HOUSTON — Last weekend, the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame announced its latest class. Former Houston Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich was not on the list, and that angered Washington Wizards Coach Scott Brooks.
On Tuesday, Brooks returned to the city where he won an NBA championship while playing under Tomjanovich. Naturally, the topic of Tomjanovich’s Hall of Fame snub came up by a local media member and Brooks shared an impassioned defense for Rudy T’s candidacy.
The question “how disappointed are you” in Tomjanovich not being selected was barely out of the reporter’s mouth when Brooks jumped in.
“Very di[sappointed] … I’m glad you brought that up because all this other stuff is not important,” Brooks said, after answering more than six minutes of questions about Tuesday night’s game between the Wizards and Rockets. “That guy should be in the Hall of Fame. He’s won two championships. He’s won a gold medal. I mean, what does a guy have to do?”
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Tomjanovich spent 13 seasons in the NBA as a head coach (1992-2005) and compiled a 527-416 record for a .559 winning percentage. Also, while Tomjanovich led the Rockets to back-to-back championships (1994 and 1995), Brooks highlighted how he was successful by having just one all-star, Hakeem Olajuwon, who was surrounded by moderately good and lesser talented players.
After winning a second straight title, Tomjanovich delivered one of the most endearing quotes in sports: “I have one thing to say to those non-believers: Don’t ever underestimate the heart of a champion.”
However, the Hall of Fame has undervalued Tomjanovich — at least in Brooks’s eyes.
“Nobody should get in if he doesn’t get in,” Brooks said. “They should just say, ‘You know what, we’re going to close it down. No more coaches get into the Hall of Fame.’ He deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. He started something that every team is doing now.”
During the 1992-93 season, Brooks’s first year in Houston, the Phoenix Suns led the league by taking 13.4 three-point attempts by game. By the next season when the Rockets won their first championship, the rest of the league still took a conservative approach to the arc while Houston set the new NBA-high with 15.7 per game — nearly two more than the next closest opponent (Orlando Magic, 13.9).
Although 15.7 threes would be more like total the current Rockets would launch in one quarter, Tomjanovich’s Rockets could be considered a precursor to the modern game.
“We started the three-point shooting trend. We were inside to Olajuwon and everybody else spaced the floor to the three-point line. And he doesn’t get credit for doing that,” Brooks said. “He started the three-point shooting trend. It just took the league another 10 years to figure it out and there’s no question he’s a Hall of Famer. He’s a Hall of Fame person. To me that’s more important than them giving him a Hall of Fame place in there. But no question, he’s a Hall of Fame coach. It’s disappointing and to me, it’s unacceptable but I don’t get a vote.”
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