| Friday, April 14
By Mike Monroe
Special to ESPN.com |
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There's still one week left in the 1999-2000 regular season, but you
will have to forgive Houston Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich if he can't
wait until the start of the 2000-2001 season.
Once Rudy T has finished coaching the latest version of USA
Basketball's Dream Team to the Olympic gold medal, he will be eager to
get back to a young Rockets team about which he is very excited.
|  | | Francis isn't a center like Hakeem, but might become just as dominant. |
The Rockets won't be going to the playoffs, missing
the postseason for the first time since Tomjanovich took over as head
coach. But you may have noticed them becoming a factor in
playoff positioning races down the stretch. They went into Tuesday's
game at Denver having won seven of their previous 10 games, including
wins over Seattle on the road and vs. Utah.
Tomjanovich has known for a couple of years the day of reckoning was
coming for the team that won the 1994 and '95 NBA championships while
Hakeem Olajuwon was at the very peak of his career. Olajuwon's game has
been in decline for two seasons as a result of a series of illnesses and
injuries. It would not be a shock if he decided not to come back next
season.
Charles Barkley announced early in the season it would be his last in
the NBA, then suffered a season-ending injury on Dec. 8 that ended his
career prematurely.
Thus did the Rockets enter their rebuilding stage before Tomjanovich
was ready for it.
"All we can deal with is what's reality," Tomjanovich said of the
reality that smacked him right between the eyes when both Barkley and
Olajuwon suffered major injuries. "We can't talk about 'What if.' It's
gone.
"I knew, somewhere down the line, we were going to have to go through
'OK, young guys, it's your deal.' And I knew that was going to take
time, but now we're something like 60 games ahead of schedule."
As difficult as it has been for a coach so accustomed to winning to
deal with long dry spells, Tomjanovich has been sustained by the
Rockets' youth, most characterized by rookie sensation Steve Francis.
"I love this team," Tomjanovich said. "First of all, it's a change
of style, a more penetrating, open-court style. Then, the guys
themselves, with their energy and still being at the development stages
of their careers, are fun to coach.
"That's one of the benefits of coaching that I've enjoyed, when you
see someone who is trying to get it, and they work on something, and all
of a sudden they start applying the stuff to the game. That's a great
feeling."
And it is clear Tomjanovich's youngsters are starting to get it.
"Yeah," Tomjanovich said, launching into an analogy every parent of
teen-agers will appreciate. "We've been close, but it's just like in
life. We all want to be grown-ups; we all want to be men. But until you
go through all the stuff, all the lessons, all the pain of adolescence,
it's just not going to happen. If you didn't go through all those things
in your teens, you're going to go through it in your 20s. You're going
to act like a kid and go through all the suffering.
"We've still got a lot of that ahead of us, but we also got a lot
behind us."
In other words, some of the pimples that were so evident on the
Rockets' face this season will be gone by the start of next season.
For sure, the early-season struggles that plagued Francis won't pop up
next season.
"If we weren't really young; if we weren't growing; if I thought we
had gotten all we could and taught these guys all we've got, the losing
would be very tough to take," Tomjanovich said. "But I just see the
growth of this team. Steve is a fantastic player right now, and he's just
starting to put the whole thing together. There is no limit to what this
kid can do.
"Cuttino Mobley played only half his rookie year, so he's just a
little bit more than a rookie, and he's doing some things on the court
that I don't see some of the All-Stars doing, some of the moves he makes
to the basket.
"And Kenny Thomas has had flashes. He does some things at his position
I don't see a lot of guys do, which is his passing and his creativity
with the passing.
"So it's just like you've planted some seeds, and all of a sudden you
see these things coming up and it's better than expected."
Tomjanovich knows his team needs to massage its lineup, and the
question of whether or not Olajuwon will be able to play at all next
season remains. But in Francis, Tomjanovich knows he can replace one
superstar in decline with one on the way up, even if they do play vastly
different positions.
Francis, Tomjanovich believes, can be every bit as good as his position
as Olajuwon was at his.
"You'd have to go back a ways to find a point guard who had the kind of
impact he did his rookie season," Tomjanovich said. "I think he's
going to be an elite player in this league. He stays late working on his
game; spends extra time watching tape; he's got the ball and can do
whatever he wants; and he will pass the ball.
"He had a chance for a triple-double the other night, which could have
been a big deal in this Rookie of the Year race and all that, and he
gave it a little shot and then came over and said, 'Hey, let somebody
else play.'
"That's the sign of a special guy. He's truly going to be one of the
best players ever to play the game, I think."
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Tomjanovich knows what to do when you have a player like that: Give him
the ball as often as you can and ride him for all he is worth.
Next season can't arrive too soon for Rudy T.
Wandering the West
Denver coach Dan Issel attained a dubious distinction when he was tossed out of the Nuggets' Sunday game at Golden State. He became the
first coach since 1971 to be ejected from six games in one season. That
is according to Harvey Pollack, whose official title is Philadelphia
76ers director of statistical information, but whose unofficial title is
"NBA Master of Minutiae." Pollack began tracking both player and coach
ejections in 1971, so it is possible a coach other than Issel got tossed
as often, or more, from 1947 to 1971, but Issel is the only one so
documented. Referee Steve Javie, with whom Issel has some negative
history, did the tossing Sunday, the third time this season he gave the
Denver coach the heave-ho.
It may be a huge bluff, but Mike Dunleavy says he thinks the Blazers
can beat the Lakers in a series. Dunleavy last week acknowledged the
Lakers as "the most dominant team," but told the Portland Oregonian, "I feel
confident we can beat them in a series."
Dunleavy also opined that
Shaquille O'Neal has benefited too much from the league's new rules, and
the league ought to tighten things up a bit. You don't think he's
looking for a potential playoff edge, do you?
Now here's a player who truly gives back to his community: The Warriors'
Donyell Marshall, scheduled to sign autographs last week at a Bay
Area service station, decided to buy 1,500 gallons of gasoline for
the customers who showed up. At today's gas prices, that's a very nice gesture. "With the prices being so high, it's something to do for the community," Marshall said. "With this crazy season, it's a way to give back. You can't give back to anybody, but it's something."
Kings assistant coach Byron Scott wants Chris Webber to be extra
cautious with his sore left hamstring. Scott remembers popping his hammy
in the Lakers' final practice before the 1989 Finals. "One thing your
body does is tell you what you need to know, if you listen," Scott said.
"A couple of weeks before that, the Lakers went to Santa Barbara for
two-a-day practices. And two days before we went to Detroit, I told
trainer Gary Vitti that my hamstring was sore. He thought maybe I should
relax a little bit, but I said I didn't think I would need to do that."
Scott missed the entire Finals.
Mike Monroe, who covers the NBA for the Denver Post, writes a Western Conference column for ESPN.com. You can e-mail him at monroe128@go.com |  |
West: Near sweep in awards for West
