Alright. Bear with me. Because I was a little confused about this as well but I get it now. As we know the Detroit Pistons hired Stan Van Gundy to be, not only the head coach but the general manager as well. Now it’s the coach we see everyday. But it must be interesting having both jobs. He must look at “The Association” mode on 2K and think “Pshh, they make this look easy.”
But it isn’t of course. Having two of the most important jobs in a basketball organization is no picnic. And according to NBA.com, SVG is not happy with himself on the coaching end.
“Well, I don’t think that I’ve done a real good job,” Van Gundy said. “I think there’s been more to this team than I’ve gotten out of them. They’ve worked extremely hard and we’ve had a lot of things that changed throughout the year, obviously. … So we’ve had four pretty distinct teams that we’ve coached in one year.”
“Where I haven’t really done a good job and where I’m most disappointed with myself is, we have not come as far defensively as we should have,” the coach/president said. “And I think if you look at the teams who have made big jumps from one year to the next — whether it’s Atlanta, from last year [at] 38 wins to where they are now, whether it’s Milwaukee and the jump they’ve made — those teams have taken big jumps defensively. We need to do the same thing next year. The players are a big part of that and I’m a big part of that.“
Van Gundy has given perfect examples there. Milwaukee and Atlanta have impressed everybody. I did not expect those two teams to be in the positions they are now. Milwaukee were one of the worst teams in the league and not just last year. For some time they’ve been trash. And Atlanta have been middle of the road for so long. And then suddenly best record in the Eastern Conference.
Detroit have two great big men in Andre Drummond and Greg Monroe. They will get Brandon Jennings back. They just need to build on that and make a big push to the days where they were in the Eastern Conference Finals on a regular basis.
