Why Bird, Fowles and Moore are Naismith Hall of Famers -- and the greatest class of women yet

On Saturday, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame selected three of the greatest players in women's basketball history as part of a star-studded 2025 class.

Having both retired after the 2022 season, Sue Bird and Sylvia Fowles assumed they were headed into the Hall together as soon as they were eligible. (In December, the Hall announced a reduction in the waiting period from three full seasons after retirement to two.)

They were joined by Moore, who last played in the WNBA in 2018 before stepping away from the league to work on social justice issues and help overturn the wrongful conviction of her future husband, Jonathan Irons. After initially keeping the door open to a return, Moore officially announced her retirement in January 2023.

The timing means that three of the top 10 players in ESPN's ranking of the WNBA's greatest contributors during its 25th anniversary in 2021 will enter the Hall of Fame together (the class will be officially enshrined on Sept. 6). Let's take a look at what made Bird and Fowles -- who had their numbers retired by the Seattle Storm and Minnesota Lynx, respectively, on the same day in June 2023 -- and Moore first-ballot selections as well as why there's no precedent for a Hall of Fame class like this.

Sue Bird

UConn (1998-2002); Seattle Storm (2002-22)

The greatest sustained winner in the WNBA, Bird retired having played in more wins (332) than any other player in the league. Bird's longevity was a key factor. She played a record 580 games across two decades in the league, overcoming knee injuries to star on four Seattle championship teams from 2004 to 2020, the longest gap between titles for any WNBA player.

Bird's legacy also includes being the greatest point guard in WNBA history. She surpassed Ticha Penicheiro as the league's all-time leader in assists in 2017 and remains nearly 400 assists ahead of Courtney Vandersloot for No. 1 all time. Bird's ability to control a game as a scorer or distributor was revolutionary when she entered the league as the top pick of the 2002 draft, earning All-WNBA first-team honors (the first of eight All-WNBA picks) and leading the Storm to the playoffs as a rookie.

Before joining the WNBA, Bird started for UConn's national championship teams in 2000 and 2002, the latter perhaps the most dominant team in women's basketball history with a 39-0 record and an average margin of 26.8 points per game in the NCAA tournament. Bird was the consensus national player of the year in 2001-02.

After teaming with Diana Taurasi in the Huskies' backcourt, Bird became a fixture alongside her for USA Basketball, winning five gold medals from 2004 to 2021. Only Taurasi, who added a sixth last year, surpasses Bird in Olympic history.

Sylvia Fowles

LSU (2004-08); Chicago Sky (2008-14); Minnesota Lynx (2015-22)

A four-time WNBA Defensive Player of the Year, the 6-foot-6 Fowles has a strong case as the greatest paint defender in league history. Only Tamika Catchings, with five, won more DPOY awards. Fowles is fourth all time in WNBA blocks and retired as the league's all-time leading rebounder before being surpassed by Tina Charles last season.

A dominant force from the time she arrived in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Fowles led the Tigers to the Final Four all four seasons of her college career and earned All-WNBA honors four times in seven seasons with the Sky. It was only after Fowles requested a trade and landed in Minnesota that her talent was fully appreciated.

Joining a Lynx team that had already won titles in 2011 and 2013 -- more on that in a moment -- Fowles propelled Minnesota to two more championships over the next three seasons and emerged as the team's best player, winning Finals MVP after both titles. In 2017, Fowles was also voted league MVP.

As the rest of the Lynx team slowly dissolved, Fowles was a fixture. She won her final Defensive Player of the Year award in 2021 at age 35, finishing fourth in MVP voting that season. And Fowles was an All-WNBA second-team pick (and All-Defensive first-team selection) in her final season, 2022.

On the international stage, Fowles teamed with Bird for four Olympic gold medals from 2008 to 2021.

Maya Moore

UConn (2007-11); Minnesota Lynx (2011-18)

Moore's all-too-brief WNBA career matched up with the greatest sustained period of team success in league history. Over the eight seasons Moore played in Minnesota, the Lynx went to the Finals six times and won four titles, beginning in her rookie campaign. The New York Liberty is the only other franchise that has reached the Finals six times, and it took two decades after their previous four appearances for the Liberty to get back.

Moore wasn't the only reason for the Lynx's success. Fowles deserves huge credit for the back half of the run, while the entire era also included Hall of Famers Lindsay Whalen (elected in 2022) and Seimone Augustus (2024), plus five-time All-Star and five-time champion Rebekkah Brunson.

Still, Moore's complete game helped her team win wherever she went. After earning the Gatorade National Player of the Year, UConn won back-to-back championships in 2009 and 2010, with Moore as Most Outstanding Player of the 2010 NCAA tournament. The only three-time winner of the Wade trophy as national player of the year, Moore was an obvious No. 1 pick by Minnesota.

No aspect of Moore's game was as exemplary as Bird's passing or Fowles' defense, but she could do everything on the court. Moore led the WNBA in scoring in 2014 en route to her only MVP, yet she was equally likely to help her team as a defender or distributor. An All-WNBA first-team pick every season from 2013 to 2017, Moore particularly shines in advanced stats.

Despite her short career, which featured fewer than half as many regular-season games as Bird, Moore was second in playoff wins above replacement player (WARP) by my metric when she retired. Because of its emphasis on peak contributions and postseason performance, Moore ranked fourth in my championships added estimate through the league's first 25 seasons -- the same place she ranked in our voting.

Again, Moore's USA Basketball career was brief, but she won gold medals with Bird and Fowles in 2012 and 2016.

An unprecedented class of women players

Remarkably, this year will mark the first time three women have been inducted into the Hall of Fame as players in the same class.

Since first recognizing female players with Lusia Harris and Nera White in 1992, the Hall has had eight other multiplayer classes, including three of the past four years. To date, the best pairings of WNBA players were former MVPs Yolanda Griffith and Lauren Jackson in 2021 and the high-scoring duo of Katie Smith and Tina Thompson in 2018.

Jackson and Griffith, both in the top 13 in ESPN's ranking of the WNBA top 25, come closest to matching the top-end talent of this year's group. But all three members of this year's class ranked ahead of Griffith, Smith and Thompson.

Arguably the strongest classes before this year predated the WNBA. In 1993, the Hall recognized UCLA legend Ann Meyers, the first woman to sign with an NBA team, as well as Soviet star Uljana Semjonova. Two years later, USC superstar Cheryl Miller was joined in the 1995 class by Old Dominion standout Anne Donovan.

As the WNBA grows, we can expect larger Hall classes that could mirror the men, who typically number three to four and have featured as many as six players in a year. Still, it could be a while until the timing lines up for a group as decorated as this year's class.