Rick Adelman inducted into Basketball Hall of Fame

Former Houston Rockets head coach Rick Adelman received the highest honor yesterday when he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Adelman coached the Rockets from 2007-2011 and finished his Houston coaching career with a 193-135 (.588 percentage) regular season coaching record. At one point, he had the highest winning percentage of any Rockets coach, since being surpassed by both Kevin Mchale and Mike D’Antoni. He carried a postseason record with the Rockets of 9-10, though he did lead Houston in 2009 when they advanced beyond the first round of the playoffs for the first time in over a decade. He also was coach for Houston’s 22-game won streak in 2008.

In addition to his time in H-town, he’s perhaps most famously known for his time spent with the Sacramento Kings from 1998-2006, which was the most successful time in Kings’ history. Though they never made the NBA Finals, they were bounced by the Los Angeles Lakers in 2002 in what was a controversial series since tainted by questionable officiating and calls of fixing.

Adelman also spent time as head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, where he went to two NBA Finals in 1990 and 1992, losing to the Detroit Pistons and Chicago Bulls, and he also made the Western Conference Finals in 1991, where the team would lose to the Lakers.

Adelman also coached the Golden State Warriors from 1995-1997 and the Minnesota Timberwolves from 2011-2014 to less success, but he still finished his NBA head coaching career with a 1042-749 record (.582 percentage) in the regular season and a 79-78 record (.503 percentage) in the playoffs,

Adelman also had a career as a player, spending time with the Rockets when they played out of San Diego, Portland, Chicago, the New Orleans Jazz, and the Kansas City-Omaha Kings. He carried career averages of 7.7 points, 2.4 rebounds, and 3.5 assists.

Congrats are in order for Adelman, though his relatively quick induction does shine a light on how ridiculously long Rudy Tomjanovich had to wait, as they were both inducted in 2021. Rudy T won two titles and multiple medals in international competition, something Adelman never accomplished.