{"id":76831,"date":"2025-06-04T19:02:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T19:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/76831\/"},"modified":"2025-06-04T19:02:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T19:02:09","slug":"espns-stephen-a-smith-has-no-doubt-that-ime-udoka-will-bring-nba-title-to-houston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/76831\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN\u2019s Stephen A. Smith has \u2018no doubt\u2019 that Ime Udoka will bring NBA title to Houston"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now with a coaching vacancy, the\u00a0New York Knicks<\/a>\u00a0reportedly\u00a0have interest in hiring Ime Udoka<\/a>. But that interest doesn\u2019t seem to be reciprocated<\/a> by either the Rockets or Houston\u2019s head coach.<\/p>\n

ESPN media personality Stephen A. Smith, a longtime fan of the Knicks, addressed the topic on Wednesday\u2019s First Take. While he said he would love for Udoka to coach in New York, he knows it won\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Among Smith\u2019s comments<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It ain\u2019t gonna happen. And it\u2019s not going to happen because as much as I love it (the idea of Udoka coaching the Knicks), Tilman Fertitta loves Ime Udoka more.<\/p>\n

This man has resurrected the Houston Rockets<\/a> franchise, from the moment he arrived. Ime Udoka is one of the top five coaches in basketball. He is special. I\u2019m saying it here, clear as day: I have no doubt that Ime Udoka is going to deliver a championship to Houston, eventually. They\u2019re probably going to have to trade Jalen Green, because you can\u2019t have a face of the franchise that can\u2019t make shots in most of his games when you really need him to. You\u2019re probably going to have to go out, whether it\u2019s a KD (Kevin Durant) or somebody else, and add a piece. You need a closer.<\/p>\n

The complete segment can be viewed below (at 18:47). In the two years since his arrival in Houston, Udoka has lifted the Rockets from 22-60 and last place in the 15-team Western Conference to 52-30 and No. 2 in the West last season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI happen to know Tilman Fertitta,\u201d Smith said of Houston\u2019s ownership. \u201cI\u2019ve got profound respect for that man. Ime ain\u2019t getting out of Houston for next season.\u201d<\/p>\n

More: Report: Rockets, Ime Udoka won\u2019t entertain interest from Knicks<\/a><\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Rockets Wire: Stephen A. Smith: \u2018No doubt\u2019 that Ime Udoka will win title in Houston<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Now with a coaching vacancy, the\u00a0New York Knicks\u00a0reportedly\u00a0have interest in hiring Ime Udoka. But that interest doesn\u2019t seem…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3794],"tags":[7,292,194,4066,1272,861,938,6,191,211,2603,7474],"class_list":{"0":"post-76831","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-rockets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-houston","10":"tag-houston-rockets","11":"tag-houstonrockets","12":"tag-ime-udoka","13":"tag-jalen-green","14":"tag-kevin-durant","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-new-york-knicks","17":"tag-rockets","18":"tag-stephen-a-smith","19":"tag-tilman-fertitta"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114626648269152683","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}