Parish was a better rebounder.

“He was a great defender, the best rebounder ever in the game from the defensive point of view,” Worthy said. “And a scorer.”

Parish holds the NBA record with 10,117 defensive rebounds and is sixth with 14,715 total rebounds. His 21 seasons and 1,611 games also are NBA records.

“It would have been a short career if I had not been traded to Boston,” he said when his selection was announced in April. “I was rejuvenated in Boston.”

The trade set the stage for the coast-to-coast rivalry.

“He brought a lot of stability to the game,” Worthy said. “He could guard any center. He was versatile.”

Hearn is already a member of the American Sportscasters Hall of Fame.

He introduced radio and television fans to now standard phrases such as “slam dunk” and “air ball,” and didn’t miss a game from Nov. 21, 1965, through Dec. 16, 2001.

“He gave me my nickname, “Big Game James,”‘ Worthy said.

Barmore was 576-87 in 20 seasons as women’s coach at Louisiana Tech, an .869 winning percentage, the best in women’s college basketball history.

Meneghin was a top international player, competing in four Olympics for Italy and leading his club to a record seven Cup of Champions titles.

Lloyd, 74, was elected in the veterans category. He was the first black player in the NBA, debuting with the Washington Capitals in 1950.

Lemon was known as the Clown Prince of Basketball for his comic performances with the Globetrotters.

AP-ES-09-04-03 1743EDT