Spoiler As for the phrase that has come to describe an improbable NBA championship run that saw the sixth-seeded Rockets defeating two 60-win teams (San Antonio and Utah) and two others that both won at least 57 (Phoenix and Orlando), Tomjanovich said he actually borrowed the line from former Suns guard Kevin Johnson. After the Houston upset Johnson, Barkley and the Suns in the Western Conference semifinals, Johnson said the Rockets had “the heart of a champion.” “Charles framed it a little bit differently. ‘They’re like those damn Texas roaches. You step on them and think they’re dead and they scurry away,’ ” Tomjanovich said, chuckling. “I thought the heart of a champion angle was a lot better than, ‘Way to go, roaches!’ ” Houston went from Choke City to Clutch City after that 1995 title. Roach City wouldn’t have had the same ring. At the time Bob Costas put the microphone in his face on that stage, Tomjanovich spoke out of frustration with the “non-believers” who had criticized his team throughout an up-and-down title defense. The chorus of naysayers got even louder after a deadline deal for Olajuwon’s college former teammate at the University of Houston, Clyde Drexler – a deal that involved sacrificing Otis Thorpe, arguably the second-best player on the 1994 championship team. “When we made the trade for Clyde, I heard a lot of negative responses. I had heard and saw publicly where people said, ‘What a dumb move by the Rockets. You never trade a big for a small,’ ” he said. “And that sort of really bothered me. I just didn’t see a lot of people doing that. Criticizing before it was even proven, it will work or not. If somebody said it years after and we had a big flop, I could understand it. I heard things like, ‘You’re going to be the first team to win a championship and then not even make the playoffs the next year.’ That’s when I said we had doubters all along the way. So, a lot of people say that quote, ‘Don’t ever underestimate the heart of a champion.’ But that’s not how I said it. It was more of a scold. Like, ‘Hey, you’ve got to watch how you project about a team and we did have that special quality.’ That’s basically what that was.” Tomjanovich had the honor of coaching four Hall of Fame big men in his career – Moses Malone and Ralph Sampson as an assistant; Hakeem Olajuwon and Yao Ming as a head coach. Olajuwon spent all but one of his 17 seasons with Tomjanovich, who remains in awe of how much he developed. “He was amazing, especially for a guy who hadn’t had a whole bunch of basketball in his past. He was not starting on the same starting line as most players. He not only caught up, he went by them,” Tomjanovich said. “When we watched him in college, we knew he could score some but we didn’t know he was going to be this magician. This guy with so many moves and a feathery soft touch. Just an amazing player.” Tomjanovich wasn’t too shabby himself. He was a five-time All-Star who averaged more than 20 points four times, including a career-high 24.5 in 1973-74. His No. 45 is one of six Rockets jerseys hanging in the rafters, alongside those belonging to Olajuwon, Yao, Drexler, Malone and Calvin Murphy, who has agreed to present him at the Hall of Fame. Michigan also honored his No. 45. Unfortunately for Tomjanovich, his playing career has been overshadowed by incident on Dec. 9, 1977 that he didn’t instigate but nearly left him for dead. Attempting to break up a fight involving his Rockets teammates and members of the Los Angeles Lakers, Tomjanovich got hit with a Kermit Washington punch that fractured his face and caused blood and spinal fluid to leak into his skull. “It was several issues with that,” Tomjanovich said. “Number one was getting through it alive. Because it was a very serious injury and the doctor who was phenomenal, Dr. Paul Toffel, he gave it to me right between the eyes. He said, ‘You’re in trouble. You’re going to have to hang in there for the next 48 hours and that’ll tell.’ Because there was spinal fluid dripping through some of the cracks around the brain cavity. So, it was the real deal. Just hoping that you make it out of there. “And I was so messed up physically, with the swelling in my face, I thought I was going to be the Elephant Man and have to be kept back in the back closet,” he said. “But after he said I was going to live, I actually said, ‘I’ll take that.’ Even if I can’t play basketball, I didn’t want to be the end of my life. It was pretty scary. And the crazy thing is, I had nothing to do with the fracas that had broke on the floor. I just happened to run up on the play. And I can tell you right now, it wasn’t going to be that I was going to do any fighting, because I learned a long time ago, I’m not a fighter. I’d do it if somebody attacked me. I’d fight. I just took the wrong route and got surprised. That tied me and Kermit together, really, for the rest of our lives.” Tomjanovich struggled physically and mentally as a result of Washington’s right hand but refused to allow himself to be consumed by bitterness, guilt or frustration. He returned to make the All-Star team when he returned the following season and even teamed with Washington for a book with author John Feinstein called, “The