Rudy T. enjoys special moment

Hall of Fame Rockets coach and franchise icon Rudy Tomjanovich entered the room at Toyota Center prior to the Throwback Thursday celebration of Rudy T Night with hugs and jokes. Some things never change.

He said being honored was something greater than “very, very” special.

“It’s very awesome,” Tomjanovich said. “Always good to come back for many reasons.”

Before he would go on, however, Tomjanovich took the opportunity to offer more thanks, citing two names that were in his prepared Hall of Fame induction speech but he somehow missed that night.

“When you get into the Hall of Fame, I’m not big on those kind of events, but the way that I made it work for me is it gets you an opportunity to thank the people who have

helped you in your career,” Tomjanovich said. “That’s how I approached it. I was very excited about it and I worked hard on giving people my thanks and my gratitude.

“However, I screwed up in a big way. I just thought of this two days ago. I left two very valuable people off that list. Those people were Ray Melchiorre and Keith Jones, the trainers of the team when I was here.”

With that taken care of, he could enjoy the moment, seeing the words “Hall of Fame” on his Toyota Center retired number banner for the first time.

“I’m not real comfortable with this stuff, but if you could share it with other people, I like it,” Tomjanovich said. “I didn’t get into the game for that kind of stuff. It’s just that feeling of accomplishment that you did something well. For other people to put you at that level is great. And when they put you at the top, you’re living good. That’s the cake, the icing and the cherry on top.”