Portal:Basketball/Selected article/October, 2007
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The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, located in downtown Springfield, Massachusetts, honors players who have shown exceptional skill at basketball, all-time great coaches, referees, and other major contributors to the game. It is separate from the Naismith Museum & Basketball Hall of Fame in Almonte, Ontario. Five entire teams have been inducted—the Buffalo Germans, the New York Renaissance, the Original Celtics, the Harlem Globetrotters, and most recently the 1966 Texas Western College team. The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame's mission preserves and promotes the game at all levels and serves as basketball's ultimate library of history.
It was established in 1959, with fundraising leading to an actual building opened to the public on February 17, 1968, at Springfield College in Springfield, Massachusetts, United States. In 1985 a new building off-campus was opened near downtown Springfield on the east bank of the Connecticut River.
On September 28, 2002, the Hall of Fame found its third home in a new $45 million, 80,000 square foot (7,400 m²) shrine to the sport, located just south of the previous Hall of Fame. The facility's bolder architecture features a large, silver, semi-spherical structure (resembling a giant basketball) several stories high and a tall spire topped with an orange globe. The hall is surrounded by a shopping center of retail outlets and restaurants.
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