Rio Grande Valley Vipers to promote Mahmoud Abdelfattah as head coach The Rockets on Tuesday were finalizing an agreement to promote Mahmoud Abdelfattah to be head coach for the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, a person with knowledge of the team’s plans said. Abdelfattah was an assistant on Joseph Blair’s staff last season when the Vipers won the G League championship. Blair since became an assistant coach with the Philadelphia 76ers. Abdelfattah was an assistant coach at his alma mater, St. Cloud, before joining the Vipers as a basketball operations assistant in 2017-18, moving to the coaching staff the following season when former Vipers coach Matt Brase joined the Rockets’ coaching staff and Blair took over as head coach. Four of the Vipers’ past five coaches – Blair, Brase, Chris Finch and Nick Nurse – have moved on to the NBA with Nurse winning last season’s NBA championship as Raptors head coach.
Listening to what Morey wants. Actually, he just joined the RGV staff a year or two ago and was an assistant on the Jordanian national team before that. He's a "hire from within" just like Blair was. As long as he can keep the lab experiment going, I guess.
The chron article also mentions this: "The Vipers also named Travis Stockbridge as general manager. Stockbridge, 25, is the youngest GM in G League's history." This is kinda wild. Will be interested in seeing how he performs.
He's a Rice alumn in Statistics and Sports Mgmt, Class of 2015. Rockets hired him as Intern in 2012, at age 18 -- I guess out of High School??? Elevated to Basketball Operations Coordinator after graduating. Keep him in mind next time someone starts a thread in the Hangout about wanting to get into Sports Mgmt and work for the Rockets.