SPRINGFIELD, June 9 -- The question that hung over the announcement was not who had made it. The Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame's Class of 2026 - Amar'e Stoudemire, Doc Rivers, Candace Parker, Mike D'Antoni, Mark Few, Joey Crawford, Elena Delle Donne, Chamique Holdsclaw and the 1996 United States Women's National Team - is, by any measure, a worthy group. The question was what the class, taken together, actually says.

What it says, in a word, is Phoenix.

Two of the nine inductees - Stoudemire and D'Antoni - were the principal architects and the most conspicuous beneficiary of the "Seven Seconds or Less" offensive system that the early-2000s Suns ran like a manifesto. D'Antoni, inducted as a contributor, built it. Stoudemire, the lone ...