Rockets fire Kevin McHale; Houston make a panic move? 5 things to knowAfter appearing in the conference finals last season, the Houston Rockets were expected to be one of the top teams this season. After a 4-7 start, the Rockets decided enough is enough and fired coach Kevin McHale, CBS Sports' Ken Berger confirms. Per Yahoo's Adrian Wojnarowski, assistant coach J.B. Bickerstaff will take over as interim coach.
The Rockets signed McHale to a three-year, $13 million extension less than a year ago.
McHale had been the Rockets' coach since the start of the 2011-12 season and actually has the highest win percentage in Hoston's coaching history with a regular-season record of 193-130. In five postseason appearances, McHale's playoff record with Houston was 13-16. However, the Rockets are losers of four straight and just lost to the Boston Celtics on Monday night by 16 points. This has been a theme, as they started with three straight 20-point losses before winning their first game.
Here are five things to know about McHale's firing:
1. This appears to be a panic move: You have a team primed for a title run with two All-Star caliber players. You're 11 games in. But you fire a former Hall of Fame player who won you the toughest division in basketball and helped you reach the Western Conference Finals despite Dwight Howard being out for much of last season? That sounds like straight-up "We don't know what else to do and we can't fire the players" panic.
The Rockets weren't even in that much of a hole. They started 4-7 and the losses looked bad, but the wins included victories over the Thunder and Clippers, two Western contenders. A team doesn't go from nearly stealing a game in Golden State in the Western Conference Finals to completely and totally bumbling overnight. The move was either based on a long-standing resistance from the players or an overreaction to early struggles.
2. McHale may have lost the locker room, a point of no return: The Houston Chronicle reports that management believed the McHale had lost the team. If that's the case, you do have to make the move. Panic move or not, you can't wait for it to get worse. This does happen all the time in the NBA (Orlando fans may want to familiarize yourselves with the process for a few years down the line).
Players hit a point where they simply don't have trust in the game plan and leadership to get them where they need to go. It seems crazy to then fire the guy who has been a part of your process longer, but again, you can't fire players on guaranteed contracts. Bear in mind that McHale has had problems with players in the past, including Kyle Lowry. He's a demanding coach who played in a different era.
This week when asked about the team's problems, McHale did not have words about patience or process, he simply said the team was playing terribly and that "talking wasn't going to solve anything." If you're not getting any better, if your words bounce off the players, especially when it comes to basic effort, you don't have a lot of other options.
3. This is on the players as well: The Rockets had championship aspirations. Instead they've been blown out left and right and the coach was fired. That's not supposed to happen to a team with veteran star leadership. McHale might have crossed the point of no return, but it was their decision to tune him out.
Leadership has always been a question with Houston, from the loss to the Trail Blazers in 2014, to the way they went down 3-1 to the Clippers before they pulled themselves out.
Who's the guy setting the tone? Who's keeping them engaged and focused on the opportunity in front of them to be great? Where is James Harden, setting an example on defense instead of simply giving up and giving the worst defensive effort of his career (which is saying something)? Where's Dwight Howard, who knows the kind of consistency and buy-in you need to make the Finals? Where's the locker-room leadership to make sure the team doesn't let it get to this point?
If the players wanted to send a message, they're playing with fire and risking their opportunity to make a run at a title. If the players simply didn't care enough to change things on their own and needed this to goose them, it says a lot about their absence of leadership. They can turn this thing around, and maybe this really does fix things. But it's not all on McHale, especially when the problems are strategy-based.
4. J.B. Bickerstaff is the right answer ... for now: Bickerstaff has coached under his father (Bernie Bickerstaff) in Charlotte and under McHale for most of the past seven years, and his reputation has been glowing. He's been tagged as being primarily responsible for the Rockets' defense last season which was the biggest reason for their run to the 2-seed before this year's implosion.
He deserves a real shot at earning this job permanently, and is known for having good relationships with players.
That said, the pressure's going to be strong, and if the Rockets don't pull up out of his nose dive within the next month you're going to start hearing talk of a replacement. Putting a replacement coach in at mid-season is difficult for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is trying to fill out an assistant coaching staff when most of the coaches already have jobs.
Tom Thibodeau is too demanding and his offensive style won't vibe with Daryl Morey's analytics-based principles -- he'll wear out his stars in a time when the Rockets are trying to save their best players for the playoffs. Mike D'Antoni makes sense stylistically but won't help with the defensive nightmare they've become, he'll only make it worse, and he has a bad history with Howard.
Jeff Van Gundy and Scott Brooks make sense, but JVG has expressed no real desire to leave the broadcast booth and it seems a long shot he'd return after being fired by Houston years ago. Brooks is a great developmental coach, but the Rockets are looking to win now.
This lack of options is the biggest reason to give Bickerstaff the full support to make a run. There's just not a great chance that a mid-season replacement will get them where they want to go. The window is open now and the Rockets need to take advantage of it.
5. The talent is still there to compete for a title ... but is the leadership? The Rockets have shooters, runners, veterans like Jason Terry, athletic bigs like Clint Capela, an MVP candidate in James Harden, a former Defensive Player of the Year and what used to be the best center in basketball in Dwight Howard and a talented point guard in Ty Lawson. They absolutely have the talent to make a real run at a championship, even if their matchup with the Warriors is an outright disaster.
However, even if Bickerstaff works, or if they get a home-run hire, this is still on the players. Harden has to buy in and commit himself, especially on defense. Howard has to keep guys involved. Lawson has to run the team like a point guard should -- something he has struggled to do in two locations now. The team has to buy in or this is only going to get worse and one of the most promising collections of talent in the league is going to wind up on the brink of implosion.
The clock is ticking.
Kevin McHale is no longer the Rockets head coach. (USATSI)
