One of the best album titles, ever, is Jagged Little Pill.
Sure, we’ve all heard of the cliched tough pill to swallow. Morissette paints a more visceral picture. The pill isn’t hard to swallow due to its size. It’s jagged. That’s worse.
Here’s a jagged, medium-sized pill for Houston Rockets fans to swallow:
Ime Udoka may not be that great of an NBA head coach.
Rockets’ Head Coach Not Delivering
And listen, the stats don’t necessarily bear that out.
The Rockets’ 118.8 Offensive Rating lands fourth in the NBA. Their 6.1 Net Rating ranks in the same position. Yet, this points to a problem as well.
If the Rockets are ahead of the Spurs (5.2) and Nuggets (4.7) in Net Rating, how do they each have at least four more wins? The most plausible explanation, to my mind, would be late-game execution.
That’s a coaching issue.
Realistically, this storm of an article has been brewing all year. It’s been a recurring theme. Yes, the Rockets are performing relatively well. Is it fool’s gold? Is offensive rebounding and extra effort buoying an otherwise uninspired strategy?
Getting a lot of offensive rebounds is really good, but it can be mitigated down the stretch. When the game is on the line, you’re going to have problems if you don’t have some sophisticated pet plays to rely on.
More troublingly, evidence of Udoka’s fatal flaw predates his Rockets run. His 2021-22 Celtics had the NBA’s 9th-best Offensive Rating (113.6). The 2022-23 Celtics ranked second (117.3) in the same category. What changed?
Well, Boston lost Dennis Scroeder and added Malcolm Brogdon. That helped. If you think it solely contributed to a four-point increase in Offensive Rating, I’ve got a trail to sell you in Boston.
Udoka’s Celtics grinded. The offensive strategy was familiar to current-day Rockets fans: Try to score, please? Those Celtics didn’t emphasize offensive rebounding the same way (side note: The Rockets led the NBA in Offensive Rebound % in 2022-23. Is it possible that He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named instilled this habit?), but otherwise, their approach was similar. Put the ball in the hands of the best scorer. If he can’t score, get it to the second-best scorer. Etc.
Yet, winning cures all. Those Celtics went to the NBA Finals. Their roster was stacked with scorers and light on playmakers anyway, so Udoka was somewhat shielded from criticism. He was fired for unrelated reasons. We won’t get into it, but let’s just say someone may Nee(d) A Long time to get over it.
Ahem. Anyway, these Rockets are winning, but they’re not winning enough to insulate Udoka. This article will not be the first suggestion that he’s not doing an optimal job.
People are starting to talk.
Rockets’ Ime Udoka Must Keep An Open Mind
As of this writing, the Rockets’ last game was a loss to the 76ers.
Reed Sheppard did everything he could do to secure a win. He hit three triples in the first half of the fourth quarter. Sheppard was manipulating the geometry of the floor in Curry-esque fashion. He did everything he could:
But once Udoka pulled him, he couldn’t do anything.
Is Sheppard a defensive liability? You bet. He’s small, and he’s not even particularly quick.
Let’s ask some broader questions: If you win, does it matter how you win? If a small guard gives up two points in a forest only to generate three points without making a sound, does anybody score?
If the Rockets are scoring more than they’re giving up, they’re winning. The goal is to win, unless it’s to prove you’re tougher than everyone else?
This isn’t solely about Sheppard. We already did that. Sheppard is a microcosm. If Udoka isn’t willing to play the guy who’s driving the winning in a given moment because he contradicts his fundamental principles, surely those principles are flawed?
Let’s talk more about Sheppard. The basic pretense is that he’s small, and that’s a problem on defense. OK. Is Udoka a defensive genius or not?
Does “defensive genius” mean “only play guys who are positive defenders with plus positional size”? Did I just stumble into the realization that I’m a defensive genius? Am I Will Hunting? How do you like them apples?
Enough questions. Some will counter that these are impossible expectations. Udoka cannot alter Reed Sheppard’s size.
Fair. Here’s the counterargument: If Udoka can’t scheme for Sheppard, he’s not bringing enough to the table as an NBA head coach. He’s certainly not employed for his offensive acumen.
If Sheppard is simply impossible to work with, and he’s simply one of those players whose defense you have to live with, the Rockets need to either trade him or fire Udoka. Not because Udoka will never play him, but because there’s no point in retaining his services as a below-average offensive coach if there’s an unsolvable defensive problem on the roster.
Imagine if you hired someone to tutor your kid in math. They sit with your kid. They tell you that your kid is too bad at math to tutor, but they could paint your house for the same rate. You ask them if they’re good at painting:
“Not really”.
You’d hire a painter, right?
Rockets Should Thank Ime Udoka
Let’s be clear: This is not a fire Udoka piece. It’s not that simple. This is the juncture where we identify the positives.
Udoka has overhauled the Rockets’ culture. He has emphasized the value of extra effort, and it’s rubbed off on the young Rockets. That is good.
Perhaps most significantly, he found Alperen Sengun’s defensive role. Reductively, that’s all this article is asking him to do: Do that again. He deserves credit for taking Sengun out of drop coverage and having him defend in space by hedging and recovering. Surely there’s some solution for Sheppard?
If not: Thank you for your services, Mr. Udoka. You were a transitional coach. The type of coach who establishes a culture and good habits. That counts for a lot. Still, when it’s winning time, it doesn’t quite count for as much as offensive ingenuity does.
Even if that’s a jagged pill for Rockets fans to swallow.
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