Rudy Tomjanovich is easily overlooked as part of a star-studded 2020 Basketball Hall of Fame class, but his induction also brings to mind the moment that altered his playing career.
The 2020 class for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame was announced on Saturday. The class is headlined by Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan, but former Houston Rockets player and head coach Rudy Tomjanovich will also be inducted this year.
Tomjanovich was a Hall of Fame finalist in 2017 and 2018, before falling short of the induction list in 2019. He is the Rockets’ franchise leader in coaching wins (527), and he led Houston to back-to-back NBA titles in 1994 and 1995. His final season as a coach came with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2004-05, when he resigned 43 games in.
Tomjanovich’s successful run as coach makes it easy to forget he was a fairly accomplished player for the Rockets as well. After being drafted second overall in 1970, he was a five-time All-Star in 11 seasons with the Rockets, including their final season in San Diego. Four of those All-Star nods came consecutively, from 1974-77.
But a moment in December of 1977 would become infamous, altering Tomjanovich’s playing career and the lives of two men.
The Rockets visited the Los Angeles Lakers on Dec. 9, 1977. Tomjanovich was having a strong outing (19 points, eight rebounds). A brawl between the two teams got going, and Tomjanovich ran in to join the fray.
Lakers forward Kermit Washington turned and blindly threw a punch when he sensed a threat coming, hitting Tomjanovich square in the face. He suffered some serious injuries to his face, head and neck, including a spinal issue that prompted a slow leak of spinal fluid that Tomjanovich could taste when being examined by doctors. He would be sidelined for the rest of that season, but Tomjanovich returned in 1978-79 and earned his final All-Star selection.
Many years later, Washington wrote a piece for the New York Times about how the Tomjanovich punch still haunted him. A subsequent appearance on The Jim Rome Show was heard by sportswriter John Feinstein, who instantly saw the potential for a book about the two men, the incident and its broader aftermath.
If you want to see a clip of “The Punch”, be warned, but check it out here.
Feinstein has written multiple best-selling books across the full spectrum of sports. But The Punch: One Night, Two Lives And The Fight That Changed Basketball Forever stands among his best. With the news of Tomjanovich’s Hall of Fame induction as a prompt, the book is a worthy addition to any quarantine/social distancing reading list right now.