The Houston Rockets have looked pretty impressive throughout their preseason, which has me questioning what their ceiling could be. Are they a championship contender? Will they be able to finish with home-court advantage again?
Regardless of how much they improve as a team, it should all look good on their head coach. That also leaves me wondering if Ime Udoka stands any chance to win Coach of the Year. Based on the betting odds, his chances have greatly improved in the past week.
Houston’s head coach was typically lumped in with a bunch of other names in the middle of the pack. On FanDuel last week, Udoka was tied with seven other guys for the ninth-best odds. It was really a toss-up, as seen below:
On BetMGM, he was in a pretty similar position, tied with Dusty May and Rick Carlisle for the eighth-best odds. At least there’s only two other coaches with the same odds this time, but it was still a long-shot.
DraftKings gave Udoka the 11th-best odds, putting him even lower than Washington Wizards’ relatively new coach, Brian Keefe. No offense, but that franchise hasn’t had a 50-win season in nearly 50 years, so it never feels like a compliment when when a team is ranked lower than them.
It hurt to see Udoka with worse odds than a guy in a situation like that. Betting sites were telling the world that it’s almost impossible for Houston to get that award this season, but they all changed very quickly, as seen here:
While it’s still far from a guarantee, Houston’s head coach now has the second-best odds to win Coach of the Year. The Rockets’ 2-1 preseason performance must’ve caught some eyes, because that’s quite the jump.
Based on the past handful of seasons, Ime Udoka doesn’t even have to lead his team to the top spot in the league to win Coach of the Year. That hasn’t been awarded to the top team in the league since 2022, when Monty Williams won with the Phoenix Suns.
Mike Brown won in 2023 after helping the Sacramento Kings finish third in the West. Mark Daigneault won with the OKC Thunder when the Boston Celtics had the best record in the league. Then Joe Mazzulla won last year when OKC had more wins than his Celtics.
It’s not always about being the number one team in the league, or even in your own conference. I can completely see why Udoka’s odds changed, despite Houston not being projected to win more games than OKC or the San Antonio Spurs.
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