It is a fair point that Ime has a certain vision of basketball: toughness / rebounding / physicality >>> shooting / BBIQ / collective offensive skill. That’s fine. But when you take that approach, you have to live with the fact that it is not fun to watch or engaging for fans. We are probably the worst watch in the league. So you better outperform expectations. If you don’t, fans will be out on you quickly. If you’re an offense focused coach and you underperform, well, at least it provides entertainment value and joy to fans.
Ime is not a championship level coach, he is a guy who is a hard worker, but his inability to adjust when smarter/better coaches do, will hinder any team he coaches. He has no plan B, he has no contrasting styles, he leans into players that should be taking a back seat to others because they were once superstars. Ime is holding this team back. DD
If we compete for a championship the fans would forgive the ugly ball, it’s just that we’ve seen this movie before.
Ime inherited some players but also brought in a lot of these guys. He needs to go, they need to go and some of your favorite players may have to go. And honestly, may need to start over. And build a modern 2026 NBA roster. Not 1996. There are no untouchables. The Mavs know who they’re building around. The Spurs know who they’re building around. Do the Rockets know who or what they’re building around? Kevin Durant & Fred VanVleet? Ben Simmons? Domantas Sabonis? Yeah, let’s build a roster with one playable guard (hurt), 5 centers (none which can shoot), 10 “3&D” forwards (in which there’s only D and no three), and we’re gonna play through the post and middies and exchange twos for the opponent’s threes, while not taking threes ourselves. In 2026. Everything against Morey stood for (layups, frees, threes). Can’t make bunnies, can’t make frees, don’t take/make threes. “Just get a point guard” (or “Just get Fred back”) is so misguided, so brain dead. Bandaid on those 10 gaping flesh wounds you have. They had a point guard last year. WE WERE ALL STILL COMPLAINING ABOUT THE OFFENSE! Inherited (Jalen Green) Alperen Sengun Jabari Smith Jr. Tari Eason Jae’Sean Tate Acquired under Ime/Stone Kevin Durant Fred VanVleet (Dillon Brooks) Dorian Finney-Smith Josh Okogie Clint Capela Steven Adams Aaron Holiday Jeff Green (Jock Landale) (Reggie Bullock) Drafted under Ime/Stone Amen Thompson Reed Sheppard (Cam Whitmore) “Udoka expressed resolve in his team's unconventional offensive approach and its potential for sustainability. "The formula can work," he told ESPN. Udoka and the Rockets coaching staff experimented all of last season playing big lineups and finished the 2024-25 campaign leading the NBA in offensive rebounds per game (14.6). Houston's size also allowed it to crash the offensive glass off misses with ferocity. That naturally yielded more second-chance points, another statistical category the Rockets led last season (18.1) on the way to a 52-30 record. "We saw something that worked last year and kind of tripled down, quadrupled down on it," Udoka said. "We became a bigger team. ... We're taking advantage of our size and the offensive rebounding that some of our guys naturally do. Amen's great at it, Tari's great at it, Steven's great at it. Jabari and some of those guys have grown into it, Alpi as well. So, it became a thing last year. But we've doubled down on it this year." …Back then, Udoka stood his ground. And his resolve to do it now has only grown stronger, knowing that his unconventional scheme can reap benefits down the road that Houston hasn't experienced since the 1990s, when it last reached the NBA Finals. "That's how they've played since he got there," [Will] Hardy said. "That's an identity that Ime and their roster has created. Joe Mazzulla took the Maine Celtics and whooped his ass.
If we get bounced in the 1st round he should be gone. It's becoming very evident that he was given the absolute best case scenario in Boston to succeed with a strong GM and a well balanced roster. He literally ****ed that away. He's never going to have another roster with two young scorers that can play off each other and create their own shots again. Brown and Tatum made him look much better offensively than he is able to coach.
Yeah, even when the offense is good, it's usually because we're winning the possession battle on the boards and by forcing turnovers, not because we're running a great half-court offense. The only times we look really skilled in that part of the game are when KD and/or Sengun are on fire, or when one or more of the shooters has a career night. It's not all Ime's fault though. I mean, I don't know how much say he's being given in front office decisions. But we built this rotation to have 4 to 5 non-shooters in it, and among the rest of the team, only KD is really a high-level jump shooter. Everyone else is just mediocre to above-average. When you don't have shooting in the pace-and-space era this is the only way you can win games.
Rockets in the halfcourt are the slowest paced team in the NBA. Who was the Last Rockets Head Coach? It was Rockets Head Coach Kevin McHale. Ime Udoka is another Kevin McHale, Jeff Van Gundy, Tom Thibedeou.
Everyone who ever talked that sh**, listening to the Shaq / Kevin Garnett old guard wanting toughness, defense, post up play, traditional bigs, not jacking up 3's, bring the midrange back, no flopping, back to the Rockets Bulls titles 90's glory era You got your wish. And now you can't stand the product
The bigger issue is the talent and pieces, which does include bad injury luck. I don't think Ime is a great coach, and would never call him an Xs and Ox coach.... but I truly don't understand those who watch this offense and see with their eyeballs how difficult it is for even our players to get in the right spots and timing down..... and say "We need to make it more complicated." The reality is this is an evaluation season once FVV went out.
Rockets halfcourt offensive rating under Ime: Year 1: 20th Year 2: 22nd Year 3: 22nd Close to WITL halfcourt offense among non-tanking teams every year. From what I understand, Ime is heavily involved in personnel decisions - and is of course totally responsible for lineups. Everything I've seen and heard from Ime suggests that this is an Ime basketball philosophy thing, in alignment with Stone. Also worthwhile to point out that Boston's halfcourt offense jumped 5 points when they switched from Udoka to Mazzulla (and has since remained a juggernaut), with few personnel changes that summer.
Imagine the Rockets believing they just need a pg to go from getting abused like last night against THAT Boston team at home to being a contender.... And then, not adding a PG.... The Rockets don't even believe that they "just need a pg" to be a contender because it makes no sense to not get a decent one and make yourself a true contender if that's the case. But I do hope that Fred comes back at some point this year. Not because I think it will turn this team into a real championship threat, but rather the opposite. They need to see that FVV is not the missing key so that they aren't deluded into thinking that's all they need to do heading into the off-season.
I want him to succeed just like I wanted Silas to succeed. But at some point you have to cut the cord if he is unable to adapt. And I’m not gonna set back and act like he didn’t have a hand with the way the team is constructed.
