Van Gundy Votes "No" on AAU
Facebook
February 20, 2013, 7:49 pm
Stan Van Gundy has been an NBA coach with the Orlando Magic and the Miami Heat and currently he is working as an analyst for NBC Sports and the Dial Global Radio Network. He joined Chad on Flight 750 for the first time Wednesday to talk about his love for coaching and his opinion of the NBA season so far.
Van Gundy insists that once he realized he probably was never going to make it as a professional athlete, he knew he wanted to coach.
“When I was real young, like a lot of kids, I wanted to play baseball. When I was 13 years old and hit under .100, I realized that that probably was not going to be my profession. I knew at 5’8’’ and being slow that I was not going to play basketball for money, so it was probably very early on in high school where I knew that I wanted to coach.”
Van Gundy also gave his opinion on why there are so few great Centers in the league right now.
“It used to be before all this AAU stuff went on, that you played your games in the winter and generally spent the off season in a gym by yourself maybe playing some summer league games – really working on your game individually. Now, kids coming up play AAU basketball and probably play ten times as many games as what they spend in the gym in terms of practice.”
And lastly, Van Gundy spoke about Blazers rookie sensation, Damian Lillard. Although he’s got some areas in his game where he needs to improve, Van Gundy admits that there are not many flaws.
“I think like any young point guard, he’s got to take care of the ball a little bit better than he does. That to me is where the biggest improvement would come. He can probably improve defensively…But that’s about it with him. They guy can make plays on pick and rolls. He can get his own shot in isolation situations. He can shoot the three. There’s really not a lot he can’t do.”
Take a listen to Coach Van Gundy’s great interview and be sure to look out for his great work every week with NBC Sports and the Dial Global Radio network.
