Warriors legends reunite for 3s, wisecracks and reflections ahead of NBA All-Star Weekend

SAN FRANCISCO — They are Walk TMC now. Chris Mullin has a bum left foot, Mitch Richmond rarely shoots a basketball these days and Tim Hardaway arrived for this on-court reunion by patting the ample midsection of his tight-fitting jersey.

“Maaaaan, we used to run around all sexy,’’ Hardaway, 58, lamented as he stepped into the Golden State Warriors practice facility. “Not now. It’s all pot belly.”

Despite their infirmities, the mere sight of Hardaway, Richmond and Mullin reuniting to launch shots again was enough to quicken the pulse and widen the eyes. Somewhere, a long-ago defender felt a disturbance in the force and awakened without knowing why.

Once upon a time, these three were Run TMC, and their too-brief Warriors career looked like one long fast break.

In 1990-91, their second and final season together, they formed the NBA’s highest-scoring trio by averaging 72.5 points per game. (The Warriors averaged 116.6 points per game that season, second in the league.) All three finished among the league’s top dozen scorers that season, with Mullin ranking eighth (25.7 ppg), Richmond 10th (23.9) and Hardaway 11th (23.9).

They all wound up in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

“We had a sick run,” said Richmond, 59.

The Warriors secretly got the band back together for a video shoot to help promote the NBA All-Star Weekend in the Bay Area next week. Mullin, Hardaway and Richmond participated in a 3-point shooting contest, with Baron Davis representing the franchise’s “We Believe” era.

This was Run TMC’s acoustic set. Because there were no fans in the building for this Dec. 20 shootout, every bounce, swish and wisecrack reverberated off the walls like a bygone soundtrack.

All-Star Weekend is coming to The Bay, so some legends had to get in the zone.@starrylemonlime Alumni 3-Point Shootout is now LIVE at pic.twitter.com/VR3LEnIUTP

— Golden State Warriors (@warriors) February 13, 2025

The most important ground rule for the 3-point competition hardly needed to be spelled out.

“Walk to the next rack slowly,” Mullin, 61, explained, “so no one gets hurt.”

Who would win? That was a topic the players kicked around, too. Richmond and Mullin reasoned that Davis should be the favorite, even though he made just 32 percent of his career 3s. He got the nod because he was a mere 45.

Davis, who grew up idolizing Hardaway, wasn’t having it.

“I’m already at a disadvantage,” Davis protested, scanning his competitors. “Legend, legend, legend — and me.”

Hardaway, meanwhile, picked Mullin to win it all. And that had nothing to do with the fact that Mullin was wearing a pair of custom-made Stephen Curry sneakers.

“He doesn’t even need those on, he can still shoot,” Hardaway said. “If Steph Curry himself were here, I’d still be taking Chris Mullin.”

As the players stretched out before this turn-back-the-clock competition — let’s call it Re-Run TMC — any fears about moving too quickly were put to rest. “The slowest 3-point contest I’ve ever been a part of,’’ Richmond cracked.

Their famous nickname owes its roots to Run DMC, rap pioneers who found stardom in the mid-1980s and in 2009 became just the second hip-hop group inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For the basketball version, TMC refers to the initials of their first names — Tim, Mitch and Chris. On this day, however, it could have stood for where it hurt most: Tendons, Muscles and Cartilage.

Mullin looked the smoothest during warm-ups, quickly recapturing that sweet and lethal left-handed release. Then again, Mullin was just a few shots in when he fretted about needing a headband because of the sweat gathering on his forehead like a storm cloud.

He’d been taking warm-up shots for all of three minutes.

Mullin: Hey, Mitch.

Richmond: Yeah?

Mullin: I’m tired.

But as more warm-up shots started to fall and the semblance of competition began to simmer, TMC settled into a familiar zone. And for a few glorious hours in an empty gym in December, an exhilarating era of Warriors basketball was off and running again.

Tim Hardaway, Chris Mullin, Baron Davis and Mitch Richmond. (Photo courtesy of Golden State Warriors)

First round: ‘I got bamboozled!

The action opened with Davis versus Richmond on one side of the bracket and Hardaway versus Mullin on the other.

The Warriors’ production team asked Davis to handle the player introductions for their camera. The only instruction was not to curse. Davis got two dozen words into his ad-libbed remarks before saying, “I’m just talking s—.”

“They said you couldn’t cuss!” Richmond said.

“So make sure it’s edited,” Davis replied.

As it turns out, the first take was only for rehearsal anyway. On Take 2, Davis nailed it:

Guess what, I’m here with Bay Area Legends, Warriors Alumni, TMC.

Chris Mullin, Mitch “The Rock” Richmond, Tim Hardaway, and I am yours truly Baron Davis.

All-Star weekend coming to San Francisco. The Starry Alumni three-point shootout is happening now.

When it was over, Mullin thanked Davis for remembering to call it the “alumni” contest. “Lower the expectations,” Mullin explained.

Players shot from three different racks featuring five balls apiece. There was one rack in the left corner, one at the top of the arc and one in the right corner. Each make counted for one point. Along the way, a pair of “money balls” counted for two points apiece.

“Let’s get this thing crackin’!” Hardaway said, although he might have been referring to their joints.

