[VIDEO] IME UDOKA: The Coach Who Can't Run An Offense

Reaves isn’t regular talent. Kennard isn’t. Smart isn’t. And Rui is the best mid range shooter in the league and always reliable. They’re a vet team with a lot of playoff experience. Collectively they are good and better than us. I just know Amen better work on that 3 pt shot and maybe a post game. Him not being able to do anything but drive is holding this team back. And he needs to stop doing stupid shi+ like pass out Ben Simmons style when he’s 5 ft away from the rim

 

I mean the if Tillman and Patrick Fertitta want more embarrassment. Go ahead.

 

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.

 

On D, we see it all the time, Bari meets guys off one step well above the rim. Despite lacking bulk, he's an elite weakside shotblocker. Turn the game around and put Bari on offense, and he shrinks into a non-explosive 6'4 guard with a streaky shot and an extremely limited handle. It's beyond me why the guy can't develop three solid old school moves in the paint: spin move, jump hook, and drop step. Instead, we're left with that weird, inconsistent jump shot where he hangs in the air before the release (which makes his shot slower and easier to challenge).

 

“I get that Udoka drew up those last second plays that didn’t even lead to a shot attempt, but if he had prime curry, Jordan, Lebron , Duncan, Hakeem…there’s no doubt the plays would have gone better. This roster sucks!!” —@atimetochill probably

 

Yes, Jabari needs to be hard and play big on offense....

 

Every single team Ime Udoka has ever coached has underperformed on TS%.

1) With 2 star scorers and excellent role players in Boston, he finished 9th. After Ime got fired, Mazzulla finished 5th with the exact same roster. The season after that he specifically dumped Udoka's favorite players and easily won a title. Neither of Tatum or Brown are Wemby or SGA-level franchise players.

2) In his first season with us he was bottom 5 in the NBA.

3) The following season he was bottom 10. FYI Stephen f*cking Silas was able to achieve the same thing with a deathly bad roster and strict instructions to lose a lot of games.

4) This season he had Kevin Durant plus All Star Alperen Sengun as a second scorer plus Amen as a third scorer and he finished like 15th.

Stop lying to yourself about our players who have only had Ime Udoka as a coach after the tanking stopped. Udoka has been a negative on offense REGARDLESS of personnel, regardless of stars, regardless of having a PG, regardless of vets or young guys. He is the variable that brings your offense down. If our key guys are not good enough, why have a guy here who makes them WORSE?

Throwing the young guys under the bus is over. "If they had just not made that stupid mistake" is not a reasonable rationale now that we have a 340+ game sample size of a bad trend across two franchises and various circumstances. We know all the players' flaws AND they are capable of better offense than this. He built this roster knowing Amen and Sengun can't shoot. We knew from the day he got here it has to be a shooting-heavy supporting cast. He chose to bring in rebounders who are shaky shooters. ALL his acquisitions were useless or absent in the playoffs (Holiday, Capela, DFS, FVV, Durant, Adams and Okogie). The only reason we were alive was because of the young core.

I'm ecstatic that all the analysts, all the writers and all the content creators are putting the magnifying glass on him. Next season the team will perform poorly coming out of the gate because that's standard for a defense-only clap-clap coach after a few years. The players just tune out his BS and they have seen what's possible for other teams. You guys think it's a matter of the players maturing. What you don't understand is that when these players mature, they will know that Ime doesn't know what the F he's talking about on offense.

We have finished learning everything he knows to teach. It was great when we were coming out of the tanking phase. We need a grown up to coach this team.

 

The core is fine. If you dont think Amen/Reed/Jabari are talented, I'm not sure what to tell you. Are they LeBron or Luka? No. Could they all be Top 30 players in the league? Yes.

Right now they play like they are afraid to make a mistake. That's on Ime. He needs players to figure out offense for him so he resorts to using shittier players (FVV, Sengun) to make up for that.

There are those of us who are tired of the half measures. The players are or they arent and constantly having them do this "remember to pass it to Fred or Durant" **** is just making this team spin its wheels. The truth is that *none of us know how good they are* and thats the ****ing problem. The only player we do know for sure is a paper tiger is Sengun. He needs to go as does every other training wheel Ime has.

 

We gave up on Silas way too early...

 

I don't know how you can watch this and say that this is mainly on Udoka. The plays were there to be made, but too many times the players failed to execute. The roster simply isn't good enough. If Reddick and Udoka switched teams Udoka's Lakers would be going to the second round.

 

He’s not a great coach. I find it sad that the rockets had such a desperate sense of low self worth that they extended Ime prematurely and unnecessarily. This is another example of Stone getting played…just like trading the Nets back their picks. Putting Tilman on the hook for $70 mil more of Ime is a straight fireable offense after the season we just witnessed.

 

i never knew how under appreciated he was

 

If a guy started a food truck selling street tacos two years ago and was doing good, you could say that his little business was trending in the right direction. But that doesn't mean he would be a great corporate CEO.

 

“How Marcus smart, Luke Kenard, and 42 year old LeBron failed to score against a team that puts all its efforts into defense with a tough nosed defense first coach ”



oh wait…

 

Seriously, I was always annoyed at how the organization treated Silas. Although, I'm happy with Ime...I don't think Silas ever got a real opportunity to show how well he could coach because of the bottom tier roster he had to work with. The good thing about changing from Silas to Udoka was that the coaching excuse was supposed to be removed. If they failed under a highly regarded coach like Ime, then we would know for sure that the main issue was the player. Yet some of yall want to see what these players look like under another coach?! Man, come on.

Coaching is the least of our problems. The GM and the front office is the main issue and should be addressed before coaching. Coming for Ime shields Stone from accountability since most discussions about what's wrong with the Rockets incorrectly start with Udoka rather than how Stone failed the rebuild.

 

Thanks for sharing that. Excellent explanation of how Ime can't even coach basic offenses. Dude just sits on the bench blaming his players while his opposing coach is actually coming up with game plans and making adjustments.

 

Ime is a drill sergeant. He can whip inexperienced players into passable NBA players and get them to play some defense.

He gets embarrassed by generals.

Two first round exits against teams that had no business beating the Rockets because Ime got massively outcoached and out-adjusted.

 

The Rocket's organization is great at making bad decisions and throwing away large sums of money.

 

I agree. Udoka is at best a "bad cop" defense/toughness guy to a head coach who can create an offensive system and be the good cop/supportive guy.

I think they're going to run it back, getting a health pass for this season but here's the thing, they absolutely have to figure out how to employ more players through the regular season. 8/9 man rotations where you have guys getting over 36mpg is ridiculous. Damned ridiculous. Tuesday nights in October aren't must win games. Playoffs are, and you had 4 people you really trusted burned the hell out to begin with.

At minimum they need to bring in a better offensive assistant coach.

 

Btw the excuse for extending Ime was that he was approached by the Knicks.

Meanwhile, the Knicks approached Snyder too and the Hawks denied them permission to interview him and did not extend him.

We could be sitting in the same position as the Hawks right now: judging Ime based on his playoff performance.

That's why I keep saying, Ime and Stone are scamming the Rockets by corroborating excuses and protecting each other. They are just patting each other on the back and intentionally not bringing experienced basketball minds to the coaching staff or front office - because that type of person will call their ideas and performance out.

These two need an experienced supervisor. They are running circles around Tilman's son.