New Orleans Pelicans coaching search: Pros and Cons of Stan Van Gundy
New Orleans Pelicans coaching search: Stan Van Gundy’s player development
Player Development
With such a young team, the New Orleans Pelicans need someone who is an established teacher and developer of young players. Does Stan Van Gundy have the track record to get it done?
Pro: Van Gundy coached a fairly young Magic team to the Finals behind Dwight Howard, who is notoriously one of the most difficult players in the NBA to coach. He coached a young Dwyane Wade, a guy who no one thought was that great coming out of the draft, and helped make him a Hall of Famer. His teams had a nice mix of young players and veterans in both Orlando and Miami, which bodes well for the Pelicans, who also have that same mix. J.J. Redick, who was actually young once, gives Van Gundy a ton of credit for helping him develop into a better two-way player, improving his defense and teaching him how to move without the ball.
He’s good at working with different personalities and the players seem to respond to his teaching. He has a vast understanding of the game and his time in the booth probably gave him even wider perspective. Van Gundy also raved about the Pelicans youth and seems genuinely excited about their future, even if he is not the coach.
Con: Van Gundy also had young players in Detroit and most of them went on to succeed somewhere else. Van Gundy refused to play Spencer Dinwiddie, and then traded him away for nothing. Dinwiddie ended up becoming an All-Star in Brooklyn. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope just won a ring in Los Angeles after being very mediocre in Detroit. Luke Kennard, who Van Gundy drafted over Donovan Mitchell, was never really used properly under Van Gundy and still hasn’t done anything in the league, same with Stanley Johnson, who has been a complete bust. None of these guys got any better under Van Gundy, but two of them ended up being pretty good players elsewhere.
Van Gundy did do a good job with Andre Drummond, who he helped mold into a competent offensive player, and he had some success in the past, but his recent track record with young players is not impressive.