December 9, 1977: The Houston Rockets play the Los Angeles Lakers, at The Forum, outside Los Angeles, in Inglewood, California. After being the top 2 seeds in the previous year's NBA Western Conference Playoffs (the Lakers 1st, the Rockets 2nd), both teams came into this game having struggled early in the season: Houston were 10-13, Los Angeles 9-15.
In the season's opening game, the Lakers were involved in a fight with the Milwaukee Bucks. Kent Benson elbowed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the stomach. Kareem then punched Benson, breaking his own hand and Benson's jaw. A few games later, the Lakers were playing the Buffalo Braves, and the Lakers' Kermit Washington got into a fight.
The Lakers' game with the Rockets was tied 28-28 at the end of the 1st quarter, and tied again 55-55 at the half. Early in the 2nd half, the Lakers' Norm Nixon missed a shot, and Kareem and the Rockets' Kevin Kunnert went up for the rebound. Kunnert got it, and passed to John Lucas.
Kunnert ran to support the Houston attack, and Washington grabbed his shorts to try to stop him. Kunnert threw an elbow that hit Washington on the arm and spun him around. Washington then punched Kunnert, knocking him down.
The Rockets' Rudy Tomjanovich ran over, with the intention of breaking up the fight. But Washington didn't know this, and punched him in the face. Kareem thought the sound was like "a melon being dropped onto concrete." "Rudy T" was left unconscious, in a pool of blood on the Forum court.
Rudy regained consciousness, and got up, but had so many bones broken in his face that he could taste spinal fluid in his mouth. He later said that it felt like the scoreboard had fallen on him. The doctor who treated him said, "I have seen many people with far less serious injuries not make it."
For what it's worth, the Rockets won the game, 116-105. Despite being on the losing side, Kareem scored 32 points. The only available replay of the incident showed only Washington's punch of Tomjanovich, not what led up to it. Saturday Night Live showed it, and cast member Garrett Morris comically defended the punch.
Washington was fined $10,000 -- about $49,000 in 2022 money -- and was suspended for 60 days, which meant 26 games. It turned out to be the longest suspension in NBA history for another 20 years, until Latrell Sprewell of the Golden State Warriors choked his head coach, P.J. Carlesimo, in 1997; and the longest for an in-game incident for another 37 years, until the 2004 incident known as "The Malice at The Palace."
But even that wasn't enough for some people: Some thought Washington should not be allowed to return to the court until Tomjanovich did. He missed the rest of the season, which amounted to 57 games, although he did make a full recovery, and returned for the 1978-79 season.
Washington received hate mail, much of it with racial slurs. (He was black, Tomjanovich was white.) Police officials advised him not to order room service when he resumed playing on the road, for fear he might be poisoned. Washington's wife was pregnant with their 3rd child, and her obstetrician dropped her as a patient after the incident, even though she had nothing to do with it.
Jerry West, the former Lakers star, now their head coach, wanted to keep Washington. Bill Sharman, the former Boston Celtics star who had coached the Lakers to the 1972 NBA Championship, and was now their general manager, said he was "on the fence." But the team's owner, Jack Kent Cooke, decided that he couldn't keep Washington.
On December 27, 18 days after the incident, Cooke traded him to the Celtics. Sports leagues usually don't allow a player under suspension to be traded, but Commissioner Larry O'Brien allowed it. The Lakers also sent Don Chaney, a former Celtic star, back to Boston, and also gave them a 1st round pick in the next year's NBA Draft, which they used on Freeman Williams. In return, the Lakers got Charlie Scott.
Why did the Celtics take him? Because he was a native of Washington, D.C., and had starred in the city for Calvin Coolidge High School and American University; and because Celtics general manager Red Auerbach had lived in D.C. since playing at George Washington University, even through all his years in the Celtic organization, and kept tabs on D.C.-area players, and thought highly of Kermit Washington, and did what he could to make him feel at home in Boston.
This was helped by a column that Bob Ryan wrote in The Boston Globe, which led to Celtic fans cheering him. Ryan later said, "You couldn't not like the guy when you sat down and talked with him... He never wanted to hurt Rudy the way he did."
