Lakers to announce Rudy T as coach by next week

Perfect fit aside, Rudy T might make Lakers likable
By MICKEY HERSKOWITZ
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle
For Houston sports patrons, this is the season of The Extreme Makeover. The Astros launched the long, hot, half-summer of Carlos Beltran on Friday.

Any minute now, the Rockets expect Tracy McGrady to parachute into their lives.

And, if all goes according to plan, as early as next week the Los Angeles Lakers will introduce Rudy Tomjanovich as their next coach and the conductor of the NBA's most complicated symphony.

Anyone in Houston who admired Rudy T can only be happy for him. That is, if you think coaching the Lakers is a good thing to have happen.

For the moment, we can only speculate the Lakers are smart enough to snap up a fellow with a history of winning. Of even more significance, he did so while earning the respect and devotion of his players.

The irony and timing of this matchmaking won't be lost on even the casual fan.

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the first championship won by the Rockets, the first Houston celebrated in a major team sport.

Tomjanovich was just two years into a head coaching career he hadn't hungered for, and the Rockets would repeat a year later.

It was a glorious achievement for a fellow who spent most of a lifetime with the Rockets, as a player, scout, assistant and coach. Offhand, you can recall only one individual serving longer with one organization, Red Auerbach, who all but invented the Boston Celtics.

Rudy gave the Rockets 33 years, five All-Star seasons as a player and 503 wins as a coach.

The move would require a major adjustment on the part of Houston partisans. The Lakers were always the team the devout Rocket fans most loved to hate.

This was partly because the Lakers were always a marquee franchise, when the San Antonio Spurs and Dallas Mavericks were too lame to inspire hatred.

True, a certain amount of culture shock can be expected on the part of the Los Angeles faithful. Unlike Phil Jackson, who seemed to enjoy his identity as the Zen master, and Pat Riley, who created a style that could be explained in one word, Showtime, Rudy T has no mystique.

Unless, of course, honesty and modesty are so rare in the NBA today they would constitute a mystique.


Fan from afar
Rudy T was a far better player than Jackson or Riley, which doesn't count for much in the chew-em-up and spit-em-out world of NBA coaching.

But when he was a scout, the job he might have enjoyed the most, he loved watching the Lakers because Riley was creative, and he gave you so many looks.

But most of the time the ball was going to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, as it would later go to Shaquille O'Neal and, in Houston, to Hakeem Olajuwon.

The truth is, in making the vast cultural leap to Los Angeles, Rudy would be the party taking the greater risk. In losing to Detroit in five games, the Lakers lost not only the NBA title but their talent for the Hollywood ending.

As Jackson bailed out, the Lakers were looking at urgent measures to retain Kobe Bryant and to pacify Shaq. Derek Fisher is testing the marketplace, as Kobe will do when he isn't in a courtroom. Karl Malone's various ailments might not allow him to return to the Lakers.

But this kind of turmoil plays directly to Rudy's strength as a coach. He isn't colorful or eccentric, and he encourages harmony, not rapture.


Necessary credentials?
No one around the league doubts he knows how to coach, and they won't need long to get to know him in Los Angeles. They remember his courage in coming back from the blindside punch from Kermit Washington that nearly took his life.

There is no need to revisit that episode, and Rudy most of all will hope the media don't dwell on it.

His return to the sport would be applauded throughout the league, and he would bring a quality to the Lakers they can embrace in real life, for a change, not on television. He is a survivor, as indicated by his most recent victory over bladder cancer.


Mixed emotions
You recall the day in 1992 that he was named to replace Don Chaney as head coach of the Rockets. His friend, Carroll Dawson, had talked him into it, rather than risk having the whole staff fired. On what should have been a joyful day, he looked as if he might become physically ill.

He felt badly for Chaney and wasn't at all sure he wanted to deal with the insecurity of this industry, the egos of the players, the loss of his and his family's privacy.

The doubts were put to rest long ago. He was a perfect fit for a Rockets team that had just enough talent and too much temperament. He grew as a coach, and his illness reminded him there were other priorities.

He is still the shoemaker's son from Michigan, and there is nothing left to say except this: It might be harder to hate the Lakers, but we can try.

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I really wanted to see Rudy back here after one more season of JVG. Unfortunately, the Lakers have snapped him up. They may have also entered the Yao Ming sweepstakes.

 

This is the link, sorry it's late!