I'm not sure where the confusion lies. While Buss is consticted by the current salary cap and luxury tax levels that all of the teams are subjected to, that did not stop him from paying Shaq an incredible amount before the current CBA went into effect. Shaq's $26.5m is easily double the current CBA max. In the absence of restrictions, Buss (like the "BIG BOYS" Almu mentioned) will spend the money as evidenced by what he pays Jackson. I'm not sure how much clearer I can be...the Rox went on the cheap IMO.
I know! Get Van Gundy! Jesus...it will be disappointing when they get Dunleavy...and they probably will. Carroll Dawson..SICK.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/sports/feigen/1174539 Costello, Van Gundy are two of a kind By JONATHAN FEIGEN Copyright 2001 Houston Chronicle Larry Costello was one of those guys who coached in a T-shirt. Nobody paid him to wear their designer sweats. He was a T-shirt, whistle and canvas sneakers kind of guy. Costello, the last NBA practitioner of the set shot, was built like a brick and about as unyielding. He wore the haircut of a Marine officer and was as interested in compromise. He was a throwback. He also was ahead of his time. Jeff Van Gundy looked like a hospital patient -- too thin, with a cue-ball complexion and bags under his eyes that wouldn't fit in the overhead compartment. But that appearance spoke for the sacrifices he made to achieve, the endless hours he worked and the pressures he absorbed and let fester. The NBA lost both last week, with Costello's passing in Fort Myers, Fla., and Van Gundy's abrupt resignation as Knicks coach. Van Gundy will return in time. But something seems wrong that he had to leave in the first place -- a victim of the changing times that had taken so much out of him. Van Gundy was at his best when he could demand as much as he gave -- just like Costello. Van Gundy earned his players' respect not with his athletic ability or playing career but with his work ethic and intelligence. Like Costello, the first coach to issue a playbook and whose collection of plays numbered more than 100, Van Gundy tried to control too much. Like Costello, who once cut his former roommate from the roster for talking back, Van Gundy could be stubbornly unforgiving. But like Costello, Van Gundy knew his business, and other coaches knew how tough it was to go against him. Van Gundy quit because he lost his "laser-like focus." But he would not have lost it had the league not changed from the one Costello knew. Costello also had great talent, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson on his 1971 championship team at Milwaukee. But back then, the boss was in charge. Van Gundy knew he only ruled as long as the players approved, but he cited none of that when he resigned. He always seemed caught in the wrong time -- a better fit with Costello and Red Holzman and Red Auerbach (and perhaps throwback Spurs coach Gregg Popovich) than good guy Doc Rivers or even Don Chaney, Van Gundy's successor with the Knicks. "I've always felt as a head coach that I was the best person to lead this team," Van Gundy said. "And when I felt that it had to be somebody else, then, I made that decision. I know some people are going to judge it harshly, but you've got to do things when you think it's right and suffer the consequences. That's what I'm prepared to do. "I don't want to question what I was putting into it because I was putting a lot into it. I knew what I was fighting against. I knew I had a lot of questions in my mind, so I made sure I was doing my work. That can only last so long." But there were other factors. Van Gundy did not think he had the support of Cablevision, which owned the team. He lost his best friend, Farrell Lynch, in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. And he wanted to spend more time with his 6-year-old daughter Mattie. But, like Costello, Van Gundy is someone who should be coaching. The other way is not bad, either. But there should be a place for doing it their way. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://espn.go.com/nba/columns/wojnarowski_adrian/1454133.html?contentType=Columnist Friday, November 1 Van Gundy watches and waits for his return -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Adrian Wojnarowski Special to ESPN.com Here he was sitting on the top row of the bleachers, listening to his father educate a gymnasium of small college and high school coaches on the art of rebounding. Jeff Van Gundy leaned over and laughed softly about his dad, whispering, "He was wide awake at 5 o'clock this morning." He was dying to climb into the car for the drive to Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J., on this rainy Saturday morning, dying to get back into the game. "The greatest rebounder I ever saw," Bill Van Gundy bellowed to the gymnasium, "coaches the New Orleans Hornets and never got four inches off the ground..." When he's not with his family, Jeff Van Gundy spends his time as an NBA analyst on TNT. This was living for Jeff Van Gundy. They were doing a father-son clinic as a fundraiser for a family friend coaching at Stevens Tech, but the son understood why he heard his father's footsteps through his Westchester County, N.Y., home that morning. Bill ended his junior college coaching