Dime Magazine Jun. 10, 2003 8:50 a.m. With the euphoria in Houston, it’s like the Rockets won the lottery all over again. The reason for excitement was yesterday’s announcement that former Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy agreed to become the new head coach of Yao Ming, Stevie Francis and the Rockets. The contract is believed to be somewhere in the $4-5 million per season range for at least four years. That would be significantly less than the reported $25-35 million the Washington Wizards offered Van Gundy to be their new head coach. This just provides further proof that when His Airness spreads the bad word about a franchise, it’s repercussions hit like the plague ... Van Gundy’s inking doesn’t come without a price the way Larry Brown’s did. The Knicks still own Van Gundy’s rights until July 31 of this year and wanted compensation from the Rockets. Houston felt they couldn’t afford to wait and have agreed to give the Knicks undisclosed compensation in return ... Word out of D.C. is that Van Gundy is already attempting to assemble a staff and former disciple Patrick Ewing is on the short list. The Rockets haven’t yet asked to speak to Ewing but would reportedlly be granted access to do so if they did ... pretty weak "smack", but I figured people could read it if they wanted to.
