Jeff Van Gundy Want to Coach Again
You desire a autobus to take a passion for the game and a competitive desire for it. We've lost the work ethic. We lost our signature, defensive rebounding, and nosotros accept to become back to that.
It may be 24 years since New York Knicks President Ernie Grunfeld said these words, but they might as well take been uttered after any of the countless coaching changes that take been made in the two and a half decades that followed.
These are the things yous say, after all, when yous brand a coaching change. So when Grunfeld made the decision to axe Don Nelson, his manus-picked replacement for the abruptly departed Pat Riley, he didn't go off script.
Except back so, amidst the greatest period of success the franchise has had since the title years, the words actually carried significant, as did Grunfeld'due south lament that "nosotros're not the same as we used to be." Those Knicks were coming off 35 playoff victories in the previous four seasons, more than whatsoever team in the league other than the two franchises that had split the previous four titles. Winning was a matter that happened. Regularly.
That's what made the offset two-thirds of the 1995-96 flavor such an anomaly. Mired in a iv-ix slump and sitting with a record of 34-26, New York saturday in a three-way tie for third in the Eastward. What would count as a modern day dream was a legitimate nightmare at the time.
Enter Jeff Van Gundy, the diminutive New York assistant coach of 7 years who actually preceded his mentor Pat Riley by not one but two coaching regimes. Maybe the universe required a wild card like Nelson to slot in between Riley and Van Gundy, if only because such a straight transition would have been too much to handle. 1 was Armani, Rolex and GQ, while the other was the YMCA, Hair Society for Men and the discount rack at JC Penney.
What possessed the Knicks brass to hang onto Van Gundy even afterward they fired Riley's predecessors Stu Jackson and then John MacLeod is unclear. Maybe they saw in him what fans run across at present when they envision their platonic image of a Knicks caput coach all these years subsequently.
Gritty. Unapologetic. Curt. Passionate..oh so very passionate. Dedicated. Relentless.
And of class, sleep deprived.
Van Gundy while coaching Team USA, still with bags nether his eyes.
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Now, Van Gundy is in the news again, praising New York's hire of his one-fourth dimension assistant Tom Thibodeau. Fifty-fifty as the organisation tries mightily to turn over a new leafage, it's difficult not to look dorsum and pino for what was. Every bit the Knicks try yet again (13th fourth dimension is the charm!) to find a caput omnibus that will embody the leadership ethos that Van Gundy emitted every hour he was at the task, his best achievements seem oddly close in the rear view mirror, perhaps a attestation to just how unique those glory days were.
And were they e'er glorious (and boy, were there a lot of hours).
Over the parts of seven seasons he was here, Van Gundy was an integral office of so many memories forever etched in the minds of Knicks fans everywhere. Winning 57 games in the 1996-97 flavor, tied for the 3rd highest total in franchise history. The devastating suspensions handed downwardly in the 1997 playoffs against Miami, the ones that prevented arguably the best squad of the Ewing era from taking 1 more shot at Jordan'south Bulls. Allan Houston's miracle shot, the four-point play, and the improbable Finals run as an eighth seed in 1999. The final showdown with Riley and the Heat in 2000 in what turned out to be Ewing'due south swan song equally a Knick. In that location were many more than - triumphant accomplishments that would be deserving of a parade for the current Knicks, but were taken for granted as business organisation as usual back and then.
And of course, there is the moment in the 1998 playoffs that Van Gundy became seared into New York lore as the guy who literally would not let go no matter how much you lot kicked him when he was down.
It's all role of a tapestry that has since cemented Van Gundy into that rarified New York air commonly reserved for champions. He is without question the nearly honey New York double-decker or manager in any sport who never won a title. You don't get to a place like that without earning it.
That they've failed so spectacularly to find a suitable replacement since he left has to be considered karmic retribution. Remember that this organization begrudgingly watched Van Gundy lead the Knicks to the playoffs six times in six tries - something only superseded past Joe Lapchick and Red Holzman, who coached in a league with eight and 18 teams, respectively - while seemingly trying to replace him at every turn. Their much publicized love affair with Phil Jackson reeked of more than desperation than a high schooler pining after a caput cheerleader who didn't know he existed. That Van Gundy didn't dump his ungrateful bottom one-half earlier remains a minor miracle.
Finally though, he knew when enough was plenty. He left on his own accordance with a record of 10-nine at the beginning of the 2001-02 season, and the Knicks descent into the completeness would begin in earnest.
Little did anyone know at the time that Van Gundy would depart with more playoff wins on his watch (37) than days the Knicks would spend above .500 (36) from the moment they sunk below that mark less than a week after he left until the beginning of the 2010-11 season, viii and a one-half years later.
Saying information technology's been a long 18 years since his resignation is an understatement if there ever was one, making it tough to blame those of the states who still reminisce about the little coach that could.
Tom Thibodeau may - we hope - bring the squad back to those highest of heights. Even if he does, it'southward tough to imagine that he, or any coach, could have the identify that Van Gundy occupies in the our hearts.
That's why, when I call back of the words "Knicks coach," he will e'er be the first image to pop into my mind, hanging on for love life by a thread, because he didn't have information technology in him not to.
Source: https://www.si.com/nba/knicks/nba/knicks/news/jeff-van-gundy-knicks-coach
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