NBA: Greatest head coach in each team’s franchise history

Greatest head coach in Houston Rockets history: Rudy Tomjanovich, 1992-03

Another franchise with a long history, but a shortlist of head coaches are the Houston Rockets, who have employed 14 head coaches over their 52-year history. 10 of those coaches manned the bench for at least 250 games, giving the franchise a level of consistency over the years.

Bill Fitch is one of the more accomplished coaches in league history and spent five seasons with Houston in the 1980s. He is one of three Rockets coaches to post a playoff winning percentage above .500, tallying 21 wins in 39 games during the early years of Hakeem Olajuwon’s career, including a trip to the 1986 NBA Finals.

The successor to Fitch was Don Chaney, who lost in the first round for three consecutive years before missing the playoffs, the first time Houston had sat out since drafting Olajuwon in 1984.

That set the stage for Rudy Tomjanovich, who took over in 1992. Over the next three seasons, the Rockets would win an average of 53 games and take home two titles, defeating the New York Knicks in 1994 and sweeping the Orlando Magic in 1995.

Tomjanovich would go on to coach the Rockets for a total of 12 seasons, totaling 503 wins, twice as many as the next highest franchise total. His 51 postseason wins are also a franchise-high and his playoff winning percentage is second only to Mike D’Antoni.

One of the great travesties of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame is that Tomjanovich is not yet enshrined. His excellence as a coach demands nothing less.