Tommy Heinsohn tells entertaining story about the time he almost decided to coach the Houston Rockets

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Boston Celtics legend Tommy Heinsohn tells entertaining story about the time he almost decided to coach the Houston Rockets



Inductees of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2015 at Thursday jacket ceremony and press conference at the hall are from left: Alex Isaacs for his late father, John Isaacs, Dick Bavetta, John Calipari, Louis Dampier, Lidsay Gaze, Spencer Haywood, Tom Heinshon, Lisa Leslie, Dikembe Mutombo, George Raveling and Jo Jo White. September 10, 2015. (Michael S. Gordon / The Republican)


Michael S. Gordon | mgordon@repub.com
Print Email Jay King | mjking@masslive.com By Jay King | mjking@masslive.com

on September 10, 2015 at 7:08 PM, updated September 10, 2015 at 7:16 PM





SPRINGFIELD -- The time Tommy Heinsohn came closest to leaving the Boston Celtics organization, he opted against it at least partially because the Houston Rockets did not share his admiration for a scrappy guard.

And after Heinsohn declined the opportunity, he decided his choice was cause for champagne. Sitting in the first-class section of an airplane, he remembered Thursday, he told the flight attendant the reason for his celebration.

"You won't believe this," he said, "but I'm celebrating turning down a million-dollar deal because I will be a happy person when I turn this down."

For six decades, Heinsohn, who will be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame this weekend as a coach, has been connected to the Celtics organization in some capacity -- first as a player, then as a coach, now as an announcer. But on a few occasions throughout his career, other franchises approached him about coaching positions. He said Thursday that Houston came the closest to luring him away.

Reports suggest that in 1983, the Rockets targeted him as their No. 1 option to replace Del Harris. For two weeks, Heinsohn discussed the possibility with Houston general manager Ray Patterson before opting not to take the gig.

At the time, Heinsohn said the Rockets failed to reach his monetary demands. That might have been part of it, but after a press conference Thursday to honor his second induction to the Hall of Fame, he shared more details of why he soured on the possibility. During a meeting with Houston management, he remembered recommending "a couple of players" he wanted the team to sign. The Rockets bristled at the suggestions, causing Heinsohn to reexamine his thoughts on the job opportunity.

"This is not going to work," he said he realized. "I'll spend five years here and we'll be at each other's throats all the time."

Heinsohn was not foreign to clashing with management. Toward the end of his tenure coaching the Celtics, he said the organization dynamic turned ugly with ownership overstepping its boundaries. He was eventually fired midway through the 1977-78 season with the team sitting at 11-23.

"The beauty of coaching the Celtics at the time was that Red Auerbach was in control of the operation, and he kept the owners away," Heinsohn explained. "So if you were the coach of the team, you could go coach the team and you didn't have to look behind you to see who was knifing you in the back. All the politics of pro basketball was taken away because of Red's ability to do his job. When that evaporated with an owner, and everybody was looking at everybody else with quizzical eyes, it became the worst year-and-a-half of my life. The man that ultimately owned the team, he was trying to coach the team."

After that experience, Heinsohn vowed never to take another coaching job if he could not trust the people above him. For a while, he thought the Rockets would give him the right type of situation. But when they couldn't understand his personnel desires, he realized the pairing would not fit.

More than 30 years later, Heinsohn still remembers one player he wanted to bring to Houston: Ron Lee, a hustling, energetic spark plug from Lexington, MA, who earned the nickname "The Tasmanian Devil" while with the Phoenix Suns. An interesting look back at Lee's career can be found here.

By 1983 the guard was actually out of the NBA after averaging 3.4 points during his final season with Detroit. Still, Heinsohn, who coached some of the fastest-paced teams in basketball history, thought he could revive Lee's career by placing him back into an up-tempo style.

"Do you know Ronnie Lee?" Heinsohn asked a reporter Thursday. "Would Ronnie Lee fit into an uptempo, aggressive, pass-run team? They looked at me like I was crazy. He was a free agent. I tell you, whoa, they had no idea what I'm about."

To this day, Heinsohn has never worked for any organization besides the Celtics. He might have left for Houston, though, if the Rockets had seen what he did in Ron Lee.



bob
MY NOTE: We may not be lucky when it comes to the draft lottery, but we're real lucky in other ways. Go Tommy!


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