New Orleans Pelicans: Stan Van Gundy brings in his first assistant coach

Stan Van Gundy is making his long-time colleague Bob Beyer an assistant coach for the New Orleans Pelicans

It’s funny how the NBA news cycle works, just a day after we wrote about how Stan Van Gundy should approach building his coaching staff for the New Orleans Pelicans, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski is reporting that Van Gundy has brought in his first assistant coach.

As you can see in the tweet above, that assistant coach is Bob Beyer who previously coached on Van Gundy’s staff in both Detroit and Orlando. It sounds good on paper that this is an assistant coach who’s close with Van Gundy, but who is Bob Beyer really?

From what I’ve gathered, Beyer is a knowledgeable coach who’s coached for 35 years professionally! In addition to his times working for Van Gundy, Beyer has spent time coaching with the Golden State Warriors, Oklahoma City Thunder, and recently the Sacramento Kings too.

Beyer’s know for being a coach who continues to learn and study which also comes from working as a scout for the Toronto Raptors early in his career. He mostly works on the offensive side of the ball by focusing on ball-movement and motion-based offense.

Reactions to the New Orleans Pelicans hiring Bob Beyer to serve on Stan Van Gundy’s staff

At an initial glance, the hiring of Beyer seems to be just a run of the mill hire, but when I thought about it more in-depth I found that there are some great things to take away from the move.

First, it appears clear that the Pelicans’ front office isn’t attempting to meddle in how Van Gundy wants to fill his staff. It’s great to see that the first assistant coach hired was a coach who has a strong rapport with Van Gundy rather than an assistant that the organization wants to keep.

Secondly, with Beyer being an offensive-minded coach and having a history with Van Gundy, I get the impression that Van Gundy will be able to teach and install his offensive system faster now that he has another coach to help him teach it.

Sure this isn’t the most flashy of New Orleans Pelicans news, but it’s a great sign that Stan Van Gundy is already getting to work on shaping this team into his vision for next season.