乌度卡教练挑战成功率高达75%，火箭主帅仍可更精明地使用挑战

Nov 8, 2026 9:00 PMPublished Nov 8, 2026 9:00 PM

Despite his impressive success rate with coach’s challenges, Ime Udoka can still be more selective with when and where he utilizes them.

The Houston Rockets went from the top of the league to the edge of the Play-In Tournament with consecutive losses. While the they’re facing their first bit of adversity in this new season and have plenty of things to improve on, head coach Ime Udoka still has something to be proud of. 

An overlooked part of that job in this modern era  is the new challenge system. With the NBA allowing coaches to contest calls since the 2019-2020 season, the guys at the head of every bench have an extra role on their plate. 

They need to decide whether or not each of the dozens of twirling fingers every game is actually worth risking a timeout. Ime Udoka has been nearly flawless in those instances this season.  

The NBA’s official review tracker shows him to have a 75-percent rate of success, getting nine out of his twelve challenges overturned. Compare that to the league average, and he’s levels above his contemporaries: 

Unfortunately the NBA makes these stats very hard to find, and they’re seemingly only updated on a weekly basis. It’s anyone’s guess how that stacks up to prior seasons, plus the league average could have shifted in the past week. 

Regardless, his seven successful and two unsuccessful challenges in October still seemed impressive to me. He got both correct again last night, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have done better. 

Challenges aren’t created equally. I view a good or a smart challenge as anything that keeps points off of the board for the opposing team, or puts points on the board for your team. At the end of the day, that’s how the game is determined. 

Earning an extra possession or removing a foul usually isn’t extremely wise, especially early in the game. It’s not guaranteeing a bucket by any means. That’s where a head coach comes in, but Udoka made a mistake there last night. 

With less than five minutes elapsed in the first quarter, we got the green lights flashing, signaling a challenge. I was puzzled since it was a simple out of bounds play. 

The Rockets proved the refs wrong and got an extra possession, but did nothing with it. Alperen Şengün missed a three, Jabari Smith Jr. got an offensive board, then Şengün turned it over. Phoenix scored on the other end after all of that.

What was the point? Sure, you got that challenge back —— but then it wasn’t available when you needed to keep two points of the board down the road. Jalen Green got sent to the line on multiple phantom fouls, with one coming in crunch-time. 

Hindsight is 20/20, but that’s exactly why I don’t like challenging possession calls. Points are what matter most, so an out of bounds call in the first quarter should never even be an option to challenge. Hopefully Houston’s coaching staff can agree with me and stop wasting challenges. 

More from RocketsRoundtable: