After four winning seasons with an average record of 48-34, the Houston Rockets decided not to retain head coach Rick Adelman, whose contract with the club expired upon the end of the season. Under Adelman, the Rockets finished the last two seasons with the West's ninth-best record despite injuries to Yao Ming and a roster without a single marquee player. Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey addressed his decision, which he arrived at after a "tough, tough set of days," in an interview with Houston's KILT radio.
The biggest takeaway from the interview is that some philosophical differences led to Adelman's departure. "Yeah, obviously there is a different sort of view on certain things," Morey said. "I’ve agreed to sort of keep those conversations private so I’m going to honor that."
While we're not privy to exactly what went on behind closed doors, SB Nation's Tom Ziller says Adelman was not always interested in the advanced statistical profiles the Rockets' analytics staff provided him before games:
Speaking of Houston and advanced stats, I've heard from a few people that Adelman wasn't exactly gung ho about the detailed reems of data.less than a minute ago via web 
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Tom Ziller
teamziller
Under Morey, Houston has become the league's highest-profile team when it comes to the use of statistics in personnel and strategic decisions.
Additionally, Morey says the team is in a different situation now compared to the last time they had to fill a coaching vacancy:
Last time, though, we had a pretty solid foundation with Tracy [McGrady] and Yao and we were trying to fill out that foundation. We feel like we’re in a different state this time where we’re still trying to build a foundation and we’re looking for a coach that fits that environment.
The GM expects to interview assistant coaches Jack Sikma and Elston Turner as part of his search for a new coach.