Two weeks after being fired by the Pelicans, Stan Van Gundy is speaking out.
Zion Williamson’s former coach does not believe the 20-year-old superstar, nor any other player, was behind his quick exit from New Orleans. In fact, Van Gundy feels that in all cases where a coach is fired, it stems from the front office.
“I hate when it gets put on players that players are getting coaches fired and things like that. I think that makes players look bad and I don’t think that’s fair,” Van Gundy said while a guest on the “Stupodity” podcast. “Players certainly have the right to express their opinion to people and things like that but front offices and owners make decisions and they are the ones who make decisions to fire people. That should never be placed on players.
“I know this, regardless of what happened in that regard, Zion’s no coach killer. He’s a guy who is gonna help you win a lot of games. He plays the game the right way. One of the things I’ll miss is the opportunity to continue to coach him. … I’m happy with what we did with Zion. I think we helped him. How anyone else felt about that would be up to them.”
This comes amid rumors that Williamson’s family is unhappy with the performance of the Pelicans, Van Gundy’s coaching and wants the forward to leave for a better team. Van Gundy claimed he “didn’t know anything” about bad feelings toward him from Williamson or his family and felt he had a “good relationship” with the player.
“I think we elevated [Williamson’s] platform that we gave him. We put him in different situations, had him handling the ball a lot, playing a lot of point guard. I think we did some good things with him,” he said.
Van Gundy spent one season with the Pelicans where they finished 31-41 for No. 14 in the West.
New Orleans executive vice president of basketball operations David Griffin claimed the split between Van Gundy and the team was caused by “philosophical differences” but that the 61-year-old’s departure was “mutual.” Van Gundy did not give a firm answer on whether his firing was truly mutual, but agreed that he had many disagreements with Griffin about the way they wanted to run the team.
“We just looked at coaching totally different,” he said. “That became probably a little bit during the season but certainly after the season. We were on two totally different pages. Who’s right and who’s wrong is up to anybody’s individual perspective, but we certainly did not see things the same way.”
While Van Gundy hopes his former assistant Frank Vinson will take over the team, Charles Lee and Willie Green are rumored candidates for the job.
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