Rockets’ man

On the NBA • Rick Adelman’s statistics speak for themselves, as does a 20-game streak

By kerry eggers

The Portland Tribune, Mar 14, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (1 Reader comment)

JESSE D. GARRABRANT / GETTY IMAGES

Coach Rick Adelman watches his Rockets play Philadelphia earlier this season, before they started showing a lot of playoff promise. Houston takes a 20-game win streak into tonight’s game at Charlotte.

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Quickie quiz: Name the top 15 coaches of all time in the NBA. You probably thought of Red Auerbach and Pat Riley and Larry Brown and Phil Jackson and Jerry Sloan and Jack Ramsay.

If you mentioned Rick Adelman, you’re in the minority.

But the former Trail Blazer guard and coach and current Portland resident belongs.

Adelman ranks 13th on the NBA career regular-season victories list with 795 in his 17 years as a head coach, trailing only Don Nelson, Riley, Jackson, Sloan and George Karl among active coaches.

Adelman is 10th in winning percentage (.613) and ranks 11th in playoff triumphs (70), having taken Portland twice to the NBA finals. If not for a few lamentable referees’ calls in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals against the Los Angeles Lakers, his Sacramento Kings would have made the finals in 2002.

Except for his two forgettable seasons with Golden State, Adelman’s teams have made the postseason every year.

Now in his first season with Houston, Adelman, 61, has put together one of the most astounding runs in NBA history. The Rockets (44-20) take a 20-game win streak into tonight’s game at Charlotte — tied with the 1971 Milwaukee Bucks for second-longest in league history.

Only the Lakers’ legendary 33-game skein in 1971-72 is longer.

Houston hasn’t lost since a 97-89 defeat by Utah on Jan. 27. The Rockets are 29-4 since the start of the calendar year.

What’s more, Houston has won its last eight games without the services of All-Star center Yao Ming, who was lost for the season when he suffered a stress fracture in his left foot Feb. 24.

“Rick is doing a great job, but I don’t hear anybody extolling his virtues around the league,” says Ramsay, a mentor of Adelman’s who will serve as radio analyst for ESPN radio’s Sunday showdown between the Rockets and the Lakers at the Toyota Center.

Nor is anybody talking about Adelman’s career as Hall of Fame-worthy. But it is.

“Rick has had a Hall of Fame career without one word of self-praise or looking for any attention,” says Ramsay, 83, who gave Adelman his first NBA coaching opportunity as a member of his Portland staff in 1983 out of Salem’s Chemeketa Community College. “He just goes about doing his work.

“But this has been typical Rick. Everywhere he’s been, he’s under the radar. He’s not a guy who attracts attention to himself in anything. During a game he sits there and does what he needs to do for the team without making any fuss.”

The leading candidate for coach of the year going into the final five weeks of the regular season, Adelman never has won the award.

“My dad has always been underrated as a coach, but I don’t think he cares,” says R.J. Adelman, Rick’s oldest son and the junior member of the Houston coaching staff. “Part of that may be because he’s coached in small markets, and part of it is his personality. He has always deflected the praise and takes on the criticisms. He protects his players and doesn’t care about attention. He just does his job.”

Adelman is no stranger to streaks during his NBA coaching career. The Blazers won 16 in a row late in the 1990-91 season and started that season 11-0 and 19-1. His 2001-02 Sacramento squad ran off streaks of 12 and 11 victories.

But Houston’s current streak is special, and not just because it’s longer than the others.

“When you win like this and you see the players respond the way they’ve responded, it’s a lot of fun,” says Adelman, who was an original Blazer player (1970-73), assisted Ramsay and Mike Schuler (1983-89), and served as head coach with Portland (1989-94). “More than anything, it’s been so satisfying to see these guys and the way they’ve embraced (the streak). They’ve done a great job of being proud of it but not getting caught up in it.

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