HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS –Stan Van Gundy has a history of opposing the rule of law in regards to the rules handed down by the NBA. He did so as coach of the Miami Heat and Orlando Magic and still does in his new role as an analyst and partner of the NBC Sports Network.
“I think the attempt to try to address it is a good thing but I don’t see the rule having much effect,” said Van Gundy, the former Magic coach who is transitioning this season to broadcasting with NBC Sports Network and Dial Global radio. “First of all, I think the only ones that you will see penalized are very, very egregious flops. I’d be surprise if it even got to one a game, and I think anybody who watches basketball knows that there is far more than one every game.
“And I don’t even think this is the NBA’s fault. I just think it’s impossible the way the rule is written where they can ‘crack down’ on it. I think they will make sort of a cursory attempt, and make it look like they are trying to do something about it.”
Van Gundy did exonerate the league to a degree, admitting that it’s nearly impossible to crack down on the problem with the way the rule is written. But do you think he has a point?
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – Their names will be linked in Orlando sports lore forever, former Magic superstar center Dwight Howard and former Magic coach Stan Van Gundy.
But it won’t always be about their messy divorce and departure from the Magic. On at least one account, the former player and coach will come together to help bolster the future for students in the Orlando area, the Seminole County School system to be exact.
It turns out that Howard and Van Gundy do have a common interest outside of winning a Larry O’Brien Trophy.
Diametrically opposed on so many issues, Howard and Van Gundy are political allies (the combatants in contests across the nation in this election year need to take notice) when it comes to helping preserve the property tax base that helps fund the school system.
If you read my column last week, you know Van Gundy is the chairman of a political group in Seminole County called Citizens for Preservation of Property Values. The goal of the group is to increase property taxes in Seminole County to help preserve the area’s traditionally strong public school system — a system that has been decimated by $73 million in budget cuts over the past five years. In the Nov. 6 general election, Seminole voters will decide whether to approve a 1-mill increase in property taxes for four years beginning a year from now. The increase would bring in as much as $25 million annually to the school district.
Van Gundy says Dwight, who was recently traded to the Lakers, is going to lend some financial backing to the cause.
“Dwight has pledged his support,” Van Gundy said Monday during an interview on our Open Mike radio show on 740 The Game. “He’s a resident of Seminole County, and he’s keeping his house here. I think his history will show that he’s had great concern for kids in the Central Florida community. With him still living here, we asked him to help and he didn’t hesitate.”
Surprisingly to some, both Stan and Dwight say they are on good terms and have been communicating regularly over the last several weeks. Van Gundy even texted Howard and wished him good luck after he was traded to L.A.
HANG TIME, Texas — You don’t have to warn Mike Brown about expectations next season with the Lakers. This is, after all, the guy who lived with the would-be championship burden of LeBron James sitting on his back in Cleveland.
Sure, the Lakers have added Dwight Howard and Steve Nash, among others, to their roster this summer. Sure, he can feel those 16 previous championships staring down from the rafters and the record books.
But in an in-depth and quite interesting Q & A with Brian Kamenetzky of ESPNLosAngeles.com’s Land ‘O Lakers blog, the coach says, in short, bring it on:
“That’s what I like about this job,” Brown said. “The level of expectations that we have as an organization doesn’t sit with just making the playoffs. Every year, ownership and management want to compete for a championship. As a coach, I don’t know why you would want to be put in any other situation, unless you’re just happy getting a paycheck or being a coach in the NBA. I want to be put in a situation where year in, year out I have an opportunity to win. You know? In my opinion, that’s my dream and should be the dream of anybody that’s a competitor. This situation warrants that.”
In his first season with the NBA’s most high-profile coaching job, Brown inherited a talented, but flawed, team that was never able to develop consistency during the post-lockout schedule and may have maxed out its potential just by getting to the West semis against Oklahoma City. That won’t fly this time around, especially when many have always dubbed the Lakers as the team to beat — ahead of the defending champion Heat and Western Conference champion Thunder.
“Everybody says that — expectations, expectations, pressure, pressure, pressure. Pressure to me occurs if you’re not prepared, and we’ll be prepared.
“Having said that, yes, you understand people’s thoughts and expectations, but I’m telling you this: I don’t think there was anybody last year that expected us and said it was OK that we got knocked out in the second round, or that we didn’t win the West. I don’t think there’s one person in L.A. that can honestly say they didn’t expect more. (more…)
HANG TIME, Texas — LeBron James to Miami. Chris Paul to the L.A. Clippers. Dwight Howard to the L.A. Lakers.
So who’s next to spin the wheel of free agent fortune and plot his escape to greener pastures?
Would you believe Derrick Rose?
