Van Gundy's in Sacramento

Great updates, TZ.  Why do I even have ESPN and FOXSPORTS bookmarked?

True, but their lacrosse coverage is pretty good.

The record stated is Van Gundy's entire time with the heat but I'm going to put out his other records in individual coaching season's there.
Here is the entire record log for Miami franchise history.

Okay now that's done let's look at the 3 seasons (or part of) that Van Gundy coached there.

2003-2004 Team Record: 42-40
I can't find any record saying that Van Gundy coached 78 games but rather that he coached 82. I was under a different impression but no matter. Riley came into that season as the Head Coach and quit early on. It might have been 4 days into training camp. So either way this is not a big deal to me. The point is that Van Gundy was a given a situation that no head coach could have dreamed of. Except he had a young talent in Wade (who was lost in the LeBron hype until he exploded later in the season), an up and down talent in Caron Butler, and a finally realized his talent in Lamar Odom. This is the stuff of dreams kiddies. Let's check the record month by month.

Oct/Nov: 5-12 (this team started off with 7 losses to begin the season)
Dec: 8-7 Overall Record: 13-19 (this team became a 500 team after that 7 losses in a row)
Jan: 8-8 Overall Record: 21-27(remember this is with all the things going on surrounding the club)
Feb: 4-8 Overall Record: 25-35 (this didn't help that the team had a 5 game losing streak where they played the Pistons,Lakers,Nets and the Pacers , all of whom went to the 2nd round and beyond); They also lost 3 games at the end of the month to the Blazers (playoff team), Bucks(playoff team) and the Nets (playoff team). In otherwords this team kept hanging around all season long despite the tough start it got. Frankly these guys could have quit. If the Heat play the Bucks 2 weeks later they probably win that game. TJ Ford has his neck injury around this time.

Mar: 12-3 Overall Record: 37-38 This is where the magic turnaround did happen. Lost at Toronto (those games happen), a game in New Orleans (on a back 2 back whom was also a playoff team that year) and then at Indiana. Frankly this team kept getting left for dead then March happened and wah lah they became this magical team interesting to watch. This turnaround largely coincides with Lamar Odom continuing his All Star season (that he got screwed out of btw) and Dwyane Wade's emergence of the franchise star he's about to become.

Apr: 5-2 Overall Record: 42-40

Frankly this team finished very strong despite 2 negative losing streaks. Having a stud in Wade helped. Lamar Odom turned in his best season to date and Brian Grant turned in his last moment in the sun. Caron Butler was up and down all season long, a reason why Miami found him so expendable in the first place and this was true of LA too, and honestly there really wasn't any reason for this roster to be more than a 500 team. The fact that they got to the 2nd round was not that big of a deal. It had more to do with the fact that the East was weak than any other factor. Very similar to this year with the Jazz making the WCF.

I'm gonna throw out that first year with Shaquille O'Neal. It's not going to help unless you have a former franchise center about to hit his decline. Also the team would have made the finals in part because Detroit choked, and in part because Wade really got hurt that killed any real shot of Miami winning.

The sidebar to this is that if a Shaq like players does come here then that season will need to be looked at. I doubt it but you never know.

Here is the link
to Miami's 2003-2004 season.

Here is the link to Miami's 2005-2006 season
where Pat Riley, the snake that he is, jobbed SVG despite his 11-10 record. I won't go into this with that much detail but Shaq didn't like him. Shaq's a friggin
i-d-o-u-t. Who cares whether Shaq didn't like him? Well obviously alot of people did in and around Miami. However, since SVG didn't throw Shaq under the bus it will give him inroads to any player he plays with in the future. The feeling is that he might not get along with superstars BUT he got along with Dwyane Wade just fine. My feeling is that Wade didn't get consulted (which is a big time no-no on Riley's part) and because Pat Riley is a complete snake piss ant who doesn't care about anything except his slick back, he wanted the job of coaching Shaq.

What I do know is that Stan Van Gundy is a quality head coach. I'm a little curious that Terry Porter wasn't interviewed. However I know this for certain. Coaching is alot easier when you have a guy who does whatever he can to get a particular team to win. You can say that 03-04 team had talent but it wasn't talent that alot of teams in the league were saying OH MY GOSH LET'S BUILD OUR ROSTER AROUND CARON BUTLER DWYANE WADE AND LAMAR ODOM. It's hard to win when you start off so poorly too. The fact that they finished strong is a good indicator that he kept the team moving in a positive direction despite the negative pull around the team all season long. If Stan Van Gundy is the direction Petrie wanted to move in he could have done much worse. Namely PJ Carleismo.

Grant Napear just confirmed that Van Gunday is in town, along with Joe Maloof and Geoff Petrie.

For a couple of marvelous years we had the best product in the NBA.  Maybe not the best team as evidenced by a lack of NBA championship banners hanging in the rafters of ARCO, but the best product.  Who was the hero going to be tonight?  C-Webb?  Peja?  Bibby?  Christie?  Divac?  B-Jax? Turkoglu?  Pollard?  Even guys like Lawrence Funderburke had their moments.  It was the golden age of Sacramento Kings basketball, and the freshness and purity of watching a woeful franchise ascend to the upper echelon of the NBA may never be matched.  But you can't have the highs if you can't take the lows.  This is now a team in rebuilding mode.  But it is also a team that contains players with trade value and players with promise, a far cry from the Pete Chilcutt days.  Yes, we have a ways to go, but it is not as bad as the early days, and anyone who dismisses the golden age as a failure because we did not win a championship should be ashamed of themselves.  I was at those games and had the time of my life, an even better time than wathching Jordan's Bulls in Chicago when they won their third title.  The Kings golden age was better, because the team was ours.  I've been a SF Giants fan since 1965, but my passion for the Kings is greater.  The Giants belong to San Francisco, the Kings belong to us.
Geoff Petrie has given me far few opportunities to question his decisions.  Musselman is one, and I guess Olivier St. Jean (Tariq Abdul Wahad) would be the next.  Not a bad track record against solid decisions to numerous to list.  I will support SVG if he is indeed our new coach, and I will look keenly for those glimmers of progress over the coming year.  That's my job, because that's my team.