career four years earlier at Genesee Community College, leaving him as wistful for a basketball season as the son who had left his whistle in the middle of Madison Square Garden last December. "This is the time the uneasiness of not having a team really hits me," Jeff Van Gundy said. "This is the first year since I was a young kid that I'm starting a basketball season without one. That withdrawal, it's hard. What I've found, in a sick way, I suppose, that even the painful things about coaching -- the losing, the turmoil, all that -- is part of the joy that I derive from it." For everyone remembering the bags under his eyes, the 5 o'clock shadow, Van Gundy is a restored man. For the first time, he's found balance in his life. He goes to high school and small college games and parent-teacher conferences and says he's most proud of the fact now that, " I know the names of all my daughter's friends." He lived his life stolen away in dark film rooms, a Rochester, N.Y., high school coach charting an amazing rise into one of the NBA's best tacticians over six seasons with the New York Knicks. He had passed Pat Riley on the franchise's victory list, with just the great Red Holzman left to conquer. All the way to his resignation on Dec. 8 a year ago -- "Which was something I should've done on August 8th," he says -- Van Gundy never once didn't hear the public address announcer introduce his name on game night at the Garden. Never once. He'll never have another job like coaching the Knicks at the Garden, and nobody has to tell him. "There wasn't one day for 13 years that I didn't think about the Knicks -- even when you're on down time, on vacation -- not one day," Van Gundy said. "You're jotting notes, your mind is always drifting back to it. And when I got off that treadmill, I never thought I would think of them anymore, but I still think of them every day. "But, finally you can do other things. Every summer, I go to Mets games with (former assistant) Brendan Malone. We used to be at the Mets game talking about the Knicks. Now, we go to the Mets games and we talk about the Mets." Across the year, Van Gundy has discovered something else, too: The coaching fraternity that his father raised him with, a fraternity that he believed was fractured beyond repair, is alive and well. He traveled to New Orleans to spend time with Tim Floyd. He's been a part of coaching think tanks in Santa Barbara and Memphis, where dozens of top coaches met to trade ideas and philosophies. Before the start of the season, he stopped into several days of 76er practices and observed Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown's brilliant work. As much as this was enlightening, it was reaffirming for Van Gundy: His style worked for the Knicks, and it'll work again. Whatever people wanted to tell him on his way out of New York, pro coaches can be tough. They can be demanding. If Van Gundy is still determined to be tough on his players, he wants to take it easier on himself. For him, this means maybe resisting going to the office so often in the offseason. Maybe he doesn't have to work for the sake of working. He's going to have options next season, when the Knicks no longer control his rights. He's a playoff proven coach, and how many of those are on the market? “ I've done a lot of thinking about the Latrell thing, and I'll tell you: When I hear people say that the Latrell thing just hasn't worked out with the Knicks, I think that's just nonsense. ” — Jeff Van Gundy "The misconception about me is that I have to be a with a team that has to win right now," he said. "With very few exceptions, coaches would rather build than just maintain. I just don't want to go to a team that is convinced the best chance of getting good is to be in the lottery for five or six years. That doesn't work. I don't want to hear, 'We're waiting for cap room five years from now.' I'm not going to lower my standards for a job. I'm going to be disciplined about that." What's strange to him, of course, is the sudden revisionist history about his impact on Latrell Sprewell saga. When ex-Garden president Dave Checketts and Van Gundy were running the Knicks, they never bothered Spree on the small stuff, understanding he trusted and appreciated them and would always play hard. When Sprewell was a few minutes late to games at the Garden, Van Gundy never said a word. Spree played, the Knicks won and everyone could live with it. "All I ever heard was that I was too hard, too negative," Van Gundy said. "Now with Latrell Sprewell, I'm being told that I was too enabling. How could I have been too hard and too loose? Listen, he was probably late from one minute to 30 minutes for home games -- maybe 10 to 15 -- in my four years coaching him. Who cares if you're there 90 minutes before a game or not? He was never late for practices. Never late for a shoot-around. What he was late for had no effect on the team and no affect on his performance." "You treat everyone fairly, but that doesn't mean the same. Patrick Ewing had a million different things than everyone else. I've done a lot of thinking about the Latrell thing, and I'll tell you: When I hear people say that the Latrell thing just hasn't worked out with the Knicks, I think that's just nonsense." Spree is someone else's problem now on these Knicks. The bags are gone under Jeff Van Gundy's eyes, his face his finally flushed with color. For the first time in years, he has come up for air and found a whole, new world waiting for him. Still, he misses the gym. He misses the basketball season. It won't be long until it belongs to him again. It won't be long at all.