Thanks to the Knicks for giving a big gift, the Rockets usher in the second offseason signing, and Uduka joins the high-paying coaching team

According to Shams' latest news, the Rockets and head coach Uduka completed a multi-year contract renewal. There is no disclosure of the specific annual salary of Uduka, but Shams revealed that Uduka will become one of the highest annual salary after renewal. The most typical high-paying coach in the league is Steve Cole of the Golden State Warriors 17.5 million, and Spole and Tyron Lue are also 15 million. According to the current matching level between Uduka and the Rockets, should be around 12.5 million? This salary is about the same as that of former Nuggets head coach Malone.

In fact, Uduka's contract will not end until the 26-27 season. The Rockets' contract renewal was indeed a bit unexpected because no reporters talked about Uduka's contract renewal before. Maybe it was because the Knicks had been crazy about poaching and causing the Rockets management to be "chaotic"? Renew the coach in advance to avoid everyone's distracted. So I still have to thank the Knicks for the big gift.

The Rockets' management absolutely does not want to give up Uduka, and then the latter received an invitation from the Knicks for an annual salary of tens of millions. After seeing it, the Rockets gritted their teeth and said, "We can support you too." In fact, watching the Rockets' attitude towards the head coach in the past 10 years has been relatively patient. Even if they didn't reach the finals during the championship period, they gave the old coach D'Antoni 5 years of coaching. After that, Silas couldn't achieve any results in the bad season and gave him 2 years.

Even if Silas has so much time, let alone Uduka. Although the latter's reputation is very polarized among Rockets fans, this polarization is even more fascinating than Jaylen Green's reputation. But the data support says everything, he has indeed brought the Rockets very well so far. He led the team to 93 wins and 71 losses in two seasons, ranking second in the West with 52 wins and 30 losses in the 2024-25 season, setting the best ranking in the past seven years. Make the Rockets the top five teams in the league; the defensive efficiency leaps to the top five in the league. Do you know when the Rockets' last league's top five defensive efficiency was? In the 2007-08 season, Yao Ming had not yet retired.

In the past two years, although everyone knows that Uduka is a coach who is good at defense, he is also good at coaching offense. For example, this year, Shin Kyung, Adams, Amen Thompson and Ethan formed the "inside scoring group" and maintained the scoring lower limit through back-playing, second offense and ending at the basket. The Rockets' offense is not good because of hardware problems. The team's limited shooting talent leads to a single overall tactic, but Uduka has also made up for the lack of positional combat hard resolution through fast attacks and second offenses, so that the Rockets' offensive efficiency has increased from 20th to 10th in the league.

Of course, Uduka is not completely omnipotent. His "de-core" team offensive system makes it difficult for the Rockets to develop a super tactical core although they can guarantee the lower limit of the offensive. This kind of problem is difficult to see in the regular season, but when the stars of both sides need to stand up in the playoffs, you will find that the Rockets have no player who dares to take the blame at critical moments because of their tactics.

Over the whole year this year, the Rockets are still standing still in the spotlight in the discovery of top stars, except for Shin Kyung who has evolved into a perfect positional strong attacker (also selected as the All-Star). Jaylen Green was even more worried about gains and losses by his long-term DNP-style training method, and he was even more timid in the playoffs. It can be said that it is already in half-maintenance.

In fact, Uduka is not sure of geniuses. In the last year of his previous leadership, the Celtics averaged 26.9 points, 8.1 rebounds and 4.9 assists per game, with a real shooting percentage of 60.4%, and his score, rebounds and assists were all at a career high. Tatum also played his career in the playoffs, averaging 27.1 points per game in five life and death battles.

Rather than saying that Uduka does not know how to bring geniuses, he can only say that he may not be very good at discovering geniuses. It is not clear whether Tatum could be as high as he is coached in his first year of his career, because this uncertainty is too high. Leading the Rockets back to the playoffs is just the first step for Uduka. Whether Amen Thompson can be trained as a successor will be an important topic in the next 1-2 seasons. The contract has been renewed so time is enough for him.