The SVG Appreciation Thread

[Harklessonfire 40]

I do think it's unprofessional that Stan was fired via phone. The winningest coach in franchise history and you can't even have a face to face? for shame.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKEgdQdhjCE

[SmackDaddy 30]

I do think it's unprofessional that Stan was fired via phone. The winningest coach in franchise history and you can't even have a face to face? for shame.

 

It's much worse than that. SVG worked at his Amway office until 2AM the day he was fired. He received a call at 3AM that he was fired.

 

Not only do they not have the decency to fire him face to face, but they wait all day and all night for him to leave his office before showing him the door.

Classless!!!!

[Franchero MVP 391]

It's much worse than that. SVG worked at his Amway office until 2AM the day he was fired. He received a call at 3AM that he was fired.

 

Not only do they not have the decency to fire him face to face, but they wait all day and all night for him to leave his office before showing him the door.

Classless!!!!

 

Martins did it for the lolz

[VCplusD12 91]

SVG got trolled

[Emory889 353]

It's much worse than that. SVG worked at his Amway office until 2AM the day he was fired. He received a call at 3AM that he was fired.

 

Not only do they not have the decency to fire him face to face, but they wait all day and all night for him to leave his office before showing him the door.

Classless!!!!

 

This is beyond ridiculous if true. The best coach in Magic history deserved better than this horse s***.

[~O~ 565]

This is beyond ridiculous if true. The best coach in Magic history deserved better than this horse s***.

 

Ibn Battuta, on 25 May 2012 - 07:04 PM, said:

 

I do think it's unprofessional that Stan was fired via phone. The winningest coach in franchise history and you can't even have a face to face? for shame.

SmackDaddy, on 26 May 2012 - 02:51 PM, said:

 

It's much worse than that. SVG worked at his Amway office until 2AM the day he was fired. He received a call at 3AM that he was fired.

 

Not only do they not have the decency to fire him face to face, but they wait all day and all night for him to leave his office before showing him the door.

Classless!!!!

[SATOLS 7]

When the Magic fired Brian Hill, Stan Van Gundy was the coach I wanted them to hire. I knew that right away. So, when Billy Donovan changed his mind and the Magic were able to hire Van Gundy, I was ecstatic.

 

I am not going risk the ire of his brother Jeff Van Gundy by saying what a great coach Stan was strategically. It was clear from how often the Magic won while he was here and the admiration that his peers have for him that he is a great coach, though.

 

I thank Stan for being such a dedicated, hard worker.

 

I thank Stan for coaching the Magic to the NBA Finals in 2009.

 

I thank Stan for getting the most he could most nights out of the roster he had to work with, especially the past couple seasons (not so much the starters, but the bench).

 

I appreciate the fact that he sometimes took the blame for losses that had absolutely nothing to do with him.

 

I thank Stan for breaking down what went right and what went wrong in some games.

 

I thank Stan for his work with the homeless in Seminole County.

 

Stan definitely did not deserve to be fired by phone. I'm not going to try to defend Alex Martins, but I will say that the CEO of a basketball franchise generally is supposed to be running the business side of the operation. Because the Magic also were parting ways with their top basketball operations executive, he was left with no choice but to also be the guy firing Van Gundy.

 

However, Martins needs to get the best, most experienced, respected basketball operations executive in here as quickly as possible. Hopefully one with links to a championship. And then Martins and the DeVos family need to let that guy run the basketball operations. The Magic should have patience with Martins; there would be no new arena and then possibly no Magic in Orlando if it weren't for the work he did. But he should not be running the basketball operations.

 

But I do think Stan's days as a Magic coach had to end, and ironically, I think Jeff Van Gundy pointed out one of his own flaws as well as Stan's. When he so condescendingly criticized Alex for knowing nothing about basketball and how insulting his comments about Stan were, he showed what a pure world of basketball that they expect the NBA to be. To them, it is all about Xs and Ox and winning and losing. And in a pure NBA world that would be true, but that's just not realistic, unfortunately. Outside influences are going to affect the game.

 

To me, it's why neither one of them have coached in one spot for more than six seasons. No one can say that they aren't great coaches. Their records prove that. But at some point, that focus and drive brings them diminishing returns in terms of their won-loss records. They are miserable and so are some (not all) of their players.

 

One thing I don't know is whether the Magic wanted Stan to have a say in his roster. He said early in his tenure with the Magic that that was Otis' job, that he didn't have time to be concerned with that. Now, I don't know whether he really believed that or whether the Magic wanted him to say that. But I think he needed to ask for more input on his roster because the rosters he ended up with probably were not mostly the types of players he wanted to coach. Stan was a defense-oriented coach, and most of the rosters he coached were offense-oriented outside of Dwight, especially recently (outside of Big Baby). He saw NBA players play every night. He at least could have encouraged Otis to make deals or bring in as free agents some of the guys he found most difficult to play against.

 

In some ways, I did appreciate Stan's honesty. But in other ways, I did not. The guys who cover the NBA love it because Stan is as acerbic as they are, and it gives them good stories. But you always have to keep in mind that they are interested in the story, not the success of your favorite team. Talking too much is not always in the best interest of your team. Sometimes total honesty is not the best policy.

 

Stan didn't like playing on holidays. The NBA is going to play on holidays because it makes them money, and if you don't play on those big-game days, then you are denying your team exposure on the biggest stages. He complained about it last year, and if the NBA had played a full season, the Magic would not have played one game on a holiday (based on the original schedules released).

 

Stan compared David Stern to a third-world dictator, and it cost both him and the Magic money. And you wonder if the Magic drew the ire of the NBA in other ways because of it, too.

 

I can remember a game when Stan mentioned angrily in a postgame media session that had not gone well for the Magic that he would have appreciated knowing before the game that one of his starters had been up all night before the game before he had set his roster for the game. Stan called out the player by name. I will not because it doesn't matter now, but it was NOT Dwight. Turns out, that player had a family issue that had kept him up, but Stan left it open, so people could speculate or assume that the guy was out partying.

 

Then there was the whole thing with that April 5 media thing about Dwight wanting him fired. True or not, Stan knew what was going to happen after that. He's too smart to know you just can't do that. Pretty much every analyst -- media guys, former coach-analysts and retired players -- said afterward that he just couldn't do that and probably was going to lose his job for it. He was trying to embarrass Dwight and maybe the Magic, too, and the smirk on his face when he did it gave him away. Think it was an accident that story leaked while Alex was out of town and could not be reached? I think he believed he would be fired immediately. When it didn't happen and Dwight got hurt, his postgame media sessions for four or five games in a row could be summed up this way: "We can't stop anybody." The losing was taking a toll because he hates to lose more than anything. He would not have been happy coaching this team again next season even if Dwight were gone.

 

So, you probably think I am happy Stan is gone. I am not. Remember, he is the first guy I wanted to coach the team. I just don't think he left them a lot of options. More and more, he was putting the team in difficult situations because NBA basketball is not a pure world of Xs and Os. I wish him luck, but I don't think he'll need it.