That’s the latest white-hot offering from former Magic coach-turned-media-flamethrower Stan Van Gundy, whom we’ve got to figure owns considerable stock in a Molotov cocktail factory or is auditioning to replace Mrs. O’Leary’s cow as the most famous fire-starter in Chicago history.
“I think the interesting one coming up in the future is going to be Derrick Rose,” Van Gundy said. “I think Derrick Rose is a great, great representative of our league, and he’s a great player. And he’s got good players around him, very good players around him, but if (the Bulls) can’t get another star there for him is he eventually going to look around and say, ‘Hey, I’ve got to work this out on my own and I’ve got to find somehow to get somewhere else so that I will have a chance to play with another star.’ The league has changed.”
Rose, who is rehabbing the torn ACL he suffered in Game 1 of the playoffs against Philadelphia last spring, has never even hinted at making a head-fake toward the door. In fact, since signing his five-year, $90-million contract extension, he has repeatedly said that he wants and plans to finish his career in Chicago. What’s more, in the past two seasons with coach Tom Thibodeau at the helm, Rose has won an MVP award and twice led his team to the NBA’s best regular-season record.
In his defense, Van Gundy was talking about a possible future scenario if Rose were unable to win a championship with the pieces that can be put around him in Chicago and was using the 2012 championship by the Heat as an example. (more…)
“It’s a typical lack of understanding from someone who has no sports knowledge, who has never coached or played, who has never been in a lockeroom….it’s a naivete,” Van Gundy said of Martins Monday morning on Mike Bianchi’s show on 740 AM.
“….I’ll stand on the relationships with players based on the results we got.
“I think Alex’s comments are based on the fact that Dwight and maybe others didn’t like me…and thinking somehow that’s important.”
Nobody will ever nominate Van Gundy for a post in the diplomatic corp, so the fact that he’s been forthcoming and blunt in the aftermath of being let go by the Magic is hardly shocking. Truth is, in a world of professional sports that has become increasingly corporate, clandestine and, frankly, often quite boring, StanVan and his willingness to react like an exposed nerve end is as welcome as a cleansing summer rain.
Who can forget the scene last spring when Van Gundy had just finished telling a throng of reporters that Howard had asked to have him fired just before the disgruntled center walked up and placed an arm around his shoulder to act buddy-buddy?
Practically from the start of the public unraveling of the Dwight Howard era in Orlando, Stan Van Gundy didn’t pull many punches about his view on the deterioration between the Magic’s former All-Star big man and the powers that be (including himself). Perhaps no interview summed up Van Gundy’s honest view on the situation than his awkward-yet-telling pre-practice interview in April where he revealed that reports of Howard wanting him fired were true (which were then followed by Howard awkwardly sidling up to and being chummy with Van Gundy … and then having to deny Van Gundy’s statements to the media).
How do you feel about the fallout from everything that has happened in Orlando? Are you frustrated? Relieved?
“Well I’d like to have a job. That’d be nice. That’s not a great feeling. We just got caught up in a bad situation and our organization didn’t handle it very well. Because of that I would say we probably deserve a lot of what happened as an organization and certainly not the other players. I thought those guys…I felt badly for them, a group that worked hard and was very professional all year long and didn’t deserve everything that happened, but from our organization especially the people at the very top it just wasn’t handled very well, so you get what you deserve.”
Did you go home and say I can’t believe how bizarre this is being played out with Dwight Howard?
“No. Not really. Look there’s always something going on in the NBA. I think when you are in the season you are just sort of dealing with things day-to-day and the next practice and the next game and everything else, so no there is always issues. That was our issue this year and we dealt with it. Quite honestly we were dealing with it very well with everything that was going on until Dwight Howard went out and obviously we lost our best player. We were playing very well. We had the 3rd best record in the East and the 5th best record in the league and we’re playing well. Then when he [Dwight Howard] went down quite honestly we struggled. He was sort of our guy and we didn’t play as well after that, but I thought we were still pretty competitive in everything else. It wasn’t as bad inside our team and inside the locker room as it was out in the media.”
Used to be, when a point guard re-upped to continue setting up the best center in basketball, it was a joyous occasion for both sides. The little man would keep playing with an ideal finisher for his passes, while the big man would stick with a playmaker he’s known, in this case, since they both arrived in the NBA eight years earlier.
Once upon a time, that’s howJameer Nelson’s reported agreement Thursday to re-sign with the Orlando Magic would have looked too, strengthening his connection with Dwight Howard. But that fairy tale has fluttered away, and Nelson’s return looks more like another sign of Howard’s certain departure. He reportedly will sign a three-year deal, the dollar amount so far undisclosed, after averaging 11.9 points and 5.7 assists in 57 appearances.
