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Sonics legend Jack Sikma to be inducted in Basketball Hall of Fame

Jack Sikma, who helped lead the Sonics to a 1979 NBA championship, will be a 2019 inductee into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Seattle SuperSonics legend Jack Sikma has been selected as part of the 2019 class for the Basketball Hall of Fame.

The honorees were announced Saturday in Minneapolis before the Final Four.

Sikma was drafted by the Sonics right out of college and spent nine years with the team. Most notably, Sikma helped lead the Sonics to a 1979 NBA championship, grabbing an astonishing 17 rebounds in Games Three, Four, and Five against the Washington Bullets. The center ended his career with the Sonics with more rebounds (7,729), blocked shots (705), and free throws made (3,044) than any other player in the team’s history.

Over 14 years in the NBA, Sikma was an All-Star seven times.

After retiring in 1991, Sikma returned to the league a decade later to work as an assistant coach with the Sonics, Houston Rockets, and Minnesota Timberwolves.

RELATED: The 1979 Seattle SuperSonics return home to celebrate their 40-year anniversary

Paul Westphal, who played one season with the Sonics and coached them for three seasons, will also enter the Hall of Fame.

Also selected this year were WNBA great Teresa Weatherspoon, NBA players Vlade Divac, Sidney Moncrief, Al Attles, Carl Braun, Chuck Cooper and Bobby Jones, NBA coach Bill Fitch, the Tennessee A&I men's teams from 1957-59 (the first collegiate team to win back-to-back-to-back championships) and the Wayland Baptist University women's team (which won 131 consecutive games from 1953-58 and 10 Amateur Athletic Union national championships overall).

The class will be enshrined into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, on Sept. 6.

The Associated Press contributed.

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