Loss of Kobe Bryant will be acutely felt at Hall of Fame induction

Kobe Bryant, killed Sunday with 8 others in a helicopter crash, is all but certain to be inducted into the Hall of Fame this year, but it won’t be the same.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The 2020 induction class into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame was going to be one of the most star-studded in history, with Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett all expected to be selected for induction in what is the first year of eligibility for each.

But after Sunday’s fatal helicopter crash that claimed the lives of Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others, the tone of this year’s group of inductees will be much more somber.

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The first time this will hit home is just a couple of weeks away, when the finalists from the North American and Women’s committee will be announced during All-Star Weekend in Chicago.

We’ll be reminded of it once again during the NCAA Final Four in Atlanta in early April, when the entire induction class will be announced.

And it will be most acute on Aug. 29, when the enshrinement ceremony at the Hall in Springfield, Mass., is scheduled.

The Hall changed its sign Sunday to read “KOBE” in purple and gold, as reported by Tom Westerholm of MassLive.

There have been few trios in the history of the Hall of Fame with the combined resumes of Bryant, Duncan and Garnett.

Between the three, there are 11 NBA titles (five each for Kobe and Timmay, one for KG). There are also four NBA MVP awards (two for Duncan, one each for Bryant and Garnett). The trio also accounts for 48 All-Star Game selections — 18 for Kobe Bryant, 15 each for Duncan and Garnett.

It’s hard to find three inductees in the same year that can rival this group.

We’re just a couple of years removed from an induction class in 2018 that included Grant Hill, Jason Kidd and Steve Nash, but Hill’s career arc was demolished by an ankle injury that persisted for years and the only two MVP awards from that group belonged to Nash and Kidd had the only NBA title.

In 2016, the trio of Allen Iverson, Shaquille O’Neal and Yao Ming entered the Hall. AI and Shaq each had one MVP award and O’Neal’s four NBA titles were the only ones for the group.

The class of 2009 might be close. Michael Jordan, David Robinson and John Stockton are three highly decorated players, with eight NBA titles between them (six for Jordan, two for The Admiral) while Stockton holds nearly all of the single-season and career records for assists. There are also six MVP awards — five by His Airness and one for Robinson — with this trio.

The 2009 class entered the Hall when the waiting period was still five years. That was changed to four years for the 2016 induction class and then to the current standard of three years for the class of 2018.

There are only two other classes that even approach these in terms of sheer magnitude. In 1987, Rick Barry, Walt Frazier and Pete Maravich were inducted together and in 1980, the inductees included Oscar Robertson, Jerry Lucas and Jerry West.

As I continue to process the information, the reality of Kobe Bryant being gone, the same sentence keeps repeating in my mind.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.