4th and a mile with Paul Muth
The Rockets may be the smartest guys in the room. Or the cheapest
Oct 29, 2020, 10:47 am
The Rockets have their new head coach. Composite photo by Brandon Strange
On Wednesday afternoon, ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski broke the news that the Rockets' coaching search had come to an end finally. The front office tabbed Mavericks assistant Stephen Silas as the successor to Mike D'Antoni, beating out former Rockets head coach Jeff Van Gundy and current Rockets assistant John Lucas.
Knee jerk reaction?
I'm not mad at it. I expected Jeff Van Gundy to be the next hire, but maybe that was just nostalgia clouding my judgment. Either way, the Silas hire should be viewed optimistically. He's been highly regarded for some time around the league as an inventive mind that comes from basketball pedigree and has worked with big-name guards in prior stops around the league. If the Rockets didn't grab him, it was only a matter of time before another team gave him a shot.
Now there are two very distinct ways to look at this hire:
The first is that the Rockets, in spite of being one of the last teams to fill their coaching vacancy, are the smartest kids in the room. Every team is looking for the next version of what the Celtics found in their current head coach, Brad Stevens; a young brilliant coach that just needed a team to give him a shot. Hired at 37 from the college ranks, Stevens endured one losing season (his first) and has since guided the Celtics to six playoff appearances, to include three conference finals appearances. Not bad, considering he was up against LeBron James for most of those.
That is what it looks like the Rockets are trying to go for. Now at 47, Silas probably won't be mistaken for a wunderkind, but compared to 69-year-old D'Antoni, he might as well be announcing his hire on Tik Tok. If it works out, the Rockets will have once again been one step ahead of the league with the hiring of their innovative new coach.
The other way to look at the Silas hire is a little less rosy.
While Silas is only 47, he's also been an assistant in the league since he was 27. The positive spin on his resume is that he's worked with star players the likes of Kemba Walker, LeBron James, and Stephen Curry. The reality is that he worked with them while they were very young in their careers, and worked on teams like the Cavaliers, Bobcats/Hornets, Wizards, and Warriors (when they were bad). Until the last two seasons working with Luka Doncic on the Mavericks, there hasn't been a lot of success following Silas. That's not necessarily an indictment since he was an assistant, but it's not exactly a sparkling pedigree.
So while this could be a brilliant hire, at the moment, it has all of the markings of the cheaper hire. As I've mentioned before, Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta has been quite vocal about the financial impact that COVID-19 has had on his portfolio. Clips and quotes moaning and groaning about losing money are not typically precursors to an owner gearing up to make a big financial investment in the front office of a sports team that he can't sell tickets for anyone to come see. If in fact, money factored in more than fit, it would make sense that the Rockets would forego a coach like Van Gundy, whose previous head coaching experience would automatically command a higher starting price. We'll, of course, have to wait and see what the actual contract figures are once released.
It could be one. It could be the other. It could be both. Hopefully it translates into wins either way.
One thing that's for certain though is that Silas needs to take some pointers from Russell Westbrook and James Harden before he steps out courtside in any more of those TJ Maxx suits, circa 2000. Big boy job means big boy suits.
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Houston spent time this week practicing an inbound play that coach Kelvin Sampson thought his team might need against Purdue.
Milos Uzan, the third option, ran it to perfection.
He tossed the ball to Joseph Tugler, who threw a bounce pass right back to Uzan, and the 6-foot-4 guard soared to the rim for an uncontested layup with 0.9 seconds left, giving the top-seeded Cougars a 62-60 victory — and a matchup with second-seeded Tennessee in Sunday's Elite Eight.
“Great execution at a time we needed that,” said Sampson, who is a win away from making his third Final Four and his second with Houston in five years. “You never know when you’re going to need it.”
The Cougars (33-4) made only one other basket over the final eight minutes, wasted a 10-point lead and then missed two more shots in the final 5 seconds. A replay review with 2.2 seconds left confirmed Houston would keep the ball when it rolled out of bounds after the second miss.
Uzan took over from there.
“I was trying to hit (L.J. Cryer) and then JoJo just made a great read,” Uzan said. “He was able to draw two (defenders) and he just made a great play to hit me back.”
Houston advanced to the Elite Eight for the third time in five years after falling in the Sweet 16 as a top seed in the previous two editions of March Madness. It will take the nation's longest winning streak, 16 games, into Sunday’s Midwest Region final.
The Cougars joined the other three No. 1 seeds in this year's Elite Eight and did it at Lucas Oil Stadium, where their 2021 tourney run ended with a loss in the Final Four to eventual national champion Baylor.
They haven't lost since Feb. 1.
Uzan scored 22 points and Emanuel Sharp had 17 as Houston survived an off night from leading scorer Cryer, who finished with five points on 2-of-13 shooting.
Houston still had to sweat out a half-court heave at the buzzer, but Braden Smith's shot was well off the mark.
Fletcher Loyer scored 16 points, Trey Kaufman-Renn had 14 and Smith, the Big Ten player of the year, added seven points and 15 assists for fourth-seeded Purdue (24-12). Smith assisted on all 11 second-half baskets for last year’s national runner-up, which played in front of a friendly crowd about an hour’s drive from its campus in West Lafayette.
“I thought we fought really hard and we dug down defensively to get those stops to come back,” Smith said. “We did everything we could and we just had a little miscommunication at the end and they converted. Props to them.”
Houston appeared on the verge of disaster when Kaufman-Renn scored on a dunk and then blocked Cryer’s shot with 1:17 to go, leading to Camden Heide’s 3 that tied the score at 60 with 35 seconds left.
Sampson called timeout to set up the final play, but Uzan missed a turnaround jumper and Tugler’s tip-in rolled off the rim and out of bounds. The Cougars got one more chance after the replay review.
Sharp's scoring flurry early in the second half finally gave Houston some separation after a back-and-forth first half. His 3-pointer at the 16:14 mark made it 40-32. After Purdue trimmed the deficit to four, Uzan made two 3s to give Houston a 10-point lead in a tough, physical game that set up a rare dramatic finish in this year's tourney.
“Smith was guarding the inbounder, so he had to take JoJo,” Sampson said. “That means there was no one there to take Milos. That's why you work on that stuff day after day.”
Takeaways
Purdue: Coach Matt Painter's Boilermakers stumbled into March Madness with six losses in their final nine games but proved themselves a worthy competitor by fighting their way into the Sweet 16 and nearly taking down a No. 1 seed.
Houston: The Cougars lead the nation in 3-point percentage and scoring defense, an enviable combination.
Scary fall
Houston guard Mylik Wilson gave the Cougars a brief scare with 13:23 left in the game. He leapt high into the air to grab a rebound and drew a foul on Kaufman-Renn.
As the play continued, Wilson was undercut and his body twisted around before he landed on his head. Wilson stayed down momentarily, rubbing his head, but eventually got up and remained in the game.