Rocketing to Friendship : Del Harris and Rudy Tomjanovich, Two Old Buddies With Houston Connections, Aren’t Happy About First-Round Playoff Matchup, but They Couldn’t Get Out of It

They had seen this coming for two months, since the night the Rockets beat the Lakers in Houston and the two head coaches walked off the court together and talked of how, even then, it looked as if the teams would meet again in the first round of the playoffs. And of how they hoped it wouldn’t happen.

“No, I didn’t want to play him,” Del Harris, the Laker boss, said. “I really didn’t.”

Said Rudy Tomjanovich, his counterpart: “Just because of the close relationship.”

By now we know it was a collision course neither could avoid. Harris had told Tomjanovich late that Feb. 24 in the Summit that he hoped at least one of the teams would move up in the standings to avoid the matchup, but here they are, as predicted. Lakers vs. Rockets, beginning Thursday night at the Forum.

Theirs is a friendship that goes back to 1976, when Harris went to Houston to become an assistant on Tom Nissalke’s staff for his first NBA job and met a 6-foot-8 forward with great range known as Rudy T. The first steps down the path started with shooting games after practices with another player, John Johnson. The time spent together the next season during rehabilitation after Kermit Washington’s punch sent Tomjanovich to the hospital for a series of surgeries around the face may even have brought them closer, and Harris would testify for the plaintiff in the civil trial against Washington.

Harris eventually replaced Nissalke for what became the final two seasons of Tomjanovich’s playing career, the last of which came as the Rockets staged their improbable run to the NBA finals, going from 40-42 to a Western Conference title. When that successful eight-year run ended in the spring of 1981 after five all-star appearances, all involved agreed that Rudy T should stay with the only pro organization he had known.

He signed on as a scout and dissected the opponents, getting particularly excited to watch the Lakers and see how Pat Riley successfully ran plays for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar even when everyone knew the ball was going inside, lessons that would ultimately serve Tomjanovich well 10 years later with Hakeem Olajuwon. Harris was constantly offering encouragement to the trainee.

About two years into the new gig, they drove to the University of Houston to talk to Guy Lewis about becoming the Rockets’ second assistant to ease the load on overworked Carroll Dawson. On the way back, Harris suggested they submit Tomjanovich’s name to the brass instead.

“I didn’t spend a whole bunch of time with Del away from basketball,” Tomjanovich says now. “I was still a player, then a young coach. But that was a real smooth transition because of his friendliness and openness.”

Tomjanovich moved to the bench and started on an unlikely course. Harris was fired in the summer of 1983, but Tomjanovich stayed with the Rockets, ultimately accepted a 30-game tour as interim coach late in 1991-92 against his own better judgment, then decided he wanted the job after all. Four full seasons later, he has engineered the kind of success--back-to-back NBA titles, a 62.6% winning percentage in the regular season and 63.2% in the playoffs--most others in the field can only dream of.

Harris’ contribution? He gave Tomjanovich a start, no small matter in a field where openings are at a premium. Just ask Harris, who waited for years for such an invitation.

Beyond that, though, Harris is the first to caution against over-estimating his role in the improbable career that has blossomed in Texas. If anything, he says, it has been the opposite. The former pupil has taught him a few things.

“The way he deals with players and his approach to the game in every way,” said Harris, who holds a 5-3 advantage in the head-to-head meetings despite the Rockets’ winning three of four from the Lakers this season. “His techniques for spacing the court, I’ve copied a good bit of that. A lot of stuff. Mainly the person. He’s just a great guy.”

It isn’t the kind of relationship in which they lean on each other for career advice. But there is little question that they are allies, these two men who are unpretentious while held up to the light of success and also very loyal to the past. So Harris was glad to offer a verbal scouting report on the Spurs about a year ago at this time, just after San Antonio had defeated the Lakers to earn a trip to the Western finals against the Rockets.

“Warm friends,” is how Harris describes the relationship.

Maybe it’s because, in so many ways, they have come from the same place. Harris is from Indiana, Tomjanovich from nearby Michigan. Neither set out to be a basketball coach, yet both have come to be highly respected and praised. And both got big breaks in Houston.

To think that now they have ended up at the same place. The Forum. Thursday night.