DALLAS — Jeff Van Gundy and his ESPN crewmates are amid a playoff-like Dallas layover, having worked Wednesday night’s Mavericks-Atlanta game and with Mavericks-Miami on tap Friday night on ESPN.
Thursday so happened to be Van Gundy’s 61st birthday. He celebrated, so to speak, by walking the Katy Trail and later answering a few questions from The Dallas Morning News. What, no birthday hobnobbing around Dallas?
“At my age there’s no hob and there’s no nob,” he said. “You just try to get up and not be as sore as you were the day before.”
Jeff and Stan Van Gundy comprise a unique brother tandem: Former NBA head coaches-turned national TV analysts, Jeff for ESPN and ABC; 63-year-old Stan for TNT.
Many Mavericks fans recall that Jeff Van Gundy’s most recent NBA head coaching job was with the Rockets from 2003 to 2007, including one especially-memorable game against Dallas that we asked him to briefly relive.
Questions and answers lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
— Q: I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s been a narrative that’s developed around the Mavs that management has not done a good enough job of getting Luka Doncic enough help, even though Dallas played in last year’s Western Conference finals. I wonder what you think about that narrative. Can both things be true?
— Van Gundy: I think that first of all, even people in basketball sometimes take it for granted that it’s so easy to go out and get better players and upgrade your roster. And I think certainly fans, while understand why they want better personnel, I just don’t think they understand how challenging it is.
The other teams are trying to do exactly the same thing. I think Christian Wood was an interesting acquisition. I don’t think that can be overlooked. I think his defense has to continue to get better. If it can, then he certainly brings a much-needed skill set from an offensive standpoint that they need.
I don’t think you lose a tremendous player like [Jalen] Brunson and don’t feel the hit that that is. When you lose somebody that good, and that serious as a professional, certainly that’s a setback.
I love what they did last year getting Dinwiddie, right? So I think they have to be given credit knowing that Brunson was a free agent and had a chance to become a starter at other places, which he chose to do. They protected themselves as well as you could by getting Dinwiddie in the Porzingis trade. And then they’ve dealt with, like a lot of teams, injury, but to their better defenders: Green, Finney Smith and Kleber. I think that’s had a really debilitating impact on their on their defense.
Now all that being said, I think they would be the first to at least internally admit they need to continue to upgrade their roster if they’re going to be a championship-level team.
— Q: What do you think their biggest need is? Or can you really evaluate that given the injuries?
— Van Gundy: I think the hardest thing to find are the guys who have legitimate positional size, possess enough NBA offensive skills that are also committed defenders that require the least amount of help in one-on-one situations.
Sounds pretty easy, but those guys are hard to find. What I like about their team is their overall size. When you look at when Hardaway gets back and Dinwiddie and Doncic and Green, they have a lot of size in the backcourt that can’t get played off the court because they’re too small. So I think that’s good.
I think continuing to build their frontcourt and just health. You can’t underestimate how hard it is to get to a conference final. And that they were able to do that last year, I think speaks directly to the greatness of Doncic, their defensive improvement and the other guys being a little bit underrated in their play. And so they’ve got to correct the defense to get it going this year, which will go mostly to health. Better health for their better defenders.
And then it’d be great if they could somehow replace Brunson, like in that every night guy who gives you a second-best player. I think they probably think they’ve done that with Wood, but I think that remains to be seen.
— Q: Have you seen enough of Jaden Hardy to have an opinion of what he could become?
— Van Gundy: I have not seen him enough minutes. Watching him last night, they played him in the first half and not the second, he certainly looked like someone who can hold up, from an athletic standpoint, in an NBA game. But what his decision-making isn’t all that, I can’t speak to.
— Q: Since I have you and because there are a lot of Nowitzki and Doncic fans here, when Doncic scored 60 points the other night, the record he broke was Dirk’s.
— Van Gundy: That came against me.
— Q: Yes, Dec. 2, 2004, Rockets vs. Mavericks, American Airlines Center. Mavericks 113, Houston 106 in overtime. Nowitzki 53 points in 50 minutes. Tracy McGrady 48 points in 50 minutes, one of the most electric regular-season games in NBA history. What is your most vivid memory as the Rockets’ coach that night?
— Van Gundy: That was one of the great regular-season games. I don’t know how many games I coached, but it had to be like 800 or 900. McGrady was beyond phenomenal. And for Dirk to be even one step more phenomenal in a game?
I know it happened in a playoff game, and everybody talks about the Larry Bird and Dominique Wilkins back and forth in that great [1988) playoff game. But I will tell you one thing in that regular-season game, it truly was amazing.
And I would say that after the game I was not disappointed in the individuals that tried to guard Dirk. He just he just obliterated us. He’s that guy. And you know I’m staying right across the street from the arena, and I saw the statue as I was going to the game last night. It’s beautiful.
Even in that game, I thought Nowitzki always struck it perfectly as an NBA player. Supreme confidence. Absolute humility. And tremendous competitive spirit. I loved everything about him when you competed against him — except that he made ridiculously tough shots.
So of that game, there’s other candidates, but no one will ever convince me that that wasn’t one of the highest level games between two guys on opposite teams.
— Q: I’ll finish with a question on Doncic. Where do you see him as a player, let’s just say three years from now?
— Van Gundy: I think he’s going to be a perennial MVP candidate. Right now he, Jokic, maybe Tatum, I’m probably missing somebody but to me, my top two would be he and Jokic.
I don’t see that changing. I think he can even be harder to deal with when he can improve his free-throw shooting. And continue to improve his three-point shooting.
And then I think, they’ve started to do and I’ve liked I liked it: Instead of always having them handle [the ball], put him in some live-ball catches, where he doesn’t have to expend the same amount of energy as being the all-the-time primary ball handler. I think that’s why having a guy like Dinwiddie is critical.
But I think the final thing is like you show your commitment to winning through your unselfishness, your practice habits, which I would have no idea about; than selfishness you can see. And by your commitment at the defensive end of the floor. And I think right now, where they’re at, he has the responsibility through his actions to make sure everybody knows that the defensive effort has to change.
They’re always going to score easily when you have him. He’s already one of the greatest offensive players I’ve ever seen play NBA basketball. He’s truly amazing. Just amazing. You don’t see people double teaming (other players) because of the three-point shot. You don’t see people double- teaming near half-court or in middle pick-and-rolls because the floor is too spread. That’s the respect teams have for his ability, either against drop coverage or against switches.
You saw in the first half last night, he just obliterated Capela and the bigs when they switched, so they went to more trapping and guys were wide-open all over the place. They just didn’t make enough yesterday.
But that’s not going to change. He’s just going to be a dominant, dominant offensive player. And, you know, I just think the more commitment he shows that the other end. And you can’t expect these high-volume offensive talents ... They’re going to pace themselves at times on the defensive end. But it’s not too much to ask a smart player like him to always be in the right place, to get back in transition, and to know when he’s got to turn it up [defensively]. And I think when you get deeper into your career and you realize how few opportunities you get to play for it all, that’s when the urgency rises.
