Van Gundy keeping his job would be Magic act
Posted: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 4:10 PM
People who are arguing whether Dwight Howard was justified in calling out his coach, Stan Van Gundy, have picked the wrong fight. It doesn’t matter if the Magic star is right. If Orlando finishes the job of giving away this series to the Celtics, there is no way Van Gundy can keep his job.
There is no alternative. The Magic already choked away two big fourth-quarter leads and put the Celtics in position to win a series they should already have lost. It’s hard to envision the Magic winning a Game 7 in Boston, much less Game 6 in their own building. The team’s best player is calling his coach out in public. The coach is calling out his best player. The end isn’t really in question. The Titanic has already hit the iceberg. The lights may be on and the restaurant is still serving lobster and caviar, but the ship be sinking.
And when that happens, the captain goes down with it. It doesn’t matter if he was at the helm when the accident happened. It’s his ship and his responsibility.
Not that there’s not plenty of blame to go around. In every loss, the Magic have forgotten how to play offense and lost all concept of rebounding down the stretch. Tuesday night, Howard, their best player, never saw the ball down the stretch as his teammates played give-away with the Celtics, who were all too happy to take the gift turnovers and rebound the bricks and turn them into points at the other end.
Howard didn’t make much of a show of leadership. He didn’t grab his idiot teammates and demand that they give him the damn ball. He just took notes so he’d know who to blame at the post-disaster press conference.
But the bottom line remains that Van Gundy has been unable to restore order in any of the games that should have been won. That includes Game 1 against Philly in the first round, when Orlando blew an 18-point fourth-quarter lead.
Van Gundy’s coaching style consists of screaming at his troops and waving his arms a lot, following by more screaming and inane exhortations to play harder. It ain’t playing harder that’s the problem, it’s playing smarter.
The coach has made a prophet out of Shaquille O’Neal, who during the regular season predicted that Van Gundy would go into panic mode when things got tight in the playoffs. And that’s exactly what’s happened. You don’t have to take anybody’s word for that. Just listen to him ranting during timeouts when the microphone is stuck in his huddle. Then ask yourself if he’s imparted any useful information to his team.
In the old days, the coach was always right, even when he was more wrong than a white belt with a charcoal suit. That all ended during the 1981-82 season when Magic Johnson was given the credit for getting Lakers coach Paul Westhead fired and replaced by Pat Riley.
At the time, such influential voices as Dave Anderson of The New York Times, beat Johnson up for his presumption. Players weren’t allowed to fire coaches. It was written someplace.
After Riley turned out to be something of a genius and the Lakers a dynasty and Magic the best player in the game this side of Boston, people realized that maybe the players should have something to say about who coaches them.
Even if you think they don’t, when the players lose respect for a coach, it’s all over. And the Magic have shown with their play that Van Gundy is not motivating them – or leading them.
If they pull off a miracle and beat the Celtics, Van Gundy probably stays. But if not, he’s got to go.