Fired up, leadoff shooter Davis promptly missed his first four shots, none of them particularly close.

“He’s warming up!” Mullin yelled as encouragement. “He doesn’t come alive until the fourth quarter!”

But there would be no comeback. Davis went 5-for-17 in his trip around the arc, with the money ball allowing him to salvage six points.

“Six?! You set me up by making me go first. I got bamboozled!” Davis cracked. “Do I get a do-over? This is on camera.”

“Let me see how I do first,” Richmond replied, “and then we’ll be doing over everything.”

Richmond fared just fine, finishing strong to win his first-round matchup 9-6. On the other side, Hardaway was unhappy with his seeding committee. “I hate shooting against this guy,” he said of Mullin.

Hardaway had reason to be concerned. He missed his first shot so badly that laughter erupted among the others. “Oh, my goodness,’’ one of them said. It didn’t exactly pick up from there. Hardaway missed his first nine (!) shots. He looked so rusty that they didn’t need a water jug on the sideline, they needed an oil can.

“I told you I haven’t shot in three years!” Hardaway yelled as a way of answering the mounting snickers.

At last, his 10th attempt went in. “I’m on a roll!” he said. But he was not. Hardaway made just one more shot the rest of the way and finished with two points.

The performance was so scattershot that Mullin got a little cheeky and asked if he even needed to bother with his round. “Do I get a bye?” the former Dream Teamer said. Then, as if to rub it in, Mullin drilled 8 of his first 11 shots en route to a 12-2 win. “A dirty dozen,” he said of his point total.

“At age 60!” Hardaway marveled.

“61,” Mullin corrected.

Mitch Richmond, Chris Mullin and Tim Hardaway pose for a photo before Mullin’s jersey retirement ceremony in 2012. (Kelley L. Cox / USA Today Sports)

Final round: Mullin vs. Richmond

By now, there was a little zest to the action. Voices were louder, the focus sharper. Hardaway and Davis, having been eliminated, shouted encouragement. They wanted a show and rooted hard for Richmond, the underdog, to put up a fight.

Richmond came out firing, hitting three of his first four. His fifth shot almost fell, too, but the ball went in and out.

“That’s going to hurt you!” Hardaway said.

“What’s going to hurt him,” Davis joked, “is bending down to get the ball.”

Indeed, Richmond went cold from there, missing eight of his next nine shots.

“Hey, Mitch. Come on!” Davis finally said. “You’re going to make it to the finals to do this?”

Richmond’s final tally of five allowed Mullin to take his turn feeling confident again. He walked toward the rack casually, making it clear this was a done deal.

“I gotta beat five?” Mullin said, half-bored. “What are the odds?”

Mullin was a tad slow out of the gate hitting two of the first six. With some wishful thinking, Hardaway announced: “It might be a game.”

Mullin’s retort came in the form of hitting his next four shots and adding his total out loud — three, four, five, six. At one point, Mullin pointed toward the balls remaining rack and started counting the ones he hadn’t shot yet — 10, 11, 12 …

Mullin didn’t quite get that far, but he did enough to capture the crown with a 9-5 final-round victory.

In all, the four Warriors legends combined to make 42 of their 102 shots. How did it feel?

“It’s like riding a bike … but the bike is kind of janky,” Richmond said. “And the bike is just as old as we are.”

Mullin heard that assessment and laughed.

“The bike has no seat, no steering and the handlebars are crooked,” he added.

A picture-perfect ending

As a surreal touch, the competition played out in a venue where pictures of the past looked down on the present. The walls are adorned with images of Run TMC in its prime. Mullin, Richmond and Hardaway even recreated one of the group shots for a then-and-now comparison.

How often do they get together?

“Not enough,” Hardaway said.

“Not enough,” Richmond echoed ruefully.

Mullin lives in the East Bay and works as an analyst for NBC Sports Bay Area. Richmond lives in Los Angeles, not far from Davis. Hardaway lives in Detroit and attends most of the Detroit Pistons’ home games where his son, Tim Jr., averages almost 11 points per game.

Another image overlooking the Warriors’ practice court features Davis soaring for his famous dunk over Andrei Kirilenko in the 2007 playoffs, the greatest jam in Golden State history.

Davis said he owed that moment to the power of Run TMC, which inspired him as a teenager in Southern California.

“Tim Hardaway doesn’t know this, but I used to wear size-10 Tim Hardaway shoes when I was in high school,” he said.

The size 10 is the important part. Because at the time, Davis had size 11.5 feet.

“I used to just be like, ‘F— it dude, my feet can hurt,” he said. “Yeah, man, I was squeezing into them Tim Hardaways.”

Imagine Davis’ joy when Hardaway and the rest of Run TMC served as his mentors upon Davis’ arrival with the Warriors in 2005.

“I was coming from New Orleans, where everybody had checked out on me,” Davis said. “And when you have legends who believe in you when you walk in that gym every day — and you see them in person — you can’t disappoint them.

“And ultimately, that’s what ‘We Believe’ it was about. We were playing for our legacy and their past, We wanted to do what Run TMC did. So that was our goal and motivation.”

This seemed like a fitting way to raise a toast to the TMC era.

They had an amazing run.

(Top photo: Courtesy of Golden State Warriors)