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LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. &mdash; Mike D&rsquo;Antoni has told the Houston Rockets that he will not be back as coach with them next season, essentially choosing free agency over a return to the club with whom he has spent the last four seasons.
				D&rsquo;Antoni told the Rockets on Sunday &mdash; not even a full day after the team&rsquo;s season ended with a playoff loss to the Los Angeles Lakers &mdash; that he would seek coaching options elsewhere for next season and not return to Houston. Team owner Tilman Fertitta confirmed the move later Sunday.
				&ldquo;I would like to thank Mike D&rsquo;Antoni and his wife, Laurel, for their incredible contributions to the Houston Rockets organization and the Houston community,&rdquo; Fertitta said. &ldquo;Mike is a true professional and an amazing basketball mind. He is a winner, and we have been blessed to have such an outstanding coach and leader to work with the past four seasons.&rdquo;
				ESPN first reported the 69-year-old coach&rsquo;s decision.
				It was not totally unexpected; the Rockets and D&rsquo;Antoni couldn&rsquo;t agree on an extension last year, meaning he was coaching this season with no guarantee of his future in Houston. D&rsquo;Antoni had already been mentioned as a potential candidate for vacancies in Indiana and Philadelphia, but when the season ended Saturday night there appeared to be at least some hope of his remaining in Houston.
				&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got a great organization, great city, great fans, team&rsquo;s great,&rdquo; D&rsquo;Antoni said after the Game 5 loss to the Lakers. &ldquo;I mean, everything&rsquo;s good here. We&rsquo;ll see what happens, but I couldn&rsquo;t ask for a better situation. I had four years and hopefully it keeps going. You just never know.&rdquo;
				But sometime between late Saturday night and early Sunday afternoon, he knew that it was time to move on.
				Houston becomes the eighth team that will be going through a coaching change since the end of the regular season &mdash; March 11 for eight clubs that didn&rsquo;t qualify for the NBA&rsquo;s restart bubble, and mid-August for the league&rsquo;s 22 other franchises.
				In recent weeks, Brooklyn has hired Steve Nash and New York hired Tom Thibodeau. Chicago, Indiana, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia and now Houston are vacant.
				D&rsquo;Antoni was with the Rockets for four seasons. Houston went 217-101 in his regular-season contests, a .682 winning percentage.
				The Rockets&rsquo; winning percentage this season &mdash; .611 &mdash; was the worst of his four-year tenure. He went 28-23 in the playoffs with Houston and was the NBA&rsquo;s coach of the year in 2016-17, his first season with the Rockets.
				&ldquo;Mike has done some unbelievable things here,&rdquo; Rockets star James Harden said Saturday night, making clear that he would have liked to have seen D&rsquo;Antoni come back. Houston&rsquo;s other star, guard Russell Westbrook, also raved about the type of person D&rsquo;Antoni is and said he enjoyed his lone season playing under him.
				D&rsquo;Antoni has coached 1,199 regular-season games with five different franchises, going 672-527. He&rsquo;s a two-time coach of the year, having also won the award in 2004-05 after guiding Phoenix to a 62-20 record.

D’Antoni tells Rockets he’s not coming back to Houston