Throughout his nearly five decades in the NBA, Warriors President and Chief of Operations Rick Welts has been at the center of a number of the league’s most innovative decisions. From NBA All-Star Weekend to the marketing behind the Dream Team during the 1992 Olympics, Welts’ influence has helped grow the league by leaps and bounds, leading to his induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame on March 31.
On Monday, Welts joined Fitz and Brooks to reflect on the honor.
“I can’t say it’s a dream come true, because never in my wildest dreams would I imagine that anything like this could be in my lifetime,” Welts said. “It is so humbling and overwhelming. I’m standing out there during the semifinals of the NCAA Tournament in San Antonio and I’m looking to my right and I’m standing on the court with Jason Kidd and Steve Nash and Ray Allen and it’s ‘what the hell am I doing here?’
“It’s so special and so crazy I don’t think I’ve processed it, but the outpouring has been spectacular.”
In 2011, Welts came out as gay in an interview with the New York Times, making him the highest ranking openly gay executive in NBA history. When asked how much he thought that decision played into his election into the Hall of Fame, Welts said he asked the very same question.
“A woman who kind’ve is the guru at the Hall of Fame, I was sitting with her in San Antonio and I said ‘so how did that gay-thing play into this induction?’ And she said ‘okay, I’ll tell you the secret. So we drafted the press release and we were reviewing it in our staff meeting and there was a paragraph in there about what you just described.’ And she said the executive director said ‘let’s take that out,’ and I wasn’t quite sure where the story was going at that point, but she said, his words, ‘that story will come out as part of this, but that’s not why he got elected, so let’s leave that out.’”
Listen to the full interview below. To hear Welts talk about the Hall of Fame, start from the beginning.