Houston Rockets announce Ime Udoka as next head coach

The Houston Rockets and Ime Udoka have agreed terms on a contract to make Udoka the franchise’s next head coach, ESPN and The Athletic reported Monday.

Udoka, 45, guided the Boston Celtics to an Eastern Conference title and an NBA Finals appearance in 2021-22, where they lost to the Golden State Warriors.

Prior to training camp last summer, the Celtics announced that Udoka violated team policies related to an intimate relationship with a female staff member.

The Celtics suspended the head coach for a year and promoted Joe Mazzulla to interim head coach, later making him Udoka’s permanent replacement.

The former Nigerian national team player had his name floated as a candidate for the Brooklyn Nets’ head-coaching position that became vacant during the 2022-23 season. It was also reported that Udoka was expected to be a candidate for the Toronto Raptors’ vacancy.

In Udoka’s lone season as an NBA head coach, the Celtics went 51-31. The Portland, Ore., native worked as an assistant coach for the San Antonio Spurs (2012-19), Philadelphia 76ers (2019-20) and Nets (2020-21) before that.

At the press conference introducing him, Udoka said of the time away

“Having that time off and really a full understanding of how many people you impact by a poor decision, that’s where you start with the ownership and accountability,” he said. “I preach that for the players and so I have to take responsibility for my part. I took leadership and sensitivity training and (did) some counseling with my son to help him improve the situation that I put him in.”

“You can grow from adversity and think I’ve done that this year,” he continued.

As far as building the team and the upcoming NBA draft, Udoka added

“It comes down to the players and I think we have a tremendous amount of young talent and the sky’s the limit as far as that,” he said. “They talked about cap space and some of the flexibility we have, and I think they’ve done a great job of building for the future. So, I’m excited to be part of that and look forward to the moves we can make coming up in the draft and free agency.”