Stan Van Gundy has been known to open his trap on a wide array of topics in the NBA. Today we had the pleasure of hearing him in fine form. Thanks to the Orlando Sentinel for providing the video & quotes. The topics of discussion was Dwight Howards technical fouls resulting in the one game suspension missing tonight’s game & the Miami Heat crying episode + the scrutiny the are facing.
Lets start off with his own team first and the comments about Howards Suspension and how the league has dealt with it.
I love how serious Van Gundy started off this rant breaking down the reason as to why Howard isn’t playing because of the technicals. He appeared to be very logical and calm while accepting the fact his star player will not be in the lineup. But the way he gave a shot to Stern at the end was pure gold. On multiple occasions throughout the past few years I have stated how absurd his dictatorship mentality running the league is. So it’s fantastic to see a mouth like Van Gundy and knock him in such a sarcastic way. Sports needs more coaches to be outspoken like Van Gundy; whether or not you like his constant commentary you can’t deny the entertainment value it presents.
He would also go onto talk about the Miami Heat’s failure over the past week.
First about the crying:
“I don’t care whether a guy cries or not, I don’t see what difference it makes. But I don’t have to fill three hours of a sports talk show. Those guys need something to talk about. Mike and Mike in the morning, I don’t know, how long are they on? Three or four hours? I guess there aren’t enough games to just talk about the games, so you gotta figure out who was crying in the locker room. I’m just glad that’s not my job – trying to figure out who was crying.”
Gotta love the shot he takes at the media on them needing 3 hours of talk show radio to fill. He’s not wrong!!! But at the same time when you enjoy making fun of the Heat and seeing them crumble it provides more of a reason to debate it for such a lengthy period of time. As you know yesterday I lost it on this matter. I dont think I would or even could fill 3 to 4 hours of talk radio on one particular topic; I’m far to opinionated on a variety of subjects to only be limited to crying debates.
In reality it doesn’t matter if they cried or not. I don’t get worked up in that element of the situation. All it does is prove to the masses how weak minded these players are. It’s one thing to cry after losing in the playoffs being knocked out. Considering that is the only priority for the Heat you would think the players would think the same way; therefore not ever getting that emotionally attached to a regular season loss; or in Bosh’s case losses.
It proves how concerned they really are with the recent play. They wanted to win so badly and still FAILED. Which leads me to the next point why everyone loves to see them fail….. because of how they handled everything in the offseason which is what Van Gundy talked about next…
“I do chuckle a little bit when they sort of complain about the scrutiny when they get, my suggestion would be if you don’t want the scrutiny, you don’t hold a championship celebration before you’ve even practiced together. It’s hard to go out yourself and invite that kind of crowd and celebration and attention, and then when things aren’t going well, sort of bemoan the fact that you’re getting that attention. To me, that doesn’t follow.”
“Despite everything they’ve said to the contrary, I do think – I’m not saying Erik and the coaches or their front office – but I think the players thought it was going to be easy and they were going to roll over everybody, it hasn’t materialized that way up to this point.”
Agreed & agreed. Keep preaching Stan keep preaching. One of your finest days yet breaking down some of the absurd things taking place in the NBA. I will be cheering for you Magic to get the tears started earlier then expected for Miami come playoff time.
-Chad Margulius
