I have no idea. At least the McFail 3-year extension came a third of the way into what was the final season of his initial 4-year contract. So locking him up before he went into coaching free agency the following summer made sense. Ime still had 2 years left on his 4-year deal. He'd had success here, but he still hadn't won a playoff series. Why not let this season play out, see what happens, and then extend him this summer if he does well? Cuz I can guarantee if it weren't for that extension, there'd be serious heat on him right now and his job would be in jeopary if the team didn't make at least the semifinals.
Knicks came calling, agent likely leveraged it into an extension “Two head coaches who are not currently available but said to interest the Knicks, according to league sources, are Dallas’ Jason Kidd and Houston’s Ime Udoka,” Stein wrote. “One source with knowledge of the Rockets’ thinking told The Stein Line categorically that permission to speak with Udoka would be rejected if the Knicks requested it.” Udoka: extension Kidd: extension Donovan: extension Week later, extension! (Maybe it was gonna happen anyways “Muh 52 wins” & “Muh 2 seed”)
He did turn a 21-win team into a 41 win-team within one season. And Stone thought he was an all-world coach. This is why you can't just use W-L records without context. First, anyone improving on Silas has to take the improvement with a grain of salt. Second, we replaced KPJ with FVV, thanks to KPJ's own personal crap. Say whatever you want about FVV, he is a vast instant improvement over Head Honcho. The cultural turnaround is as much Ime's credit as Fred's and Dillon's, especially getting the team to play defense, not to mention vets like Jeff Green who is a consummate professional. Even if it is solely the work of Ime to get this team playing hard, his inadequacy on offense was already showing back then. You could see that he's a high floor low ceiling kind of coach. I've always felt that the "play harder clap clap" kind of coaching can only take you so far on the highest level. You don't just work harder. You need to work smarter than your opponent. It was very unwise to give a guy a big and long term contract when he only had three years of head coaching track records.
The thing about Ime is that he just doesn't do anything well but clap and tell players to play harder. He's touted as a defensive coach, but apparently he has no clue how to set a team up for success defensively unless all 5 players on the court at all times are all NBA first team quality....he can't adjust to any situation that isn't perfect....and that's what he's supposed to be good at. He has absolutely no clue on offense....his idea of offense is to just have a team full of super athletes and have them go iso over and over again and get rebounds until they finally miracle the ball in the basket. This is not someone that has ANY business coaching basketball at any level.
Think we at least need to give him a pg (and I’m not talking about van fleet ) and then analyze the offensive strategy. He’s earned that much. But it’s not good. Everyone taking turns to see who can go one on four is never going to cut it. There has to be more direction.
So it's another situation where things have to be perfect for Ime to figure out how to do the basics? He has a PG right now, one he resisted using until halfway through the season and STILL doesn't use far too often, choosing to have the game plan be nothing but wings and Sengun going ISO.
He can't make adjustments at all. Has no second gear. Anyone who watches boxing or combat sports in general knows that's the key difference between a good fighter and an average one. A fight can look even through four or five rounds and then in the sixth, the better fighter suddenly looks different in the ring. More head movement, level changes, rotating towards the opponents' weak side, establishing the jab. The avg one who was landing earlier starts missing and doesn't even understand why let alone how to fix it. From there it turns into a one sided beating until the ref steps in. That's exactly what Ime is as a coach. All season long, hes done everything possible to keep Reed and Sengun from building any chemistry. Even today, he barely played them together until the third quarter. I'm not blaming him for initially labeling them as defensive liabilities but at some point you have to adapt. This roster lacks both shooting and a true point guard two things they can actually provide together. Yes, the defense might suffer but if your offense is already stagnant and your defense isn't holding up anyway, you have to lean into what gives you a chance. Prioritize offense, create rhythm, and hope it compensates but he sticks rigidly to his principles without reading the situation. He can't read it. He doesn't show flexibility or situational awareness he just repeats the same patterns like an NPC running a fixed script. You're not winning anything with that guy. I don't care how much authority he has in the locker room or how intimidating he looks on the sidelines. Basketball is a game of rhythm you constantly face adversity and have to respond to it. You need to be ready to counter every move that tries to derail your plan. Man, this guy is miserable. If they gut the roster for this NPC you might as well stop watching this team.
Lol he's had a PG for a few years and the offense has been the same. Instead of FVV and Green going ISO we substituted that with KD. He has no offensive system. He didn't in Boston either. A PG isn't going to fix the core issue of this rockets team. Ime needs to pull 100% away from the offensive side of the ball and they need to hire a guy to run it like MDA did on the defensive side when he was here.
Has Ime’s crashouts ever led to anything positive for the team? Can’t remember one instance where it has motivated the team to play better. If anything it amplifies the negative energy and leads to the game getting out control further.
He should’ve been tossed for being such a petty child. It has never done us good and actually added to the meltdown by Tate and others. We lost the game right there.
Watch how our guys talk about and play defense, it’s ridiculous. There’s no team goal to get stops and do what needs to be done as a team. They’re just given their own individual matchup and their job is to do everything possible to make sure their individual matchup isn’t the one that gets the bucket and they aren’t the singular individual picked out and blamed for it. Ime has created a culture of “it wasn’t my fault” no one is taking risk to go get the ball, no one is leaving their guy to and trusting the next guy to slide over and cover for them. They aren’t incentivized to preswitch anything and take on a bigger responsibility with more risk. The other 4 guys get excited when one of their teammates is on an island about to get cooked. They won’t be the one to get scored on and get yelled at by coach, the other team scoring isn’t a big deal just make sure your guy isn’t the one scoring it.
That and they don't do anything creative or interesting to help hide the guys who are not already above average on defense. Basically for a defensive coach, he is not really good. He just chastises guys so that they play near 'playoff intensity' defense throughout the regular season. That is not enough during the playoffs or during clutch times of the game.
Most of the complaints seem to revolve around the lack of offensive system, which I agree with, but the player development seems to have completely stagnated. No one has "improved," and I'll argue Reed just got more minutes rather than actually fine tune skills.
