Houston Rockets and Rick Adelman Mutually Agree to Part Ways

Rick Adelman is near-universally referred to as the greatest NBA coach to never win an NBA championship other than Jerry Sloan. In Adelman's coaching career that began in 1989, he led the Portland Trail Blazers to 2 NBA Finals where they lost to the Pistons and Bulls and a Western Conference Finals where they lost to the Lakers, a largely forgettable run with the Golden State Warriors, taking the Sacramento Kings to the brink of an appearance in the NBA Finals, but lost to the Lakers in a Western Conference Finals that was a million times more entertaining than the actual NBA Finals, and led the Houston Rockets to the Western Semi-Finals where they gave the Lakers a run for their money even after losing Yao Ming to (what is now being seen as) a career ending injury and with an injured Tracy McGrady.

Adelman went to Houston to coach Yao and McGrady, but is now left with Luis Scola and Chuck Hayes as the "stars" while Yao is questionable to ever return to basketball and McGrady is now playing in Detroit. Today, the Houston Rockets announced that they will not be renewing Adelman's contract in what is being called a mutual agreement. The Rockets players were not pleased with this news, saying that Adelman was a great coach and deserved to stay.

Although Adelman is now unemployed, he has publicly said he is not done with coaching and has just became the most interesting "free agent" of the 2011 offseason. There are 3 coaching spots that are open at this moment: the Indiana Pacers, the Utah Jazz, and most notably, the Los Angeles Lakers. The Pacers appear to be happy with Lionel Hollins as their new coach, who has led them to a #8 seed and is currently giving the Bulls a very hard fought series in the playoffs. In Salt Lake City, nobody is happy with anything and it is very likely the interim head coach will be leaving along with the majority of the team in the offseason as they begin rebuilding. And then there's the Lakers....

Phil Jackson began the season with declaring he would be retiring at the end of the 2010-11 season regardless of the outcome and many felt that Brian Shaw would be his successor after Kurt Rambis left to become the head coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves. But with Adelman unemployed, the chances of the Lakers landing the best coach to never win a championship have just gone up. It won't surprise me at all if people start suggesting Adelman become the next coach of the Lakers, but Adelman's career has been characterized for guiding younger teams, not ones that have already been long established.