Rotund rap legend Stan Van Gundy has coached for four different NBA franchises.
The Miami Heat are the only team that seemingly moved on after their divorce: winning multiple titles since. The other three still haven’t foot their footing – at least on the offensive side of the ball.
The Detroit Pistons fired SVG in 2018 after a brief attempt to stay competitive with an aging Blake Griffin. Since then, the Pistons have been in a rebuild mode. Their offense and their spacing has been particular bad during those years. Their offensive ratings are as follows.
2018-19: 21st in offense
2019-20: 21st
2020-21: 26th
2021-22: 28th
2022-23: 28th
2023-24: 22nd
Those are some ugly numbers, albeit some expected for a team in a teardown / rebuild mode.
Meanwhile, the Orlando Magic’s rebuild has taken quite some time. Similarly, they still haven’t registered a top 20 offense since SVG got the boot all the way back in 2012.
2012-13: 27th in offense
2013-14: 27th
2014-15: 27th
2015-16: 21st
2016-17: 29th
2017-18: 25th
2018-19: 22nd
2019-20: 23rd
2020-21: 29th
2021-22: 30th
2022-23: 26th
2023-24: 27th
The offense and spacing still hasn’t clicked for Orlando yet, but there’s plenty of optimism on the horizon. Their defense is # 1 in efficiency right now and young stars Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner have the team in the playoff hunt.
The last time that Stan Van Gundy coached was a brief stint with the New Orleans Pelicans. And the team barely avoided this same streak. They’ve been bottom ten in offensive rating the last two years (21 and 21), but barely made the top 20 the year prior with a sparkling # 19 offensive efficiency rating.
note: top offense is measured based on offensive efficiency points per 100 possessions and taken from basketball-reference.com
Nah for the Magic it was more hiring 30 year old Rob Hennigan to be their GM. He tried, but when put under pressure ruined the team for the past decade.
Our new GM isn’t perfect but given what Hennigan did I can admire that he is willing to take his time and let players grow.