On Saturday night, Tim Hardaway reminded us of what could have been during his Basketball Hall of Fame induction speech.
The 5x NBA All-Star is probably most recognized for his time with the Heat during the ferocious, violent clashes with the Knicks during the 1990s.
But real basketball fans go back to his first few years in the League when he played with the Golden State Warriors as a member of the vastly underappreciated trio, RUN TMC.
RUN TMC was comprised of Hardaway, Mitch Richmond and Chris Mullin.
As of tonight, all three of them are Hall of Famers. Richmond was inducted in 2014 and Mullin in 2011.
In Richmond’s induction speech, he thanked his RUN TMC partners for everything that they gave him when he started his NBA career.
“Chris Mullin and Mitch Richmond. RUN TMC. We was legendary,” said Hardaway. “Man. When I came into the NBA, those two guys taught me everything.”
That teaching process began in 1989 when the Warriors drafted the “UTEP two-step” originator with the 14th pick in that year’s NBA Draft.
Mullin, the first member of the trio, was drafted by the Warriors in 1985. Three years later, the team selected Mitch Richmond. A year later, Hardway arrived and the trio was eventually dubbed RUN TMC in deference to legendary hip-hop group RUN DMC.
It was a group that Mullin had hometown connections to as Darryl McDaniels, DMC of the group, attended St. John’s University with Mullin.
In their first year together, the team went 37-45 and failed to make the playoffs. It was a step back from the year prior when the team posted a 43-39 record and lost in the Western Conference semifinals.
But in year two, RUN TMC started to click.
The Warriors went 44-38 and Hardaway took a big jump in his game.
He bumped his scoring average from 14.7 to 22.9, his assists increased from 8.7 to 9.7 per game and he made the All-Star team along with Mullin.
The team made it back to the Western Conference semis but lost again.
That gave fans hope that year three of RUN TMC would result in a Finals appearance. Unfortunately, those dreams ended in October when GM Don Nelson traded Mitch Richmond to the Sacramento Kings for rookie Billy Owens.
That trade still sits ill with Richmond over three decades later.
“That still hurts me to [this] day,” Richmond said in a great story by ESPN.com’s Kendra Andrews. “To see [what we had] be separated, it was my first time being traded, first time going through a team not wanting me, it was a lot. … I wore that in my game. Every time I took the court, I was angry.”
Fans were angry as well for they wanted to see what the dynamic trio could do.
And even though the team went 55-27 and made the playoffs again- albeit an early first-round exit- it was bittersweet because RUN TMC involuntarily broke up.
“So many years later, so many decades later when we get together, we always ponder, ‘What if?'” said Mullin.
Fast forward 30 years and the group experienced a full-circle moment when Hardaway finally joined his former running mates after failing to receive the necessary Hall of Fame votes five times.
Now all three members, like their hip-hop namesake, have their Hall of Fame jackets. While RUN DMC had black leather, the trio proudly rock their orange jackets.
As I watched the three members on stage, laughing and smiling as Hardaway spoke with uncontrollable joy at finally receiving his place in the Hall, it reminded me of a special time in the NBA.
It was a time of dominant, future Hall of Famers, a transition in league stars, unparalleled physicality and vicious rivalries.
And while Jordan and the Bulls dominated the 90s, Hardaway’s enshrinement took me back to a time when three guards ran teams off the court with a torrid pace that we’re now re-watching in the NBA’s current iteration.
RUN TMC could play, run and score with the teams of today. It’s just a shame that we never had the chance to witness what they could have accomplished with more time together.
Tim Hardaway reminded us of that fact and gave us all a great trip down basketball memory lane.
