I guess I feel a little bad for Stephen Silas. After enjoying an astonishingly long career as an NBA assistant coach that began when he was just 27 years old (hey, it pays to be Paul Silas's kid), he finally got a head coaching job with the Houston Rockets in 2020. The problem with becoming the head coach of the Houston Rockets in 2020 is that the job description had very little to do with coaching basketball, and a lot to do with being a receptacle for failure. It's never really fun to be put in charge of a team that's organizational goal is losing as many games as possible.
Silas is now in his third season with the Rockets, and the team's direction hasn't really changed. He's guided them to a 50-158 record, which was all part of the plan during his first two years in charge, but all that losing is now starting to feel like a bit of a drag in Year 3. The Rockets are the worst team in the NBA, Jalen Green does not yet look like the franchise cornerstone the Rockets hoped he would be, and every Rockets possession has a 75–80 percent chance of devolving into the worst 24 seconds of basketball you've ever seen. The team stinks on every level, and at this point it's fair to wonder if something more than just youth and inexperience are to blame. Perhaps Silas is truly out of his depth.
The Rockets dropped to 13-41 after giving up 140 points to the Kings on Monday night, and Silas used his postgame presser to deliver a message to his team:
Stephen Silas: "They're not giving the effort on the defensive end." pic.twitter.com/PTRLmoEVTe
— Jackson Gatlin (@JTGatlin) February 7, 2023
Boy, I don't know. I feel like if you showed that clip to a random person on the street and asked them if they felt like they were looking at an NBA-caliber coach, they would probably ask you why you were showing them an aspiring actor totally bomb his casting call for Angry Basketball Coach. What is he even looking at on those papers? Is he reading lines?
Silas may not be cut out for the NBA, but if he keeps working on this speech I think he could use it to help the Wildcats finally get a win against the Sharks. If they don't win the big game on Saturday, the mayor is going to close down the youth center!