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/sports/barron/1798641 Van Gundy stands by Rudy T By DAVID BARRON Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle Remember when TNT analyst Jeff Van Gundy used to coach the New York Knicks? Remember what would happen when a call went against him? Remember his patented pained, petulant, disbelieving pout? If you think Rudy Tomjanovich is what's wrong with the Rockets, Van Gundy is looking at you in the same way this morning. You could practically hear the disbelief oozing through the phone line from Washington, D.C., Thursday when Van Gundy was told about the growing legion of Tomjanovich naysayers. "Have they forgotten 1994 and 1995 (the Rockets' NBA championship seasons, for those of you who have)?" he said. "I've watched the Rockets for a long time, and I know three things. They have a championship coach, which is hard to find. And they have a point guard and a center you can build around for the next decade, which is hard to find. And they have a general manager in Carroll Dawson who is astute. "So, to me, they have everything they need to rebuild. That's what they're going through, and over the next decade they're going to reap all the good things that come through rebuilding, because they're led by Rudy T and Carroll Dawson, and they've got a great point guard and a great center." And so, Van Gundy said, it is "foolish" to rail at Tomjanovich as the Rockets go through their growing pains in the first year with Yao Ming in the lineup. "You can't speed up the maturation process of players. They come at their own pace," he said. "Steve Francis has developed, and Cuttino Mobley has developed, and they now have an inside presence that will be dominant. There will be bumps in the road, but look at how much the team has improved. All I see is upside."
http://www.thesportsticket.com/NBA/articles/5241999-214123.asp Knicks make it four in a row over Hawks Monday, May 24, 1999 Jeff Van Gundy To a chorus of nearly 20,000 people chanting Jeff Van Gundy's name, the New York Knicks made it to the Eastern Conference finals Monday night -- even if they didn't necessarily save their coach's job. ”I don't think they've ever done that for any coach,” Patrick Ewing said after a full house at Madison Square Garden got up on its feet and voted with its collective voice while the Knicks were completing a 4-0 sweep of the Atlanta Hawks with a 79-66 victory. ”It was very kind of them, very nice. I appreciated it very much,” Van Gundy said after another day of politicking off the court and precision on it ended with New York's first sweep of a seven-game series in 30 years. As they did in the first three games, the Knicks won with ease and became the first eighth-seeded to advance to the third round. They move on to a conference finals matchup with the Indiana Pacers beginning next Sunday, a series that Van Gundy will enter without knowing whether his job is safe for next season. Madison Square Garden president Dave Checketts met with Van Gundy before the game and apologized to him for lying about his secret meeting with former Bulls coach Phil Jackson in mid-April when the Knicks were struggling. But rather than give Van Gundy a vote of confidence or some kind of reassurance, Checketts again said the fate of the coach and the players will be decided at the end of the season. ”He explained himself to me and I listened,” Van Gundy said. “It's a non-issue to me. The only thing I was worried about tonight was getting one more win, and now all I'm concerned with is trying to get back to the finals. ”I know how good it felt to be there in 1994 (as an assistant), how hard it was to get there and how hard it was to get the opportunity to get there. Everything else to me is a dead issue.” With the Knicks safely ahead in the third quarter, the fans started chanting “We Want Reggie” in reference to Knicks nemesis Reggie Miller of Indiana. Late in the fourth quarter, a much louder chant was given to Van Gundy, along with a standing ovation -- a first at the Garden for the beleaguered fourth-year coach. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you can't tell, I'm in the Jeff Van Gundy camp! Tell me when the last time 20,000 people chanted Dunleavy's name. Van Gundy can coach. Plain and simple. He gets more out of his team than only a handful of coaches in the league can. His team was perennial overachievers. His team was never swept from the playoffs. His team almost always advanced in the playoffs. His team usually battles into a game 6 or 7 situation. He never singles out his players. I can't get out of my head Dunleavy getting fired three times. I can't forget how he lost control of his Bucks' and Blazers' teams. I can't forget how Vin Baker, one of the top pf's in the game at the time, and Glenn Robinson, one of the top young players in the game, were tuning him out at the end of his tenure. 4 years with the Bucks with no improvement to show.
