The Houston Rockets have reached an agreement with Ime Udoka to hire him as the new boss of the team's head coach, according to ESPN.

The Rockets began their rebuild after trading James Harden to the Brooklyn Nets January 2021. They have lost 177 of their 236 games in the past three seasons, and, in return, received a series of top NBA draft picks. The team selected Jalen Green with the second-overall pick in 2021 and Jabari Smith with the third-overall pick in 2022. The Rockets also acquired Alperen Sengun and other promising young men by trading with the assets they go from the Harden deal.

The Rockets finished the 2022-23 regular season with the league's second-worst record of 22-60 and, thus, are a legit competitor for the top pick that is likely to be used to select Victor Wembanyama in June. However, the team didn't seem to be very passionate for tanking during this campaign. Instead, they showed a stronger desire to end rebuild and build a winning culture.

That's probably why the Rockets decided to fire coach Stephen Silas in April and appointed Udoka, who led the Boston Celtics to the NBA Finals in his first season as their coach during the 2021-22 campaign. After that, he was suspended and then sacked by the Celtics for multiple violations of team rules.

The Toronto Raptors, which sacked their champion coach Nick Nurse last week, were reportedly considering hiring Udoka as well, but the Rocket beat them to sign him.

Nonetheless, if the Rockets have any unrealistic expectations on Udoka, like counting him to magically turn the franchise into a playoff team immediately in the next season, they should think again.

Before Udoka took over the Celtics, they were on a seven-season playoff appearance streak, including reaching the Eastern Conference Finals three times under Brad Stevens. Stevens then replaced Danny Ainge as the team's president of basketball operations before he appointed Udoka as the head coach.

Simply speaking, Udoka took over a well-organized team that had been good and only inches from growing into a top competitor. Both Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown were already All-Star players, not to mention that their teammates included quality role players including Marcus Smart, Al Horford and Robert Williams III.

The Rockets today, by contrast, are a completely different case from the Celtics back then. They haven't even figured out who their best player is, not to mention who they should build a lineup around. They have no qualified orchestrator, no defensive system, or not even a locker room leader.

Coaching the Rockets may be the first big test for Udoka in his career.