Jeff Van Gundy, out of answers for a Houston Rockets team that he, and many NBA observers, expected to challenge for a championship this season, is said to be “anguished and suicidal” over the team’s disappointing performance, Rockets officials disclosed after a drubbing by another inferior team.

Despite acquiring Tracy McGrady in the offseason, a move expected to free Yao Ming to potentiate his stardom, the pair has yet to mesh and exploit a Western Conference weakened by the Lakers’ summer trading of Shaquille O’Neal to the Miami Heat. But perhaps most unbearable, the Rockets have played poor defense, a development, close friends say, that has Van Gundy watching porn, not team, film “deep into the night.”

“He’s obsessed, no question,” a close associate, and team scout, said of Van Gundy. “He sits there pointing things out in the films to the coaches…taking notes, rewinding, zooming in and out, very intense. He’s hyper-focused, as usual, but now on vaginas. He expects us to know all the details, not miss a thing.”

Van Gundy has worn the misery of perfectionism to almost cult-status in his improbable rise to the top ranks of NBA head coaches. He became something of the NBA’s coaching version of Sea Biscuit and Smarty Jones, leading what many considered to be a modestly talented Knicks team to the NBA finals in 2001. After leaving the Knicks early the next season, he spent a year in stud and sired, among other promising coaches, Lawrence Frank, the New Jersey Nets head coach, who is enjoying similar early success despite his own quite modest basketball pedigree.

Van Gundy, sources say, sired more than 26 coaches during his sabattical, earning more than six million dollars for his procreative services. Another offspring, Harold Vargas, is regarded as well-positioned to succeed Jerry Sloan if Sloan ever leaves as head-coach of the Jazz.

Presently, Van Gundy is said to be “even more tortured than usual” and making reckless suicidal comments. “The only thing that gives him pause [from suiciding] is basketball,” a friend said. “He really wouldn’t stick around for his kids. Family’s never been important to Jeff. He’s admitted that. But turning this losing around does matter, a lot.”