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New coach needs a plan that brings title to roster whose expiration date draws closer
Great expectations mean next head coach faces more challenges
A week later, as the Rockets begin their search for a new coach, they and their fans are left to grapple with frustrations that at least feel unique amid the struggle to decide what this team really has been.
There has been reason for all the optimism that somehow returns each season, not because it is the enticement and attraction of sports. It has been earned one way or another, only to render the Rockets a team of unmet expectations.
Even as they have done better and won more, they have done enough — winning 65 games, leading the Warriors, 3-2, leading the Thunder, 2-0 and the Lakers 1-0 — to raise hopes before they are crushed in the final act.
Every good team but one ends its season with a loss. The Rockets, however, don’t just fall short. They build hope. They are not the Knicks or the
Kings. They have the longest playoff streak in the NBA. They have the thirdbest record in the league since adding James Harden, the second-best record in the past four seasons.
That, however, has only made them and their fans hungry for more, and shaken when they have repeatedly teased without breaking through.
There is a tendency to lump the playoff losses together, which makes the pain greater. Perhaps the Rockets brought much of the frustration upon themselves for so often and so openly citing their championship aspirations and presumed credentials. Bowing out in five games this season with a Game 5 blowout and three games with 20-plus deficits brought a different brand of anguish. But Rockets fans know better than most that coming close and falling short sometimes is no more satisfying.
All of that frames what comes next. It informs what will be expected of the next coach, the weight of expectations he or she will inherit and the difficult decisions to be made.
The next coach will be brought in to win big. Mike D’Antoni had the best winning percentage in franchise history, secondbest in the postseason. From the day the new coach wins the press conference — and the coaches the Rockets are certain to explore are the types that will excel on that stage — that individual will be tasked with doing more than had been done by the immediate predecessor.
Rockets management knew that D’Antoni exceled. The team’s expectation was that they would bring him back. Assumptions elsewhere were that a disappointing five-game conference semifinals beatdown by the Lakers would end his tenure. He might have assumed that, too. And perhaps negotiations would have gone sideways as they did last summer. But the Rockets did not intend to spend the offseason looking for a new coach.
Such are the expectations the next coach will assume. Most, if not all, welcome that. That is not only because there are only 30 NBA head coaching jobs in the world at any one time, but also because coaches, and particularly those with options, prefer having talent with expectations than the hope to acquire that kind of potential.
The Rockets’ circumstances do, however, complicate the profile of candidates. Much of Harden’s prime, though clearly not all, has been spent. He has been in the top three of the MVP voting in five of six seasons and the only player on the All- NBA first team the past four seasons. The next coach cannot assume he will be LeBron James, a unanimous All-NBA pick at 35years old and in his 17th season, because no one else ever has been.
Harden and Westbrook have three years left on their contracts, both with a player option in the final season. The next coach will be tasked with getting them over the hill the Rockets have not conquered in 25 years. He or she also will likely have more seasons on a contract than the current stars.
To get there, you will hear the trendy buzzwords — accountability, culture — but that will be true with every job that is filled this offseason. It is not as if though those qualities were lacking or were ever not valued, no matter how they were labeled.
But with the Rockets determined to maintain much of their offensive style, believing it best for the times and certainly for the talent on hand, something less tangible has to improve to take that longsought next step.
Improving the roster could be at least as difficult. The Rockets have few options with a payroll that starts with Harden and Westbrook paid $82.5 million next season and $88.5 million in 2021-22 and with Eric Gordon owed roughly $75 million over the next four seasons.
Going to their version of a process, trading talent for assets and accepting the pain of losing seasons, is not an option, something general manager Daryl Morey has never done and owner Tilman Fertitta said he never would do. The Rockets once again don’t have their first-round pick this season (or a second rounder) and the Thunder own lightly protected Rockets firstround picks after Westbrook’s and Harden’s current contracts along with the right to swap draft order in 2021 and 2025.
Losing as a way to win is always risky, but in this case might be a sound strategy if the Rockets’ goal is to help the Thunder.
Still, there can be no question that the window is closing. Harden, Westbrook, Gordon and P.J. Tucker will range from 32 to 35 years old next season.
It is good that they along with Robert Covington and Danuel House Jr. are under contract, giving the next coach a solid foundation. But even if the Rockets do not plan to bottom out after the Harden era, the next coach will likely be expected to be lift the Rockets to true championship contention now and shepherd them through widespread change, even by their standards, later.
If finding the coach to drive the Rockets to their next step were not challenging enough, the Rockets might seek someone to eventually coach a very different team, likely with different goals and expectations.
Of the former head coaches who are potential candidates, Tyronn Lue has a ring. The idea that he reached the Finals three times only because he had James is ludicrous. No coach ever has reached the Finals without great players. If anything, his experience on those runs should benefit him. His ability to relate and challenge players could fit well.
The Rockets, however, could also look to find their own Nick Nurse, who for a time was their own Nick Nurse when they had him run their G League team. They know Kenny Atkinson from his time in player development for them and he did get the Nets to play just the way the Rockets want to play in terms of style and competitive energy. The same can be said for his former assistant Jacque Vaughn.
The Rockets also find themselves in a search at a time particularly strong with assistants ready to move up. Sam Cassell, Adrian Griffin, Ime Udoka, Darvin Ham, Stephen Silas and Wes Unseld Jr. could be good fortune for the teams looking for the next star. Between them, they have had apprenticeships under Nurse, Tom Thibodeau, Gregg Popovich, Mike Budenholzer, Rick Carlisle and Michael Malone.
The coach they choose could be — and probably should be — not the one that fits the profile they determine through this week’s meetings, but which answers the difficult questions about how to improve.
The roster will be difficult to change, though that will still be viewed as Morey’s department. One would think after spending first-round picks like quarters at a toll booth, they will hang on to the ones they still have.
The Rockets could be moved by an argument in favor of sticking with the style and philosophy, but with greater variety of skills on the roster. They have always been driven by their convictions. So, they took everything to extremes, filling the floor with stationary shooters orbiting Harden with Harden handling the ball in the middle on one end and playing a switch-everything defense on the other end.
The extremes, however, made it difficult to fill a roster with players that could excel at both styles. There can be big men that can shoot in the Rockets’ offense, but not switch effectively in their defense. Others might have ability to switch, but not shoot 3s.
The defense improved since the restart. It was better since the move to full-time smallball and outstanding in the first round. But a team that shoots more 3s than any ever has and is left to rely on them in crunch time of close games, does not shoot them very well.
Gordon’s struggles were clear in the second-worst 3-point shooting season of his career. Westbrook has never been an efficient range shooter. Even Harden, after a spectacular start to the season, made just 32.2 percent of his 3s after the start of the new year.
The Rockets made and attempted more 3s than any team, but their 34.5 percent 3-point shooting ranked 24th in the NBA. There are few playmakers to generate easy shots or make things easier for Harden and Westbrook. They found a way to fit with one another, but do it largely by taking turns.
Given the roster constraints, coming up with a path to take the Rockets from good to great will be the challenge for the next coach. He or she will have to inspire players, but first convince Morey and Fertitta there is a way to get that done.
There are tougher jobs out there. There usually are. But the Rockets’ position is particularly demanding if only because excellence is not considered good enough. That has brought disappointment, often bitter disappointment, at the end of end of the past four seasons.
But it will also tell a prospective coach that this organization will not consider good to be good enough. That’s what coaches should want, even if it has made the end of good seasons so agonizing.