The Houston Rockets were at the forefront of the news on Wednesday when they fired head coach Kevin McHale after getting off to a 4-7 start. Besides the firing of McHale, there were also reports that star player James Harden was frustrating his teammates with his play and "aloofness," so overall things in Houston haven't been great. With McHale out, J.P. Bickerstaff has taken over as the interim head coach, but that might not be a long-term solution, so other names have popped up as potential options, and one of those names is Tom Thibodeau, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports.
Thibodeau was the head coach of the Chicago Bulls from 2010 through 2015 but was fired after not seeing eye-to-eye with upper management on a few key issues. Thibodeau had a successful run with Chicago, as it made the playoffs in all five of his seasons, but the Bulls had lofty expectations and expected to compete for an NBA Championship but were unable to do so.
The idea of Thibodeau coaching the Rockets makes some sense because he has a relationship with Harden from their time with the USA basketball team, and he is a defensive coach and that is the area where the Rockets have really struggled this season. While Thibodeau is one of the great defensive minds in the NBA, he has his fair share of issues too, including his extremely vanilla offense and playing his guys way too many minutes. The vanilla offense likely wouldn't be too much of an issue for Houston because it has some extremely talented offensive players like Harden, but the minutes thing could be a huge issue, especially when you consider how many injuries Houston has already dealt with this season.
For now, Bickerstaff has the job and will try to turn things around in Houston. In his first game at the helm, the Rockets defeated the Portland Trail Blazers in overtime due in large part to a prayer three-pointer Corey Brewer hit at the buzzer. Owner Leslie Alexander has said that Bickerstaff will likely get the rest of this season to try and win the job on a permanent basis, but until he does there will be names thrown out there as a potential replacement for next year and beyond.