The combo of Nelson out front and Howard down low once was vital to the Magic’s ambitions; they got to the 2009 Finals and reached the Eastern Conference finals a year later. But like many of Howard’s relationships in Orlando, his dealings with Nelson appeared to sour from the All-Star center’s self-indulgent embrace of his options and clout via impending free agency.
HANG TIME CAPITAL BUREAU – Despite Magic All-NBA center Dwight Howard’s desire to be traded to the Brooklyn Nets, there is currently nothing on the table from Brooklyn that interests Orlando, and there’s little likelihood of a deal between the teams, according to a league source involved in the discussions.
The Nets are going forward with their plans to rebuild their team without Howard, working diligently to acquire guard Joe Johnson from the Atlanta Hawks, and will proceed with that and other moves even if they can’t convince guard Deron Williams to re-sign there, according to a league source. But Brooklyn is hopeful that Williams will want to play with a revamped team that includes Johnson and a re-signed Gerald Wallace and Brook Lopez. Wallace agreed to a four-year, $40 million deal over the weekend, and the Nets hope they can keep Lopez as well.
The Nets “are not going to wait” for a Howard deal, the source said.
The Magic’s previous management team had been working on a Howard deal with the Nets for months, but those proposed offers included Lopez as the centerpiece of the potential package, as well as future Draft picks. And Orlando never agreed to those proposals, either, leading Howard to vacillate before deciding to “opt in” for the 2012-13 season and honor the final year of his contract. Howard reiterated his desire to be traded to the Nets in a meeting with Orlando’s new GM, Rob Hennigan, last week. Over the weekend, Howard denied reports that he felt “blackmailed” by the Magic into opting in for next season. Hennigan said in a meeting with local reporters that he wanted players on the Magic “who want to be here,” which would, seemingly, not include Howard.
The Magic fired former GM Otis Smith and former coach Stan Van Gundy after the team’s first-round playoff loss to Indiana. Orlando has just begun the search process for a new coach to replace Van Gundy, who took the team to the Finals in 2009.
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – You had to know this story wasn’t going to have a happy ending.
Magic center Dwight Howard has made sure of it, now that he’s finally broken his silence about the bizarre turn of events surrounding his future with the organization that drafted him and the one he is demanding he be traded to. All indications for the latter is Brooklyn, even though Howard still refuses to say it publicly.
“I never used the word blackmail in reference to any of my dealings with the Magic,” Howard said. “I never said that. It’s defamatory and it’s inaccurate. I know what blackmail means and any report that I used the term incorrectly is inaccurate.”
Howard met with new Magic general manager Rob Hennigan on Friday in Los Angeles, and said he told Hennigan of his desire to be traded. However, Howard insisted he was merely repeating a position he had made clear to Magic officials since waiving his ETO in March.
“This was not the first time [that I asked for trade],” Howard said. “I communicated this to [Magic president] Alex [Martins] and [former general manager] Otis [Smith] way before Friday that I wanted to be traded – months before this meeting with Rob Hennigan. That was all way before Stan [Van Gundy] got fired.”
Howard’s bottom-line declaration that the Magic trade him now, to the unspecified team on “his list,” or play out the season and watch him walk away in free agency after the season leaves all involved in the same position they’ve been in for months.
It also guarantees that the divorce between Howard, the Magic and the city of Orlando will be as nasty as anything we’ve seen in recent years. That list includes the nasty split between LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
BOSTON – No one is happier that Randy Wittman apparently will continue as head coach of the Washington Wizards than the man whose firing opened the job for him.
Flip Saunders, who was fired in January with a 2-15 record, said that Wizards management did more than just promote his top assistant coach, who is expected to have his interim tag removed with a new contract in the next week or so. The brass also addressed some of the team’s issues once Wittman was in place, not that those were secrets prior to Saunders’ dismissal.
“Where I feel good is, there were a lot of things that I thought had to be done with that team when I was there,” said Saunders, who has been working as a consultant for Boston’s Doc Rivers during the playoffs. “When Randy first took over, they didn’t have great success until they did what they needed to do with some of the guys and changed the roster. And they got better.”
For example, a young but immature nucleus of JaVale McGee, Nick Young and Andray Blatche was broken up for Wittman – the first two traded, the third shut down when he ballooned out of shape – even though Saunders said he raised that red flag last season. Washington also acquired center Nene from Denver, who only played 11 games with his new team but gave it an inside presence and a veteran who could command attention off the court. Adding solid role players James Singleton and Cartier Martin helped too, Saunders said.
“I knew what needed to be done,” said Saunders, who went 51-130 in Washington after leading Detroit and Minnesota to 11 playoff appearances in 13 seasons. “Unfortunately I didn’t have the opportunity to see it through. But Randy’s my guy. And the staff there are guys basically that I hired. So I feel good about that too.”
