Catching up with Rudy T: Thinks Chandler Bang is a defensive stud

A few months old so I don't know if it has been posted. His thoughts on Bynum is also interesting. Note Bynum is only 25 years old which is the age Dream entered the league.

http://www.foxsportshouston.com/05/...art-of-ga/landing_rockets.html?blockID=726840

It's been seventeen years since Rudy Tomjanovich led the Rockets to two NBA titles and seven years since he coached in the NBA, heading up the Lakers for 43 games in 2004 before the grind of the work forced him to step down. And Tomjanovich still does not crave the job or the pressures that come with it.

"I do miss the competitiveness, I don't miss the part in between the games," said Tomjanovich, now 63. "My life became a life of problem solving all the time. It wasn't x's and o's, it was people. Being blessed, getting to the mountain top, it was like an addiction…like I have to get back there, I have to get back there and I put a lot pressure on myself. I don't live with the game 24 hours a day anymore. When I was a coach I'd have basketball dreams, too, so it consumed me."

Yet each year at this time Tomjanovich does think back about his glorious run in Houston nearly two decades ago.

"I get so many flashbacks about all the different things that happened to us," said Tomjanovich. "Sometimes just the position of the sun this time of year gets me to thinking, ‘Boy that reminds me of that Phoenix series."

Currently a Lakers scout, Tomjanovich is familiar with virtually all of the young NBA players and he said his former team, the Rockets, stack up with any roster in the league when it comes to young talent.

"A lot of the (young kids) aren't playing, so I get to the arena early and I watch how they work out and see their fundamentals," said Tomjanovich. "Some teams will have two or three guys that fit (our criteria). The Rockets have more than a handful.

"When you lose two players like Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady and don't get assets coming back, it's very hard to plant a new crop. They have young players that are up and coming. What Chandler Parsons did against Kobe late in the year with his defense…I'm in love with Dragic as a point guard."

And Rudy T. knows big men. Tomjanovich played with Moses Malone, won two titles with Hakeem Olajuwon and coached Yao Ming during his rookie season. And Rudy T. says Andrew Bynum "Can be one of the best players at that position, ever, with Hakeem and Shaq."

"I think when you watch him on TV it doesn't give you a clear picture of how big and long this guy is and how he seems to dwarf the guys he's playing against," said Tomjanovich. "What he had right from the beginning is a knack to get the ball in the basket. But he is young and the guy makes mistakes. Mike Brown and the coaching staff are doing everything possible for their young guys…to think the right way, to say the right things. But they make mistakes and the mistakes sometimes are painful. It's like your kids…you wish they didn't have to go through this stuff but they do."

Tomjanovich coached Kobe Bryant for those 43 games in 2004, when Bryant had won three of his five championships. Rudy T. is not the least surprised that Bryant continues to be driven for yet another title. Also impressive is the fact that Bryant's titles span almost two generations of players and certainly encompass different styles of play.

"Their team changed from the Shaq years to the more finesse years when Gasol came in," said Tomjanovich. "I've been around great players and I don't think anybody has a drive, a self-motivation like Kobe."

Tomjanovich is also currently working on behalf of the Multidisciplinary Pain Management Program, a Sugar Land area clinic designed to help people with chronic pain.

"I found that I can give back to the community, to the city I love so much by being involved with things that help people," said Tomjanovich.

 

Yeah right.

 

It is widely believed that African players/student at the time would faked their age to help them get into US/school. Many believe that Dream and Mutumbo are both older than their listed age. There are also some that believe that Yi Jian Lian did the same thing to show more "potential".