New Orleans Pelicans center Steven Adams wanted to clarify something when asked about his new head coach Stan Van Gundy in an interview with ESPN Australia & New Zealand.
“When I said Stan Van Gundy’s old school, I just meant that he’s old,” he said, then laughed.
Adams, the former Oklahoma City Thunder center, has now had almost two months with the Pelicans and played 13 games under the new coach.
“It’s been awesome,” he said. “He’s been very honest, upfront, very hard, puts a lot of pressure, high standards, but it’s realistic, if that makes sense. A lot of the standards. So that’s all we can really ask for…
“I like to operate like that anyway”
Despite the “old school” tag often taken to mean that a coach is out-of-touch with the modern NBA, Adams said that Van Gundy is still a good coach for the league.
“He’s capable of coaching today’s era,” Adams said. “It’s not like he doesn’t want to change his way of thinking.”
Steven Adams shares his early impressions of playing for 'old school' Pelicans coach Stan Van Gundy since arriving in New Orleans. pic.twitter.com/2wntAqrY4h
— ESPN Australia & NZ (@ESPNAusNZ) January 20, 2021
Yet there is a difference of style between Van Gundy and Billy Donovan, who coached Adams for five years with the Thunder. While Van Gundy drills players and calls for discipline, Donovan showed willingness to adapt to his stars, changing the style to center around point guard Russell Westbrook and then allowing point guard Chris Paul to take a slower, more meticulous approach.
Funnily enough, the NBA paths of Donovan and Van Gundy are intertwined going back to the Orlando Magic.
In 2007, Donovan actually accepted the head coaching job of the Magic. After signing a five-year, $27.5 million deal, he decided the timing wasn’t right and asked out of his contract so he could return to Florida, where he had just won back-to-back National Championships.
The Magic let him out of his contract and he resumed his job coaching the Gators. Donovan coached there for nine more seasons and reached five more NCAA Tournaments, getting as far as the Final Four in 2014.
Meanwhile, Orlando hired Van Gundy, who coached the team to an NBA Finals appearance in 2009.
It worked out for both sides, and now Adams gets to see the other side of that 2007 Magic coaching puzzle.