Kelly Iko goes behind the scenes through the Rockets' hiring process and how they came to land on Ime Udoka.
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After lunch, Patrick brought Udoka back to the Post Oak for the final and most important meeting — one with Tilman Fertitta. Given that Stone and Fertitta were already well aligned, he knew Fertitta trusted his word. Stone, wanted Tilman Fertitta to meet Udoka for himself and come to his own conclusions without any preconceived bias.
Udoka and Fertitta were supposed to meet for roughly an hour. In the midst of their conversation, they learned they had some commonalities.
“What we like about (Udoka) is his ability to coach a basketball team,” Fertitta said. “He’s going to hold these guys to toughness, respectability, accountability. It’s everything how I like to run a business — structure and everybody having the right guy they can communicate with.”
Udoka asked Fertitta about his level of involvement with the team, his commitment to the city, franchise and ultimately, winning. Fertitta’s desire for an NBA championship is well-documented dating back to when he first purchased the team in 2017. He’s made no secret of his expectations and expressed that to Udoka.
“Hopefully, soon, I won’t be up here for anything except to tell you how great it was to win a championship,” Fertitta said. “That’s in Phase 3. You had to crawl, now we’re gonna walk and then we’re gonna run.”
Udoka expressed a willingness to be open and creative, especially with a Rockets roster featuring different types of players. Most importantly, however, he would bring order to a team that was beginning to grow accustomed to chaos. The meeting lasted several hours longer than expected before Udoka met Stone and Witus again for dinner around 9:30 p.m. By the time Udoka left the building Fertitta was sold. He spoke to Stone and his son Patrick, and expressed a readiness to finalize something with Udoka as soon as possible.
The next day, the Rockets brass met again. Stone and Udoka continued to correspond over the next 48 hours, shorter conversations by text and longer ones by phone. When Nurse was officially fired by the Raptors on Friday afternoon, emergency talks were held. Nurse’s camp had already communicated interest to Houston and there were thoughts as to whether or not the team should proceed with their original plan of a second round of interviews the following week, bringing Udoka, Vogel and now Nurse into the equation. The Rockets figured the new opening in Toronto might appeal to Udoka, especially given a more talented roster and his close relationship with Raptors president Masai Ujiri. The Detroit Pistons were another rebuilding organization looking for a new head coach.
Still, Stone kept his aggressive approach. Although the Rockets didn’t want to rush things, they hoped to have the interview process done before the upcoming draft combine. Internal talks continued well into the weekend and despite Nurse being championed on social media as the popular choice, the winds were blowing stronger in Udoka’s direction.
But ownership also wanted to make sure Gretchen Sheirr, the team’s president of business operations and one of the few women in the league currently holding that title, was on board with the hiring.
“I discussed it with the president of our organization, who is a woman, and she was very comfortable with the situation, as well as talking to Paige (Fertitta, part of the ownership group) about it,” Tilman Fertitta said.
By Sunday evening, it was clear, according to league and team sources, that Udoka was the choice.
