New Orleans Pelicans: Evaluating how Stan Van Gundy will change the Pels

Stan Van Gundy’s background should make him an asset for the New Orleans Pelicans.

It’s no secret that the New Orleans Pelicans have made some major changes this past off-season.

The most notable being the Jrue Holiday trade which brought in Eric Bledsoe and Steven Adams. But right after that, it’s the new coach hire: Stan Van Gundy.

Stan Van Gundy has had plenty of coaching experience throughout his life. He began his career back in 1981, coaching at the University of Vermont. From there he eventually made his way into the NBA, becoming an assistant for the Miami Heat alongside Hall of Fame coach, Pat Riley.

SVG is most well-known for his days in Orlando when he coached Dwight Howard. He was able to lead that team to the NBA Finals in 2009. Unfortunately, a few years later, some drama between Dwight and Stan broke out, and the Magic elected to relieve him of his coaching duties in 2012.

Since then, he spent a few years in Detroit as the head coach/president of basketball operations, and then last season as an NBA announcer.

Stan mentioned this on an NBA broadcast prior to getting the job in New Orleans,

"“I don’t know if anybody in the league has done a better job than David Griffin, this team is exciting. They’ve got a lot of options.”"

It’s nice for Pelicans fans to know that they’re getting a guy who is genuinely excited about this team and knows what they are capable of.

One Pelican player who has some knowledge of Stan and his coaching style is JJ Redick. He spent a lot of his career with the Magic and he played for the team that made it to the Finals in 2009.

JJ had this to say about Stan on the podcast “All The Smoke.”

This is high praise coming from a guy that was coached by Doc Rivers.

Moving on to Stan’s coaching style, I refer back to another JJ quote after the first day of practice.

He went on to say,

"“I think we’ll be one of the better defensive teams (in the league) for the simple fact that we’ll have great discipline. We’ll have great rules. We’ll drill the (expletive) out of everything.”"

And then jokingly saying,

"Can’t wait for training camp, ya know? Like seriously, how did I end up with this (expletive) in year 15. I’ve gotta (expletive) do this (expletive) all over again with Stan. Oh man.”"

While this sort of play may be frustrating for veteran players, it is very important to ingrain the younger players early on with this mindset.

Stan comes into New Orleans bringing the Pelicans a new identity:

Grit and Competitiveness.