The NBA had been playing for 30 years, and its history was littered with fights. This time, O'Brien got serious about the penalties for on-court fighting. His eventual successor, David Stern, then the NBA's chief counsel, said, "You couldn't allow men that big and that strong to go around throwing punches at each other."
Under rules soon adopted, any player who throws a punch at another player, even if he misses, is automatically thrown out of the game, and suspended for at least his team's next game. The league added a 3rd referee to its game crew, specifically to watch trailing activity. Had such a ref been on the court for this game, he would have called a foul as soon as Washington grabbed Kunnert's shorts, and none of what happened afterward would have happened.
Before the next season, Kunnert signed with the Celtics, solely, he said, because they offered him the most money. There were no incidents between him and Washington. Washington was soon traded to the San Diego Clippers, and a year later to the Portland Trail Blazers.
In 1980, he was named to the NBA All-Star Game for the 1st and only time in his career. The game was held in his home region, at the Capital Centre, in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland, home of the NBA's Washington Bullets, the NHL's Washington Capitals, and Georgetown University's basketball team. That weekend, American University invited him to a game, and retired his Number 24. (He also wore 24 with the Lakers, who later retired it for an earlier player, Gail Goodrich. He wore 26 with the Celtics, and reversed his earlier number to 42 with the Clippers and the Trail Blazers.)
But that would be his last good season. Back and knee injuries led him to retire in 1982, only 30 years old. In 1987, he attempted a comeback, with the Golden State Warriors, but played only 6 games before being cut.
Washington later coached at Stanford University and with the Trail Blazers, and ran restaurants and a charitable organization to combat poverty in Africa. In 2016, as a result of activities in his charity, he and former San Diego Chargers lineman Ron Mix, by then a lawyer, were indicted for fraud. Both pleaded guilty to lesser charges: Mix was disbarred and sentenced to time served, while Washington was sentenced to 6 years in prison, and was released after 4 years.
Tomjanovich had made 4 All-Star Games before the punch, and made 1 after. He remained with the Rockets until 1981, the season in which they first reached the NBA Finals. He battled alcoholism, and recovered. He served as an assistant coach until 1992, and was promoted to head coach, leading them to the 1994 and 1995 NBA Championships, still the franchise's only titles. He remained head coach through 2003, and, with some irony, coached the Lakers in the 2004-05 season.
The Rockets and the University of Michigan both retired his Number 45. In 2000, he coached the U.S. team to the Gold Medal at the Olympics in Sydney. He has been elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach.
He is no longer remembered chiefly for the punch that came, literally, within a fraction of an inch of killing him. Washington, despite his best efforts, is still best remembered for that punch. As of December 9, 2022, both men are still alive. In 2002, for the 25th Anniversary of the incident, and the accompanying book The Punch by sports historian John Feinstein, they sat together for a joint interview for USA Today.
They joined each other again for this photo,
July 10, 2018.
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December 9, 1977 was a Friday. There were 6 other games in the NBA that night:
* The New York Knicks beat the Atlanta Hawks, 103-84 at The Omni in Atlanta.
* The New Jersey Nets beat the Kansas City Kings, 122-114 at the Rutgers Athletic Center (now the Jersey Mike's Arena) in Piscataway, New Jersey. Bernard King scored 30 points.
* The Portland Trail Blazers beat the Boston Celtics, 118-87 at the Boston Garden.
* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the San Antonio Spurs, 120-116 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.
* The Washington Bullets beat the New Orleans Jazz, 101-97 at the aforementioned Cap Centre.
* And the Seattle SuperSonics beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 136-123 at the Seattle Center Coliseum. Gus Williams led all scorers on the night with 33 points.
Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. There was 1 game played in the NHL: The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Colorado Rockies, 3-2 at the McNichols Arena in Denver.
And there were 4 games played in the World Hockey Association:
* The New England Whalers beat the Birmingham Bulls, 2-1 in overtime at the Jefferson County Civic Center in Birmingham, Alabama.
* A team of Czechoslovakia All-Stars beat the Indianapolis Racers, 5-3 at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis. This was the only game the Czech team won, as they went 1-6-1 against WHA teams.
* The Cincinnati Stingers beat the Winnipeg Jets, 4-3 in overtime at the Winnipeg Arena.
* And the Houston Aeros beat the Edmonton Oilers, 5-3 at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton.
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