Punch.” “We dealt with that,” Tomjanovich said. “I learned a very, very valuable principle that being angry with somebody else does nothing good for the angry person. It’s like drinking poison and expecting somebody else to get the effects. What happens is you get the effects. That made sense to me, so I got rid of that right away. I didn’t think it was something the guy really thought about. Yeah, I wish he didn’t do it but those things happen. And if I wanted to have a good mental health later, I had to let it go and move on with my life. That was good for me to be grateful for the stuff that was coming my way.” What eventually came his way was a career in coaching that brought him his greatest triumphs in basketball — two championship rings, a gold medal at the Sydney Olympics and now, induction into the Hall of Fame. Tomjanovich’s success on the sideline serves as proof that someone’s lowest moment doesn’t have to be the deciding one. The classy, high-road approach allowed him to avoid being paralyzed by his circumstances. Don’t ever underestimate the power of forgiveness and patience. ”It’s just not a good way to live,” he said of being resentful. “I thought I had a good playing career, scored a lot of points, made some all-star teams and all that. So when I was going around doing basketball camps or traveling, people wouldn’t exactly know who I was. But when I said, ‘I was the guy that got sucker punched on TV’ it was, ‘Oh, I saw that.’ Or ‘Oh, I know who you are.’ I was so glad that I got a chance to coach and get rid of that’s how I was being remembered. “Getting rid of that is like getting rid of this now,” Tomjanovich said of his earlier Hall of Fame snubs. “Because you have to answer that question, ‘Why aren’t you in there?’ all of the time. Everybody asking me how I feel about Kermit. I had to say to myself, ‘I didn’t want to go down that path where I’m a victim and you’re doing it to yourself. A victim of your own thinking.’ Thank God that I got that wisdom and it really is a senseless practice that people do, when people get into that kind of stuff. It isn’t that you endorse anything that people do but you don’t have to dwell on it.”
Olujuwon is the all-time blocked shot leader. So I guess you can say Rudy tomjanovich coached the best defensive player in nba history!
[Iko] Hall of Famer Rudy Tomjanovich on three decades with the Rockets HOUSTON —If you listen closely you might be able to pick it up, but Rudy Tomjanovich’s voice has a certain tremble to it. Sorry, Hall of Famer Rudy Tomjanovich’s voice has a certain tremble to it. Even over the crackling sounds of an iPhone 10, it’s unique and distinguishable. He’s not exactly crying. The man is loving life. He speaks with passion and emotion. There’s history in the words he uses, in the sentences he makes. Talking about Hakeem Olajuwon makes him emotional. Talking about Yao Ming and the lost season makes him emotional. Talking about his playing and coaching career makes him emotional. Talking about his past substance abuse and subsequent sobriety makes him emotional. But it’s good. It’s been years since he had to call out plays from the sidelines or lead groups of men to back-to-back NBA championships, but he can still command a room. I’m tucked away in my home moving things around quickly, trying to make sure there isn’t anything that could possibly distract me or cloud my sense of hearing before he starts the interview. It’s probably the umpteenth one he’s done since news broke that Tomjanovich was headed to Springfield, Massachusetts where he will be enshrined in the Hall of Fame, but Coach is still as affable and cheerful as ever. He talks to me like he’s known me quite a while instead of this being our first-ever interaction. Between now and Aug. 29, Tomjanovich knows this won’t be the last time he has to speak to a journalist but he’s not complaining. He’s been waiting patiently for nearly a decade to get in, so patience isn’t one of his weak points. He’s one of nine distinguished individuals in the Class of 2020 deemed worthy of basketball’s highest honor. Tomjanovic enters into the Hall of Fame with perhaps the most star-studded teammates, joining the likes of the late Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett and Tamika Catchings who will be honored five months from now. Tomjanovich spent over three decades with the Houston Rockets as a player and coach, guiding the Rockets to consecutive championships in ’94 and 95′. But you know that already. Tomjanovich recently spoke with The Athletic Houston on three decades in basketball, his regret not getting more time with Yao Ming, his battles with alcohol abuse and finding sobriety and more. KI: Coach, it’s been almost ten years since you first became eligible. It seems like each and every year, your exclusion from the list was met with a lot of mixed feelings. How did it feel when you immediately received the news that the fight had been won? Hall of Famer has a nice ring to it! RT: It really does have a nice ring to it. Well, there was a lot of suspense. Because I had been there before and the president of the Hall of Fame called again, and I was really listening to his tone and all that to see if I could figure out what kind of mood he was in. It’s a hard job just to call people and tell them no, but I think he sensed that and he let me know, ‘Hey, this is a lot easier call because it’s one that’s telling you you’re in.’ And of course, I’m extremely proud. KI: As you look back on your career, what moment sticks out to you? It could be a piece of advice that you’ve followed, a lesson learned from a win or loss, game-winner, anything. RT: Well, you know, the best thing I can say [about] that, it was just a series of many, many things like that. You learn lessons from different situations that happen and you just add it to your repertoire and your experience and hopefully, you’re a wiser player and a smarter coach by going through the adversity, you know. So there were so many games you’d win or games you’d lose when you study it. Looking at the videos, you learn a lot and hopefully, you won’t make those mistakes in the future. KI: You actually worked as a scout for the team briefly before transitioning into coaching. What was that experience like? How did you know that stepping into the coaching realm was your calling? What was life like under Bill Fitch and Don Chaney? RT: When I was an assistant coach, I really had a full plate. I did advanced scouting, that means spying on the other teams. I did the personnel scouting and that’s looking at the guys we could trade for or college players, and then I did the videos. So I really, really got a great education and coaching when I was an assistant coach. But when that time comes for you to get the [head coaching] job, it’s great that you do have some experience. But you’d never know how it’s gonna turn out because you’ve got to communicate the knowledge that you picked up and, and you’ve got to, you know, get across to your team and to your players. So that’s the big challenge in coaching KI: During your coaching tenure, you’ve seen just about every type of player under the sun. But not a lot is ever said of your own playing career, you used to get buckets for anyone who doesn’t know. How would you describe your own style of play, and would it translate into today’s game? RT: You know, my main position was power forward and I was mainly a face-up player. I could shoot the ball out to about where the three-point line is and the three-point shot wasn’t in the game until my last two seasons and I was just starting adjusting to that. But I could score it from the outside and I did have some inside stuff. So I thought that was more like a stretch forward that’s playing today.
KI: In 2002, Yao Ming enters the NBA. His impact on the game both locally and internationally is well-known, but what’s the story behind that draft decision? How did it all come together? What are the early details of that relationship? RT: Well, we hit in the lottery and we got the first pick. We looked at the different situations. There were some good players available, but we thought that drafting Yao Ming was the best thing for us as an organization. And [also] as a coach because I had coached big men and now we had a really big guy come in and he had such a nice shooting touch and he could move well for his size. You know, unfortunately, he did develop some physical problems with his feet and it cut his career short. KI: You only got to spend one season with Yao, but what was that like? 2003 featured the Lakers and Spurs going head-to-head in the West, with the Lakers actually beating Houston in the first round. Looking back, do you wish you could have stuck around longer with that group? Would you have been up there competing for the Finals? RT: Of course, you know, when I contracted bladder cancer at that time and I felt the best thing for me to do is to set basketball aside and do my treatments. So I retired and I had to go through two series of cancer treatments and wait a little while, and after a year found out that I was cancer-free. But I had left the team and with Yao being on it. That was so frustrating to leave in the middle of his career or the beginning of his career. But then I got to go out to LA, but I felt that for my own health, the best thing was to do is give up that job so I became a consultant, for the Lakers for the last 14 years. KI: We always hear of trades or signings that never happen or fall apart for one reason or another. Which ones come to mind for you? Someone who could have been a real difference-maker for the team but never came to fruition? RT: Well, there’s a thousand things like that, you know. People or general managers are talking among themselves and there’s a lot of things that they banter about, but to get a trade done is a pretty rare thing. And there’s any number you could really fantasize about just any player in the league and, and guys sure have talked about deals for them. KI: Funnier guy: Hakeem or Yao? I’ve heard strong arguments for either side. And what’s your favorite memory off the court involving the team? RT: Well, neither one of those guys were big comedians. Although they both liked to laugh and smile, you know, they were pretty serious about their jobs and both very intelligent players from foreign countries and they both made big adjustments to American life and through American basketball and the NBA. KI: Staying on Yao and Hakeem, is there any story off the floor involving either one of them that you keep particularly close to your heart? RT: Well, the story I love about Hakeem [Olajuwon] is when he was ready to go into the basketball Hall of Fame. I got a call from my assistant coach, Carroll Dawson, and he said, here’s a number you could call Hakeem right now and get him before he goes out to get his award. And I got to call him and the conversation that we shared was one of the best of my life. And he was very happy that I had called and he (said) the Hall of Fame honor was partly mine too because we did it together. It was a wonderful moment in my career. KI: The game has changed quite a bit since you were roaming the sidelines. What do you think of the league now? Do you think you would have adapted and gone with the flow or stuck to your guns? RT: Well, it all depends on the players you have. You’ve got to play a style of basketball that is the best for the guys you have. Now everybody would love to have the running and highest-scoring team in the league. But that’s not possible. There are only a few teams that are going to be able to do that. And so you have to evaluate what kind of talents you have. Develop a system that fits those guys. So I believed, and of course when I had Hakeem, in throwing the ball into the post but then having good spacing and when they double, we moved the ball around and get a nice wide-open three-point shot. When I had some of the smaller teams with Steve Francis and Cuttino Mobley, we still wanted to get layups and to get the ball inside, but we were doing it with the dribble with those guys. But again, also having great spacing and utilizing the three point line. KI: Speaking of today’s game, what are your thoughts on current head coach Mike D’Antoni and the job he’s done since 2016? Any advice you would leave for him? RT: Well, Mike’s a great coach and he knows how he wants to play and he has been very successful at it. I’m a big fan. Actually, when he was out in LA, I was on the staff as a consultant and we bantered around different ideas, on basketball. It was very pleasurable to work with him. I think he’s a very bright basketball man and he’s had a successful career. KI: Do you believe the 2018 team that won 65 games and lost in Game 7 would have won the Finals? How would that have changed the league? RT: Yeah. You know, it just shows how hard it is to win. And they ran into, you know a phenomenal team. I think they still have enough talent to win a championship, especially with the addition of Westbrook. What a dynamic backcourt that is, Harden and Westbrook. I’m looking forward to the season getting back up and getting these playoffs played and see who’s gonna be the champion this year. KI: One thing you’ve been very open about is how your life changed after you stopped drinking. What did that do for you in terms of recalibrating your life? What opportunities did it open for you? RT: Yeah, yeah. You know, many people have problems with substances and drinking and I did. And thank God I faced that reality and got into a program and I’m happy to say I’ve been sober for over 20 years. I matured as a person. Your body can only take so much abuse. So it was a very important move to make. I have not regretted that one yet. My life is good and I’m very grateful. KI: Quite a number of former players of yours have also stepped into coaching roles with various teams over the years. When you were around them, did you ever get a sense that that would be possible down the line? RT: Oh, absolutely. You know, I’ve been lucky enough to be around guys that are very intelligent and Scottie Brooks has gone on to become a coach. My assistant coach, Jim Boylen, he is now coaching in Chicago. I really have a strong feeling that Sam Cassell is going to wind up being an NBA head coach. He’s been an assistant for many years. He has a good basketball mind and I can’t wait [for that] to that happen so I can jump on the bandwagon and follow him! KI: Last thing for you Coach. Have you gotten any head start on the speech you’ll give or the outfit you’ll wear? RT: (laughter) God, I haven’t done any of that stuff yet! But those things are coming. I want to make sure that I express my gratitude for all those people who helped me along the way. And there have been many. God, I haven’t worn suits for a while. I’m probably gonna have to rent something because that’s just not part of my life now. And I’m really looking forward to that day up in Springfield.
The last # really brought a chuckle to my heart. A year and a half ago I was forced, forced I say, to purchase a suit. First in 20-ish years. Last sportscoat was purchased @15 years ago. Sweats, shorts, jeans. Good enough for a HoFer? Good enough for me! Rudy T, HoF - - great 'ring' t that!
Hakeem olujuwon is all-time blocked shot leader, yet never gets mentioned among greats. Rudy t got lost after paradigm shift in sports after Houston lost football to a small market,Tennessee Titans.
Anything being moved to 2021 is usually moved into the Summer... kinda odd that they moved it to Spring. Seems a bit premature.
