New York Knicks Laugh Over Jeff Van Gundy's 'Disgusting!' New Job
Et tu, Jeff?
A Saturday report from Brian Robb of MassLive says that former New York Knicks boss Jeff Van Gundy will be joining the rival Boston Celtics as a coaching consultant. The franchise appears to be in humorous mourning over former head coach Van Gundy's supposed betrayal.
"Disgusting," head coach Tom Thibodeau said with a smirk when informed about Van Gundy's new job prior to a preseason game against Minnesota, per Stefan Bondy of the New York Post.
Van Gundy is one of the more respected names in Knicks history, having earned 248 wins as head coach (third-best among franchise bosses) between 1996 and 2001. As it stands, Van Gundy is the last coach to guide the Knicks to the NBA Finals, doing so after the shortened 1999 season.
The offer from the Celtics is Van Gundy's first job within an NBA organization since his four-year term at the helm of the Houston Rockets (2003-07). Robb's report says that Van Gundy will work under the Celtics' basketball operations and will split his time between Boston and Maine, where the team's G League affiliate is located.
Once his facetious anger dissipated, Thibodeau admitted that Boston was a good fit for Van Gundy and that he had no doubt his friend was going to succeed in the new role. Thibodeau previously served as an assistant on Van Gundy's staff and partook in the aforementioned Finals run. He later joined Van Gundy in Houston before taking on Boston's associate head coach spot in 2008.
Van Gundy joins an NBA team for the first time since his time with the Houston Rockets ended in 2007
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"He’s had a lot of opportunities to do a lot of things. We’re very close friends, obviously,” Thibodeau said. “I’m happy for him because there are certain things that he’s looking for and I think he was able to find them there. He’s not only a great coach. He’s a great person. So, whatever is next for him, I know he’ll be great at it. But I just want him to be happy and I think he will be.”
Younger fans know Van Gundy as one of the voices behind the biggest moments in recent professional basketball memory, as he worked alongside Mike Breen and Mark Jackson as ESPN/ABC's top broadcast pairing in the networks' NBA coverage. Van Gundy and Breen had called every edition of the NBA Finals on ABC since 2007 (Jackson missed two years while coaching the Golden State Warriors) before last summer's layoffs at ESPN ejected both the former and Jackson.
Jackson is reportedly in talks to serve as a guest analyst on MSG Networks' Knicks broadcasts alongside play-by-play man Breen. Van Gundy was said to also be in consideration but progress stalled. Breen's longtime MSG analyst, Walt "Clyde" Frazier, told All Knicks that he plans to cut down on road games as he gets closer to 80.
Ironically enough, Boston's Van Gundy era begins with a game against the Knicks: the longtime rivals are set to do preseason battle on Tuesday night at TD Garden (7:30 p.m. ET, MSG/NBA TV).
