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The Houston Rockets are starting to build a coaching staff around new head coach Ime Udoka. Their latest addition, as reports by Tim MacMahon of ESPN, is someone with plenty of NBA coaching experience and is a well-known name among basketball fans in the state of Texas: Royal Ivey.
“Nets assistant coach Royal Ivey will be joining Ime Udoka’s staff with the Rockets, sources told ESPN. Ivey, who played college ball at Texas, has strong relationships with players across the league,” writes MacMahon.
Ivey was a four-year starter for Texas from 2000 to 2004. He helped lead the Rick Barnes-coached squads to four appearances in the national tournament, including the 2003 Final Four, where they lost to Carmelo Anthony’s Syracuse Orangemen. They also made the Sweet 16 on two other occasions.
After his successful stint with the Longhorns, Ivey played in the NBA for four teams across 10 years, including the Atlanta Hawks teams featuring Joe Johnson and Josh Smith (before they became a playoff team) and the Oklahoma City Thunder featuring Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden. He was a bench player for the team that made it to the 2012 NBA Finals.
Starting with the 2016-17 season, Ivey has served as an assistant coach for seven total seasons. He served on benches for the Thunder, New York Knicks and most recently the Brooklyn Nets. With the Rockets, he will look to develop the young team and serve as someone for Udoka to lean on with his new team.
The Rockets, now in control of the fourth overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft and potentially making a splash in free agency with James Harden, could start to make significant progress in their rebuild this summer.
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Courtesy : https://clutchpoints.com/rockets-news-ime-udoka-steals-former-texas-basketball-star-away-from-nets-coaching-staff