Nice article here Kelly!! (mods if its posted elsewhere lock it up! Thanks) link There's no point in trying to get inside Jeff Van Gundy's head, trying to anticipate his next move or moving into guesswork territory with the Houston Rockets' front office. If either side had made a decision regarding Van Gundy's future with the Rockets, the press release would have already been issued. Though we usually assume a coach or player will shun retirement if the decision doesn't come immediately (usually these pronouncements, eventually regretted, come directly after the conclusion of a grueling pro season), that doesn't mean we'd be surprised if Van Gundy called it quits tomorrow, or signs on the dotted line for four more years. But doesn't it seem like the best time to have a parting of the ways? Van Gundy is a polarizing coach to the fans of the teams he captains, and even this objective observer has flip-flopped feelings (on a monthly basis) about Van Gundy's coaching abilities ever since he took over the New York Knicks in March 1996. He seems intractable, a step behind, dismissive, intuitive, ambitious and borderline brilliant all at once. He somehow led a Rockets team, playing in the West and missing Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming for a combined 45 games, to a 52-win season. Even throwing out the Yao/McGrady absences, look at this roster. Play these All-Stars for 80 games at 40 minutes per and 52 wins seems like the best you could hope for. And yet, despite it all, Van Gundy made it work this season. He eschewed his propensity for using pet pluggers (i.e. Ryan Bowen) and played productive per-minute players like Chuck Hayes and tough buggers like Shane Battier big minutes. He allowed, for whatever reason, Rafer Alston to have his way with the basketball. He stopped asking Yao, for half the game at least, to chase guards off the three-point line while defending the screen-and-roll. He never called out his players in the media, never whined about his contract status, never made excuses for the injuries, and he didn't hesitate to credit former stars Dikembe Mutombo and Juwan Howard (cashing the smallest paychecks of their long careers) for keeping his Rockets afloat. If Carlos Boozer doesn't play out of his mind in the first round, nailing rainbow jumpers from all over the court, the Rockets are still chugging along, and this column has to wait another two weeks. Boozer hit those jumpers, though. Luther Head had a shooting slump, Rafer Alston played like Rafer Alston and a Houston team full of savvy veterans somehow failed to win one of three road games. And après les deluge, Van Gundy probably sees the writing on the wall, as he did in New York in late 2001. His Knicks had just bid against themselves to re-sign Allan Houston to an outrageous deal. His team's veteran core was crumbling. Jason Kidd was starting to turn those flighty New Jersey Nets into an Atlantic powerhouse. Van Gundy knew things were going downhill. A month into the season, he quit. It isn't all downhill for these Rockets. The team's core is young, its fan base rabid and its new GM (Daryl Morey) ready go against convention and try not to waste the primes of Yao and T-Mac in the same way that we saw Kevin Garnett, Allen Iverson, and Paul Pierce's best years go all for naught. Maybe it's Van Gundy, and not Don Nelson, who is at his best dealing with underdogs. Maybe he's the one who should call it a day, lay low for a couple of years while earning some coin from TNT, and find a new job with a batch of new players and a GM who remembers only the high points from his time as Rockets coach and beyond. Maybe it's not an overreaction to leave the team after a close Game 7 loss, one that could have gone either way. Maybe it's the appropriate end to a relationship that's just about to sour.
"He seems intractable, a step behind, dismissive, intuitive, ambitious and borderline brilliant all at once." Thats JVG for you..I always wanted to say that but my vocabulary is a step down.
I like Kelly Dwyer. Maybe he also jumps in on other fan boards, too, but if so, hey, he's a good writer and a true fan of the game.
Good article but I think his close friend dying in the towers on 9/11 had a great deal to do with that...man, how fast people forget.
I think Houston fans aren't as rabid as say Utah fans are because everyone in Houston knows the game of basketball and is a critic of our team. Utah fans don't really know what basketball is so they just scream when anything happens. Houston fans = rabid critics, Utah fans= r****ds.
I wouldn't call Utah Fans r****ds, not to get in a pissing match, but Utah is a basketball state. I think it was ranked as the 3rd or 4th best basketball state by espn they know basketball. I hate the jazz but I do sometimes wish more fans were as committed to supporting their respective team rather than whine and complain from an ivory tower of misconceived knowledge. People complain because its easy, its easy to say your team sucks or this is the problem or that is the problem. thats the easy part, the hard part is finding the answers that really work. For fans the answer is simple, support the team which is very hard to do when everything isn't going just right. For management its much more complex and exhausting.
I remembered, and originally had a mention, but I thought it rendered the rest of my crap trivial and I took it out. There's no real way to include that amongst a discussion of Houston's contract or Charlie Ward getting older. Thanks for all the comments, guys. I didn't dig into JVG as much as I wanted to, but I thought some of it turned ok enough.
Cults, to me, are rabid. You may not fill up the Toyota Center ... but name a better forum than this. Frank Zappa may not have ever had the number one album, but the fans he has own every one of his 2183 albums.
Good read. I'm torn on JVG's future. On one hand, I feel that there isn't a better coach out there so we should hold on to him. On the other hand, I think a major change is needed for this team to get past the mental block. Yao and McGrady are not going anywhere so by the process of elimination that leaves Jeff as the piece that needs to go. Put a gun to my head and I say keep JVG but if management or Jeff himself feel a change needs to be made then I won't complain. Make no mistake, however, this team is not going anywhere without adding some talent...no matter who is coaching.
Which is why I have been saying DEVELOP the bench....there is not enough on the floor right now. And we know that Rafer is not the answer... DD
Not really an endorsement of FZ, I have one album of his that I never listen to. Just pointing out that he never had a flavor of ice cream named after him, but his fans know every note. Again, cats, thanks for the kind words.
