Stan Van Gundy only lasted one season with the Pelicans, but he doesn’t blame any of his players for his early departure, writes Andrew Lopez of ESPN. Commenting publicly on the situation for the first time during an appearance on the “Stupodity” podcast, Van Gundy said players are often targeted undeservedly when there’s a coaching change.
“I hate when it gets put on players that players are getting coaches fired and things like that. I think that makes players look bad and I don’t think that’s fair,” he said. “Players certainly have the right to express their opinion to people and things like that but front offices and owners make decisions and they are the ones who make decisions to fire people. That should never be placed on players.
“I know this, regardless of what happened in that regard, (Zion Williamson)’s no coach killer. He’s a guy who is gonna help you win a lot of games. He plays the game the right way. One of the things I’ll miss is the opportunity to continue to coach him. He’s so unique in the way that he plays the game and the things that he can do, it really gets your mind spinning as a coach and you have a lot of possibilities in what you can do with him. That was fun to explore. I’m happy with what we did with Zion. I think we helped him. How anyone else felt about that would be up to them.”
Van Gundy was hired last year in an attempt to bring veteran leadership to a roster stocked with young talent. However, the Pelicans got off to a slow start and finished at 31-41, two games out of the final play-in spot. As the season wore on, there were reports that Williamson’s family was upset with how he was being used and was urging him to find a way out of New Orleans.
“I don’t know anything about that,” Van Gundy said. “In my mind, I liked coaching Zion. I had a good relationship with him. I had no problem. I think we elevated his platform that we gave him. We put him in different situations, had him handling the ball a lot, playing a lot of point guard. I think we did some good things with him.
“If they were unhappy, I didn’t hear about it. Zion was unhappy with us not winning more games, but Zion never expressed to me any of that. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t unhappy, it’s possible that they were unhappy with me and that’s what led to the change.”
Van Gundy also scoffed at how his departure was portrayed. In a press release announcing the move, the Pelicans framed it as a mutual decision, but Van Gundy says that’s not completely accurate. Executive VP of basketball operations David Griffin has cited “philosophical differences,” and Van Gundy admitted that he and the front office looked at coaching “totally different.”
“I would say it was joint in this sense: I think you can understand this, I don’t want to be somewhere they don’t want me. And they didn’t want me. I wasn’t at that point going to fight to try to stay there,” he said. “When I left Detroit, my owner there who I really liked Tom Gores, also said it was a mutual decision. I said yeah, ‘Tom asked me to leave so I left.’ I guess that’s mutual.”
Van Gundy defended the job he did with the Pelicans, noting that the team showed improvement on defense throughout the season, rising from 29th in defensive efficiency before the All-Star break to seventh afterward. He also endorsed assistant coach Fred Vinson as the best choice to replace him.
Van Gundy said he will miss the chance to further develop Williamson and believes he will eventually be one of the NBA’s top stars.
“Over the next five, six, seven years, this guy’s gonna have incredible growth,” Van Gundy said. Now where he really needs to make progress if he wants to win is at the defensive end. … He’s just a phenomenal talent and has great competitiveness. And you literally just cannot keep him from getting to the rim. There’s no way to play him to keep him from getting to the rim. Even when you know that’s where he’s going every time.”
It’s not Zion’s fault, it’s the clueless ownership and GM/front office who stink at what they do. Zion is already elite/universal top 20 guy.
Agreed. The FO did not ask Stan the right questions or called his references. It’s not like he’s Steve Nash or John Beilien (sp?) and has no track record. A sad start to the Zion era which could be short if they eff up the next hire.
Should’ve asked him about Ingram he is the one that he did dirty
How much is SVG collecting after being fired multiple times?
He’s not coaching his family after all, why should he care.
Neither SVG or the players are to blame for what happened. 100% on Griffin. Poor-fitting roster and an ill-conceived coaching hire. This was all very predictable.
Frankly, he should’ve already been fired imo. His overall track record as a GM is very lukewarm.
There’s some blood on Stan’s hands but I agree on Griffin. He completely misjudged Zion’s timeline. The Jrue trade and the Adams signing are maybe defensible … if you have a team that’s 3-5 years away.
But Ingram is in his prime years and Zion, though young, is already a top 12-15 player. Trading Jrue for future assets and a toxic contract then extending Adams to infinity were in retrospect horrible moves. Now to get off Adams and Bledsoe they’ll have to use a chunk of the picks they got for Jrue. So the net result of the Jrue trade is close to zero.
If they did nothing last summer and came back with Zion Ingram Ball Hart and Jrue they’d have been a playoff team regardless of SVG’s coaching.
Now they have a hoard of picks but a 21 year old superstar who already reportedly might want out. What superstar is going to want in on that scene? It’s tough to screw up when you draft a generational talent yet Griffin is well on his way…
Don’t get me wrong, I do think in a roundabout way that SVG is culpable. At the same time, since many of us could and did foresee his bad fit with this roster, it’s hard for me to blame him in that sense. But his failure to adjust to his personnel was, and has always been, undoubtedly one of his biggest failings.
“Now they have a hoard of picks but a 21 year old superstar who already reportedly might want out. What superstar is going to want in on that scene? It’s tough to screw up when you draft a generational talent yet Griffin is well on his way…”
For that reason I would’ve cleaned house entirely, HC and GM. Hire someone forward-thinking who isn’t a retread to give some hope to Zion and co. Now? Why should Zion have any faith in Griffin moving forward? I know I wouldn’t. He may be young, but he’s not stupid.
This ship can still be righted based on the amount of talent the Pelicans have, but who knows if Griffin is up to the task.
Agreed. I’d look to Dallas with Nico as a blueprint. Get someone in the FO who’s attractive to the biggest names.
Zion’s discontent will dissipate if they get a true star to pair with him
2nd time NOP has effed away a generational talent as they could not make it work with AD.
Totally agree with SVG with calling out the really silly idea that players get HC’s fired!
I mean I might have seen it once in 40 years, so… it just doesn’t happen!
Problem is hoops is all ’bout the stars, but teams try to keep their fans blinded, sadly doing a good job of it, & they blame always the players, players want more money, they are greedy, they want a new coach, blah, blah, blah… all of it is a lot of nonsense!
Players are the show as simple as!
Fans go to the arenas to watch the players not teams, hence why teams always have to try to make themselves look better by blaming the players!
“Master of panic.”Van Gundy is the Van Gundy killer.