Rockets coach Stephen Silas reacts to blatant untruth told by ESPN’s Brian Windhorst

Midday Tuesday, Stephen Silas and the Rockets went viral for an unfortunate reason. In a story by ESPN’s Brian Windhorst regarding rookie Jabari Smith Jr., Windhorst shared the following anecdote to illustrate the environment in Houston:

Windhorst’s intention was to show that Smith’s delayed breakout — the No. 3 overall draft pick from the NBA’s 2022 first round had largely struggled until after February’s All-Star break — was perhaps due in part to a challenging overall landscape with the Rockets.

However, when the Silas anecdote was aggregated by third-party accounts on social media, many fans cited it as an example of a head coach struggling to connect with players on his team. In other words, that would be a failure at one of his most basic job responsibilities.

There was just one problem, though. The anecdote Windhorst referenced about Silas was more than two years old, and thus irrelevant to the 2022-23 Rockets. Moreover, Silas contends that the crying aspect wasn’t even true, at the time. A correction was later issued by Windhorst and the story updated, but significant damage had already been done to Silas and the team, at least by perception.

On Wednesday, in an interview with flagship radio station SportsTalk 790 in Houston, Silas attempted to set the record straight.