Chron: Shaq, Kobe, Rudy will be happy family

Great title. Can't believe Rudy is going to be running w/ the purple and gold.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/2668246

By MICKEY HERSKOWITZ
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle

Idon't know what Los Angeles did to deserve this break, but at a time when a lot of people seem to be fleeing the city, Rudy Tomjanovich appears ready to move there.

If Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant are able to run to daylight, the Lakers might want to consider letting Rudy play as well as coach.

There is always a risk involved when you try to guess the next wrinkle in the NBA, much less the next chapter in the LA story. But if Shaq Daddy and Bryant will give him 15 minutes, Rudy T will give them the world, as they say on cable news. You can bank on it.

The guess here is that no matter what they say now, the two highest-profile players on the league's most hard-to-figure team will stay.

Kobe is said to be talking to the Clippers and waiting on a huge offer from the Nuggets. But the TV in your brain replays that dramatic footage of the Lakers' star guard dashing to Los Angeles — exiting the courtroom, catching the flight, dozing in the car, making an entrance into the arena. It is hard to imagine Colorado's offering him asylum. Or Kobe's accepting.

Hakeem factor at play

The Lakers have taken the art of losing to new heights. They win three championships in a row, then lose in the Western Conference semifinals and NBA Finals in consecutive years, and suddenly everyone is playing the death scene from Camille. Phil Jackson retires, and you don't begrudge him a little down time to stroke his beard.

O'Neal feels slighted, and ignoring him would be like ignoring the La Brea Tar Pits. But Shaq has never lost his admiration for Hakeem Olajuwon, and if he thinks about it, why wouldn't he want to play for Hakeem's coach?

It isn't as if Rudy's most important skill as a coach was to walk up to Hakeem before every game and say, "Sic 'em!" Hakeem had been with the Rockets 10 years before they won those back-to-back titles in 1994 and '95.

No worries

Tomjanovich had been on the job two years. He took a struggling team in 1992, fin-
ished 16-14, and the next sea-
son led the Rockets to 55 wins.

The year after that, they won 58 games and faced the Phoenix Suns and Charles Barkley in the Western semifinals. The Rockets led the first game by 18 points, at home, and lost. They were ahead by 20 points in the fourth quarter of the second game and lost — in overtime.

Now they were headed to Phoenix, down two games to none, and trailing behind them were all the "Choke City" headlines and second-guessing and hand wringing.

In print, on the air and wherever he turned, Rudy heard people saying, "This
isn't working. Do something — quick."

To this day you wonder if the fans or media fully appreciated the fact that the steadfast fellow from Michigan turned in one of the truly terrific coaching jobs in NBA history. He stayed with the X's and O's that won those 58 games, and the Rockets won four of the next five.

Then they beat the Utah Jazz in five games and the New York Knicks in seven and turned Houston into "Clutch City."

Meritorious service

You hesitate to say Houston ever took Rudy for granted, but when a guy stays with the same team for 34 years, you don't throw him a parade every day.

The Lakers lost a great coach in Jackson, but they are gaining another one, and as a bonus this one doesn't conceal his affection for his players.

The courtship is over, and all that remains is signing the prenups and tossing the rice. Rudy will adjust as needed. He has a philosophy he believes in, and he doesn't overreact, but he isn't brain dead when it comes to change.

He doesn't hesitate to give playing time to a kid at the end of the bench. He was the first draft pick out of Michigan by the San Diego Rockets in 1970, but he didn't start a game, and coach Alex Hannum was reluctant to give him minutes.

When the team moved to Houston in 1971, the new coach, Tex Winter, installed Rudy at power forward. The person who lobbied hardest for him was Elvin Hayes, the ex-Houston Cougar viewed by many as a "selfish" player.

But the Rockets needed someone to crash the boards, and Elvin, who went against Tomjanovich in practice, knew the toughness under that benign, pleasant face. Rudy crashed the boards, and he was money hitting his shots off the glass.

One tough customer

In an interesting twist of the rope, Winter designed the triangle offense that brought Jackson so much success in Chicago and Los Angeles. Tex tried to install it in Houston, with mixed results, and a shaky franchise changed coaches in the middle of the next season.

So Rudy is no stranger to the Lakers' system, and he hasn't led a sheltered life as a player or coach. He gave the Rockets 11 quality seasons on the court and 12 on the bench.

He retired to focus on beating cancer, which he did. The Lakers' job, as theatrical as it might sometimes be, holds no terror for him.

 

That I think should deserve it's own thread. That's big news.