Zach Lowe: Houston keeps surprising me that they are not trying

I would have moved heaven and earth to get into the top 5 of this draft with Wagler, Acuff and Flemings there to choose from.

I'm glad Brooklyn went with Mikel Brown instead of one of them .... Brown won't move the needle much by comparison.

 

I mean, why try when Rockets fans reject every single trade idea?

 

I believe Ime Udoka is a quality coach. Not perfect, but a good coach. So does, um, 99.9% of people in the NBA, probably.

 

I think so far he is an average coach, maybe even slightly above average. He's a massive improvement over Silas who was actually a bottom 5 coach. By no means do I think he is a bottom 5 coach, which is what you said. If he's really that bad, maybe I missed something.

Or are you just a binary thinker? Either he's a championship level coach or he's the worst? No inbetween?

If you just made up a stat then just say it.

 

Lol, fair enough. I guess there are still some Udoka apologists out there.

 

I never cited a stat, there is no valid mechanism by which to objectively rank coaches....it's inherently opinion based. Someone might say that they think Silas is an above average coach and it would be an equally ridiculous claim to those saying Ime Udoka is an above average coach.

There's not a single game where he's going to outcoach his opponent, he doesn't understand offense enough to run any system whatsoever....he just essentially says "you guys figure it out", and his player management decisions consistently harm the team both in the short term and in the long term.

It's flat out insane that anyone who actually follows the team would suggest that he's even a decent coach.


That said, I want to be fair here, by all means explain to everyone what you think Ime does well as a coach.

Is it when he tells his players to play harder? Is it when he throws his players under the bus for his shortcomings? Is it when he sits on the bench looking angry and doing nothing productive?

What is it you think he's doing so well? I can't point to a single thing he does well, which is why I think he's a **** coach. Apparently you think he does a lot well....so what are those things he's doing?

 

Sounds strategic but you can also keep watching ships just pass you by. In the meantime you got ticket prices going up and execs and GMs continue to get paid for just looking.

 

Did Rafael really make that call or was that more Udoka... I've seen Stone draft... we will see how all this develops in the next few years.

 

T

He single handedly ripped the heart out of my favorite basketball team. We had a team of dawgs one year, then we had whatever the hell that was last year, and KD was the difference. I'm not a Jalen Green fan. I just despise KD and think he ruined our team despite his obscene percentages. And it's not hard to see what effect he has on a team's morale. Look at how much better the Suns were without him.

 

KD was not the problem his efficiency scoring and gravity was a massive upgrade to Green. Where we lacked was we didn’t fix other glaring holes while other teams got better and we never had a real PG and KD is not a facilitator. Like it or not this team and the way they are coached requires a competent PG to run the offense because Ime doesn’t

 

You comment "we will see how all this develops in the next few years" is spot on. As fans, we've seen enough to know there needs to be immediate changes and dismissals. But as much as we might complain, they are not coming.

The front office wants to see what they paid for: KD with FVV and the gang. I think we all know where this is headed.

 

This guy has it figured out. He watches games not just a box scores.

 

He’s pure

 

You know it’s bad when all these teams are drafting great talent and making trades to get better, and you are torn about your team doing nothing, because u don’t trust the front office to make good moves, so you’d rather they do nothing.

 

At this point we're waiting for pigs to fly if we're waiting on Amen to find that 3 ball. Sengun also can"t be Senhub in the paint if we're still needing Steven Adams to help him out. Too many non shooters at that point.

 

You said "he's a bottom 5 coach". I was asking you to cite your source.

At the end of the day, coaches are judged on results. He's gotten a lot of good results during the regular season ...but in the playoffs, welp.

 

So we're back to you saying that Ime "just wins" and giving him credit for what the Rockets managed to do in the regular season despite his sabotage?

That's adorable, but I couldn't help but notice you couldn't manage to come up with a single thing you think he does well as a coach. Funny how that works.

 

Did people forget that Rockets claimed to be hesitant or not too interested in Durant in 2025?

https://rocketswire.usatoday.com/st...uston-trade-but-rockets-hesitant/83628898007/

 

They aren't serious franchise if they believe Sengun/Amen can play together on a championship level team.

 

I mean, there's some hope that Amen can learn how to shoot and in theory he could play his natural position instead of pretending to be a guard. If that happened, they'd be fine.

Unfortunately there's no hope so long as Ime is the head coach of the Rockets.