Rockets Fans Are Rallying In Support of Kenny Smith

There is a group of Houston Rockets fans who want Kenny Smith to be the team’s next coach so bad they held a rally in support of him.

The Rockets just completed a season of utter discombobulation. They fired Kevin McHale about as soon as the season started, J.B. Bickerstaff, McHale’s replacement, made it known he didn’t want to coach the team next year, and Dwight Howard is probably on his way out.

There is a funny thing fans do in times like these. They often fixate on unconventional coaching candidates. For example, every couple of years, some college basketball fanbase will get it into its head that CBS analyst Doug Gottlieb is the man for the job, even though — and this is important — Gottblieb is not a basketball coach.

The same applies to Smith. There is no empirical evidence Kenny Smith would be a good NBA coach. He was a good player, and he is a smart analyst, and he was the point guard on two championship Rockets teams in the mid-90s. But he has never coached.

None of this means he won’t make a good coach if the Rockets do hire him — and that is looking like a possibility. It’s just that the strongest argument in favor of that is, “Hey, why not?”

After the way this season went in Houston, it’s hard to blame them.