New Orleans Pelicans coaching search: Pros and Cons of Stan Van Gundy

Stan Van Gundy would be an interesting choice as New Orleans Pelicans’ head coach.

The New Orleans Pelicans fired head coach Alvin Gentry in August and there hasn’t been much noise since.

David Griffin and crew have done an excellent job of not leaking information, but they are also taking their sweet time finding a head coach, which has some people concerned with the draft right around the corner.

Finally, yesterday some news emerged that the Pelicans had narrowed the field down to four finalists and that former Magic, Heat and Pistons coach, Stan Van Gundy is among the finalists:

Van Gundy has been in the broadcast booth since being fired from the Pistons, where he had the unfortunate duty of being both team president and head coach.

Van Gundy is not going to get that kind of control in New Orleans if he is hired and for good reason. Coaches also working in the front office has never worked outside of San Antonio and Van Gundy’s tenure in Detroit insured it’s unlikely to happen again.

Van Gundy was terrible as a front office guy, but he’s always been a good coach. Van Gundy is 523-384 (.577)  in the regular season and 48-43 (.527) in the playoffs, including taking the Orlando Magic to the NBA Finals.

Even though Van Gundy’s time in Detroit ended poorly (mostly because of SVG’s draft picks and trades) he did coach them into the playoffs and won 44 games in 2015-16, which was a big step up for Detroit at the time.

Van Gundy has a history of winning and developing players and could bring some accountability to New Orleans but is he the right guy for the head coaching job?

Let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons of Stan Van Gundy.