The Houston Rockets are off to a tough start to the season with their 4-7 record and in a season where they have NBA Championship or bust expectations a lot of losing is not expected to be tolerated. After only eleven games the Rockets have decided to make a major change on Wednesday morning as they have reportedly fired head coach Kevin McHale, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports.
McHale is in his fifth season as the head coach of the Rockets and had improved his record in each of his first four years in Houston but the rough start to this season was his undoing. Last season McHale led the Rockets to 56 regular season wins and the Western Conference Finals before finally losing to the eventual champion Golden State Warriors. McHale led them all that way without the team's second best player, Dwight Howard, for the majority of the season and when he was healthy Howard clearly wasn't himself.
McHale had just signed a three year extension with the Rockets last December that was worth between $12 and $13 million. The Rockets reportedly thought extremely highly of McHale as a person and as a coach but they couldn't handle the way they started and felt that a change was necessary immediately.
The major problem so far in Houston this year has been on defense and McHale is more of an offensive coach. With McHale out J.P. Bickerstaff will reportedly take over as the interim head coach while Chris Finch will move up to become the associate head coach. Bickerstaff was virtually the defensive coordinator for the Rockets last season and his main task will be to get the Rockets back to playing the defense he had them playing last season. There are many people who believe Bickerstaff deserved a shot at a head coaching job and now he will have his chance with a team loaded with talent but with that comes extremely high expectations.
McHale finishes his Rockets head coaching career with a record of 323-193 which is a .598 winning percentage. McHale led the Rockets to the playoffs in each of the past three seasons but only made it out of the first round last year.
