D’Antoni move shrinks to-do list
Coach’s status clear after fourth season of contract picked up
After two seasons in which Mike D’Antoni won the NBA Coach of the Year award and then the most games in Rockets history, the team moved to tie up the loose end in his contract.
More than that, they wanted to make it clear before free agent recruiting begin late on Saturday than their coach would not be going anywhere, picking up their option on the final season of his contract.
“The way Mike conducts himself behind the scenes along with the results he brings, it did not take long for me to see that he is the perfect fit for our organization,” Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta said in a statement. “We are thrilled to have coach D’Antoni continue to push the Rockets towards our goal of winning a championship.”
D’Antoni signed a four-year deal as the choice of former Rockets owner Leslie Alexander in June 2016, but the 2019-20 season was at the team’s option before the Rockets exercised that option on Wed-
nesday.
The Rockets went 55-27 in D’Antoni’s first season, when he became the eighth coach in NBA history to win Coach of the Year awards with two teams, having won in 2004-05 with the Phoenix Suns.
The Rockets went a franchisebest 65-17 this season, the first in team history in which they had the NBA’s best record. They advanced to Game 7 of the Western Conference finals before losing to eventual repeat champion Golden State. D’Antoni was fifth in the coach of the year balloting announced on Monday.
Making the move this week was in part to remove any uncertainty in preparation for free agency.
Expected to be central to the Rockets’ free-agent recruiting efforts to begin this weekend, the Rockets wanted to be sure D’Antoni, 67, could answer questions about his future with the team.
In another procedural move necessary before free agency, the Rockets will extend their qualifying offer to center Clint Capela to make him a restricted free agent, a person with knowledge of their plans said of the obvious first step toward keeping him.
That move was even more of a certainty given the Rockets’ determination to keep Capela, and it is necessary to be able to match any offer sheet he signs. The deadline on the qualifying offer, worth $3.4 million, is not until Saturday, with Capela expected to be one of the most coveted restricted free agents when negotiations can begin at 11 p.m. (Central) on Saturday.
If D’Antoni is to be knocking on any doors then, the Rockets wanted to be sure his contract situation was clear and moved to erase any doubt.