Last week was the 25-year anniversary of the Houston Rockets second Championship. Dave Ward sat down with the man himself, Coach Rudy Tomjanovich, who was recently inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame 2020. From discussing what Michael Jordan thought about a Rockets vs. Chicago Bulls championship match up, to what Coach Rudy T. thinks of coaching James Harden and today’s team, see what the man who led Houston’s first championship team had to say. https://davewardshouston.com/rudy-t...-rockets-faced-chicago-bulls-in-championship/
I guess McHale and Garnett's relationship went sour... would have expected him to be the logical choice to induct. Rudy has the perfect guys presenting him.
Hakeem doesn't really like to speak, for him to present Rudy T is truly a heart of a champion. I'll be shocked if Rudy doesn't shed.
A great article about Rudy T in today's NY Times. There's some great quotes from Robert Horry and more proof that the Rockets could've beaten the Jordan Bulls. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/12/sports/basketball/nba-hall-of-fame-tomjanovich-kobe.html MARC STEIN ON BASKETBALL What Rudy Tomjanovich Learned by Coaching the Greats Tomjanovich led the Houston Rockets to two championships (Hakeem Olajuwon), briefly coached the Lakers (Kobe Bryant) and oversaw an Olympic team (Kevin Garnett). Even as a noted players’ coach, Rudy Tomjanovich had a hunch Kobe Bryant would need some time to embrace their new partnership. After five years and three N.B.A. championships under Phil Jackson, and having thrived in the read-and-react triangle offense Jackson championed, Bryant was suddenly playing for a lifelong Houston Rocket with different sideline sensibilities. “It was an adjustment for him because I was a play caller,” Tomjanovich said. What Tomjanovich shared with Jackson, if not an offensive philosophy, was a gift for reading superstars and ultimately connecting with them. His time with Bryant was short during the 2004-5 season, when Tomjanovich quickly deduced that the stress of coaching had become damaging to his health, but at least one Laker urged him not to walk away. “Kobe tried to talk me out of it,” Tomjanovich said in a telephone interview, reflecting on his resignation, as well as how he meshed with Bryant, after just 43 games. In the buildup to this weekend’s pandemic-delayed inductions for the Basketball Hall of Fame’s class of 2020, Tomjanovich, 72, has been telling old stories often — most of them, naturally, from his 32-year run as a player, scout and coach in Houston. The class is headlined by Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett and Bryant, who will be presented by Michael Jordan and inducted posthumously. Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash on Jan. 26, 2020, that grief-stricken fans and peers, all of the honorees included, are still struggling to process. Tomjanovich, after twice being named a finalist but not in 2019, earned his place among the 2020 inductees for his coaching achievements in Houston — particularly his championship partnership with Hakeem Olajuwon. The Rockets won back-to-back titles in 1993-94 and 1994-95, first with Olajuwon as the lone All-Star, then as a lowly No. 6 seed after a midseason trade reunited Olajuwon with Clyde Drexler, his college teammate from the University of Houston’s men’s basketball teams known as Phi Slama Jama. Those Rockets teams were routinely dismissed as champions of circumstance, branded as beneficiaries of Jordan’s 18-month hiatus from the N.B.A. to try to transform himself into a Chicago White Sox outfielder. We’ve since learned, through “The Last Dance” documentary series, that Jordan’s iconic Chicago Bulls were not a lock to handle Houston without a big man anywhere near Olajuwon’s level. “I heard it from the horse’s mouth — and that’s Michael,” Tomjanovich said. He said that Charles Barkley, in his first season as a Rocket in 1996-97, arranged a dinner at his home in Phoenix for the Rockets’ coaching staff. There were two very special invited guests: Tiger Woods and Jordan. “It was the first time I really got a chance to talk to Michael,” Tomjanovich said. “Nobody can ever know who would have won, but he said they were concerned that they couldn’t stop Hakeem. It was great to hear it from him.” Bladder cancer brought a cruel halt to Tomjanovich’s three decades in Houston after the 2002-3 season. Yet the way he managed an array of big personalities across 12 seasons as the Rockets’ coach helped Tomjanovich emerge as the Lakers’ choice to replace Jackson — after some flirtations with Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski and an attempt to lure Miami’s Pat Riley back to Hollywood. Tomjanovich, then 56, signed a five-year, $30 million contract to coach the Lakers, who traded Shaquille O’Neal to Riley’s Heat four days later. “I probably shouldn’t have done that,” Tomjanovich said. “First of all, I was excited that the cancer was gone. I thought, ‘I can’t pass this thing up,’ but then I just felt like I was hurting myself and I had to