EXCELLENT! EXCELLENT! DaMan...you DaMan. This is Van Gundy...any questions? Oh, by the way, can anyone pull out some Dunleavy praise so I can accurately judge who is the better coach for this job?
lol...DaMan...thanks. A lot of articles... There are no articles that praise Dunleavy! Jeff Van Gundy is the man.
Almu - saw the Ewing retirement ceremony a couple of months back and was blown away by the love that JVG got. I have always respected his work ethic, use of tape, effort, and defensive schemes but was never sure about his relations hip with the players for a coach that intense. I would almost say that JVG got more love than Patrick did for the crowd and the players that night. The applause he got when introduced was amazing and reaction from the players sensational. After reading a few things it is clear he had a amazing level of respect from his players. I for one would be happy with JVG as coach.
I've always hated the Knicks and I've lived in NY for about 4 years now. However, it's always amazed me how much the Knicks fans loved Van Gundy. It really does say alot about the guy for a city as tough as NY to chant his name and give him standing ovations. Often times when the coach is very tough and demanding on his players, the players will hate him. That was not the case with Van Gundy at all. The players respected him and liked playing under him despite his old-school style of doing things.
The fact is I was greatly saddened to see JVG leave the Knicks. It was the first time that a tear actually swelled up in my eye because of a sports development, but I certainly KNOW why he left...he thought despite what Layden's poor decision making dealt him, he could bring the team to the Finals. One day he just woke up and realized that he couldn't, despite how much effort he put into it. I loved the guy, the positive energy he gave off, the way he stood up for his players regardless of the circumstance (hanging off Alonzo's leg, forgiving Camby immediately for clocking him in the head....you forget that JVG was actually going to try and stop Camby from fighting Ferry, he cared more about his players staying in the game than his own safety...something you'll never see from 99% of the coaches that ever coached an NBA team), and even while standing up for his players, he was hard on them, but they realized it was for the better. "Player's coaches" simply don't work, you look around at the recent champions in the NBA and NFL, you look at Jon Gruden, Phil Jackson, Brian Billick, these guys aren't afraid to get in a player's face when need be. You can't have a guy that will just sit back and let his players underacheive (something Rudy, IMO, has let happen with Steve Francis for way too long). This guy deserves a job, and unfortunately I don't think he'll get one unless this year unless Cheeks goes to Philadelphia. All signs point to Dunleavy...
Do you hear many players who complained about Pat Riley? Thats where he learned. From the best coach. Not some dork that jumps on every bandwagon to pick up artificial rings.
What is the source of this contention that Les wants a coach on the cheap? Anyone that's laying out the kind of jack Les is for the likes of Kelvin Cato and Glen Rice isn't afraid to whip out the checkbook. Just because Les didn't want to get into an Alex Rodriguez-style bidding war for Larry Brown doesn't mean he's going to hire the cheapest guy he can get away with. If he hires Dunleavy, then that fear will have been justified. But until then, I don't see a basis for it.
The source is Clutch. Brown took a million a year (+ incentives)less to coach in Detroit rather than Philly. Les lowballed Brown, period. You may see the same thing with Van Gundy.
Just because Detroit was able to get Brown for $5 mil doesn't mean the Rockets could have had the same deal. All things being equal, Brown might have preferred the Pistons. More importantly, Detroit would likely have raised the stakes, resulting in a bidding war. Thinking 5 or 6 mil is too much for Larry Brown doesn't make you a cheapskate, either. Although I like Brown, it's clear the league overrates him (in part due to Brown's own business acumen, outlined in the Slate article). Just because Brown is the best coach available doesn't mean you let him name his price.
I just wanted to tell you...that the deal was close to $8 million per year counting incentives and bonuses and stuff. I THINK! $30 million for 5 years...
