On Monday, Adrian Wojnarowski and Chris Mannix of Yahoo's The Vertical reported that Jeff Van Gundy was "at top of the Houston Rockets list of potential candidates" while stating that Houston won't start a full-on coaching search until the postseason ends. It's become Jeff Van Gundy's customary policy to never discuss jobs with teams who currently already have a head coach in place. It's probably rightfully so as head coach JB Bickerstaff is currently in the midst of just trying to compete with the greatest team of all time (not going well) and he doesn't need or deserve the distraction of his losing his job.
On Wednesday, Marc Stein of ESPN reported that Van Gundy is "co-candidates" to land the job alongside former Oklahoma City head coach Scott Brooks with the tidbit that Houston hopes Brooks will wait for their postseason run to be over before he commits to another team.
While Brooks is an interesting candidate, it doesn't look like he's headed to Houston anytime soon as Adrian Wojnarowski reported Wednesday that Washington GM Ernie Grunfeld amped up their efforts to close a deal with Scott Brooks before Houston is eliminated by meeting with him in California on Wednesday and that he's been formally offered the job.
Marc Stein also reported Wednesday that Jeff Van Gundy would be highly interested in a return to Houston if the job opened up and this is confirmed by a report that Wojnarowski that follows up on the situation:
Jeff Van Gundy has been the Houston Rockets' No. 1 choice, but he is unwilling to talk to the organization while a coach - in this instance J.B. Bickerstaff - is in place, sources said.
Van Gundy coached the Houston Rockets from 2003 to 2007 before he was let go by the team posting a win-loss record of 182-146 (.555) during that time.
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