let it go. I love to coach good players, and Kobe was great. I thought I could do it, health-wise and body-wise, but I couldn’t. People said it was a lot of money to give up, but what good is money if you’re going to make yourself sick?” It was the rare Tomjanovich comeback story without a happy ending. As a player, he survived a vicious on-court punch from Kermit Washington in December 1977 and recovered to reach his fifth All-Star Game in 1978-79. As a coach, Tomjanovich steered the Rockets to playoff upsets of the teams with the league’s top four records (Utah, Phoenix, San Antonio and Orlando) in the 1995 playoffs to win title No. 2, including a second-round rally against the Suns after Houston fell into a 3-1 series deficit. “That’s how we got one of the greatest quotes ever in basketball,” Robert Horry, one of Tomjanovich’s Houston stalwarts, said on Monday. “Don’t ever underestimate the heart of a champion.” That defiant rebuttal to Rockets skeptics, from a beaming Tomjanovich after Houston completed a 4-0 N.B.A. finals sweep of O’Neal’s Orlando Magic, became his signature line. He is still working in the league, hired in December by the Minnesota Timberwolves as a front-office consultant. He referred to his induction as “the cherry on top of it all” and said that coaching gave him what he craved most other than championships in his final years as a player. A new identity. “I heard that for a while and it was getting old — ‘Oh, you’re the guy who got punched,’” Tomjanovich said. “It was really good to push that in the background.” Tomjanovich didn’t coach Duncan, but said he would never forget the dread he felt upon seeing him as a rookie in San Antonio, teaming with David Robinson. “The first time they threw him the ball, I watched how he caught it and where he positioned it under his chin and how he looked to the middle,” Tomjanovich said. “I got sick to my stomach.” He did briefly coach Garnett and, not surprisingly, clicked with another star. Tomjanovich coached the United States at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia. Garnett was one of his loudest leaders. Two scares against Lithuania, including a semifinal that the Americans easily could have lost, will surely stay with members of that team, since U.S.A. Basketball, to that point, had not lost with N.B.A. players. “I’m telling you, that was a big, big boulder that you’re carrying around,” Tomjanovich said. “You don’t want to be the first.” Perhaps he and Garnett will have a chance to share a relieved laugh about it at some point during Saturday’s festivities. Every moment of levity is bound to be relished on what figures to be, at various points, an unavoidably somber evening. Horry, the role player supreme, has as much reason to watch as anyone. He won two of his seven championships alongside Duncan in San Antonio and regards Tomjanovich as “the best coach to play for.” He also played for Jackson and Gregg Popovich, but rates Tomjanovich at the top “because he had a feel for the players and a feel for the game.” “I only still talk to one of them,” Horry said, referring to Tomjanovich. Yet Horry added that he was unlikely to tune in, as much as he wanted to celebrate Rudy T’s big moment, and it was clear why. For all we anticipate with this starry class — what sort of speech we get from the spotlight-shy Duncan is one prime example — it’s still so hard to get past the unjust and unfillable hole in the whole occasion without Bryant able to take his rightful turn on the podium. Bryant joined the Lakers at 17, grew up over the course of 20 seasons in Los Angeles on the biggest of N.B.A. stages and, after such a long and prosperous career, had his life cut tragically short. As a regular analyst on Lakers broadcasts, Horry said he feels that sting every time the team’s network runs what it calls “Mamba Moment” highlight tributes to Bryant, his teammate on the Lakers’ three-peat championship teams from 1999-2000 to 2001-2. Horry’s daughter, Ashlyn, had a rare genetic condition and died at 17 in 2011. He said he thinks often about Vanessa Bryant, Kobe’s wife, and “having to talk about not just losing a daughter but a husband, too.” “It’s too sad,” Horry said. The plan here is to revel as much as possible in Saturday’s joys, like the overdue recognition for a decorated coach like Tomjanovich, while bracing for the sadness we will all understand.
Spurs Coach Popovich on Coach Rudy T who will be there to watch Tim Duncan/David Robinson and witness Coach Rudy T: "I never really understood why he was continually overlooked," Popovich said of Tomjanovich. "I mean, as much success as he had, year in and year out, and the championships he won were really hard-fought. He came from the lower end of the rankings in both situations to just gut it out. He was the coach of the Olympic teams and got a gold medal. He was a class act. His players loved him. He has the game in his blood. I always thought he was an obvious choice. So, for it to finally happen, is just a wonderful thing for him and his family and all of us who are his friends."
