It appears the Houston Rockets and head coach Mike D’Antoni are prepared to enter the final year of his existing four-year contract without agreement on a long-term extension.
According to Sam Amick of The Athletic, a source close to D’Antoni said recently that there had been no recent talks on that front.
When asked by Amick about the coach’s contract situation, Rockets owner Tilman J. Fertitta said:
Well, I can tell you this, I really like our coach, ok? I really like him a lot. And if I’m a betting man, I bet you he’s here again the following year, ok? But it’s ok. He’s going to play out this contract, and he and I will sit down and both of us will walk out of the room happy.
Fertitta’s interview came as part of a promotional tour for his new book, “Shut Up and Listen!”, which hit bookstores Tuesday.
Fertitta also recently told Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports that he expects the D’Antoni “to be coaching here for a long time.”
While the on-again, off-again extension talks have yet to result in an agreement, Fertitta and GM Daryl Morey continue to express full confidence publicly in their ability to retain the coach.
“He’s going to be our coach next year,” Morey said of D’Antoni in June during an interview with ESPN Radio. “We’re hoping to work things out for the future right now; if we don’t, we’re going to work it out after next season. We love Mike, he’s a favorite of our players — all our top players love playing for him. We’re going to work it out.”
For his part, D’Antoni said last week that his lack of a contract extension would not be a distraction for the team. “It will not change my focus or what I try to do,” the coach said.
“You try and take care of business in the summertime,” D’Antoni said of his contractual status. “Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. So be it, it didn’t work out. We both tried.”
D’Antoni is entering the final year of the four-year contract he signed in 2016 to become the 13th head coach in Rockets history.
Over three seasons with the Rockets, the 68-year-old D’Antoni is 173-73 (.703) in 246 regular-season games and 23-16 (.590) in 39 postseason games. Both winning percentages are the highest by any coach in Houston franchise history.
