Fitch, Divac among Class of 2019 inductees

MINNEAPOLIS — Bill Fitch, who led the Rockets to the NBA Finals in 1986 and coached the Boston Celtics to a league title five years earlier, was one of 12 honorees announced Saturday for the 2019 class of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

The class will be enshrined at the Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., on Sept. 6.

Selected with Fitch were NBA players Vlade Divac, Carl Braun, Chuck Cooper, Bobby Jones, Sidney Moncrief, Jack Sikma and Paul Westphal, NBA contributor Al Attles, WNBA player Teresa Weather-spoon, the 1957-59 teams from Tennessee A&I and the Wayland Baptist University program.

Fitch, who coached in the NBA for 25 seasons and finished with a record of 944-1,106, was the first coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers in 1970-71 and was at the team’s helm for nine seasons before going to Boston in 1979. After a four-year stint with the Celtics that included a championship in 1981, Fitch was hired by the Rockets and coached the team for five seasons, leading it to the playoffs in all but his first season.

Fitch coached the New Jersey Nets for three seasons (1989-92), leading them to the playoffs in his last season. He resigned after the 1991-92 season and was hired by the Los Angeles Clippers, whom he coached for four seasons.

Fitch, 86, also was a head coach in college at Coe, North Dakota, Bowling Green and Minnesota.

The longest active streak of missing the NBA playoffs belongs to Sacramento, where general manager Divac has been trying to return the Kings to the league’s elite.

Back when the slick-passing Serbian big man was in the paint, the Kings had quite the run.

“We created something special there, the first day of training camp that led us,” said Divac, who played for Sacramento from 1998-2004, with a peak in 2002 when the Kings lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in overtime of Game 7 of the Western Conference finals. “For six years, we were the most exciting team in the league and really played basketball the right way.”

Divac played 16 years in the NBA, including eight with the Lakers. The 7-foot-1 Divac had his jersey retired by the Kings after helping them start a streak of eight straight postseason appearances upon his arrival. They never advanced past the conference finals, a surge that coincided with the Lakers’ dynasty of Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal.

Moncrief and Sikma, who were elected by the North American committee, were teammates with the Milwaukee Bucks from 1986-89. The seven-time All-Star Sikma, who won an NBA title in his second season with the Seattle SuperSonics, set a record with the Bucks in 1988 as the only center in history to lead the league in free-throw percentage at 92.2.

Moncrief was a five-time All-Star and two-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year in the mid-1980s for the Bucks.