On the Friday edition, Howard Beck welcomes TNT analyst Stan Van Gundy to break down the East and West races for the Finals, plus Van Gundy’s favorites for Coach of the Year and other awards.
The following transcript is an excerpt from The Crossover NBA podcast. Listen to the full episode on podcast players everywhere or on SI.com.
Howard Beck: [For Coach of the Year] I came up with 11 guys the other day, which is ridiculous. It’s a third of the league.
Stan Van Gundy: But that’s where I’m sort of at. To me, the two hardest ones this year were Coach of the Year and Most Improved Player. I can do the other ones all pretty quickly and easily, at least get it narrowed down to a couple of guys. But Most Improved and Coach of the Year to me are hard. And I had a long list on Coach of the Year also.
Howard Beck: So this was my list. I’m sure they’re similar: Taylor Jenkins, Ime Udoka, Monty Williams, Tyronn Lue, J. B. Bickerstaff, Mike Malone—perennially underrated and underappreciated I think for what he’s done there. We give [Nikola] Jokić a lot of credit rightfully for what the Nuggets have done with no Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr., but Mike Malone keeping that thing together and getting the most out of the rest of the cast should be noted. Billy Donovan, Jason Kidd, Chris Finch, Steve Kerr, Erik Spoelstra.
All for different reasons or some similar reasons, some of those I’m going to be able to knock out quicker than others, right? It’s a three-man ballot. Kerr and Spoelstra probably won’t be there at the end. I think I’m leaning pretty heavily toward Jenkins, Udoka, I feel like Lue has to be on there. I voted for Williams last year, I thought he should have won. he actually had the most first-place votes but lost on points to [Tom] Thibodeau. I’m tempted to get Williams back in there again, but this is a really tough one this year.
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Stan, when you look at it, do you see it the same way that we in the media do? You are part media now, too, but you have the coaching background. Do we lean too far sometimes toward the, Oh wow that team really surprised us. So that guy’s Coach of the Year. Or do you kind of see it the same way?
Stan Van Gundy: Yeah, sort of the same way. Again, I started with a long list. To me what Williams has done has been incredible. 61 wins with still seven games to go. And really impressive going 11–4 without Chris Paul, I thought that was an impressive streak. And just how complete that team is and how disciplined that team is, I think it’s been incredible.
The thing with Taylor Jenkins and why I’d put him at the top is, I just haven’t seen teams this young do this, to be so good at both ends of the floor. You might get a young team and you see their talent, and they’re great offensively and their defense breaks down. But they’re a top-five or six team at both ends of the floor. That’s the thing that does it. And then the 18–2 record without your best player, I’m like, “My gosh, this is incredible.”
I like what Jason Kidd’s done with the defense there. Certainly with you on Malone, I mean, that’s been incredible to me where they are, and Chris Finch is right there too. I think what Finch has done, we knew that team had offensive potential and we knew that Finch was noted for his offensive acumen. So you put those things together, it was pretty easy to predict that that was going to be a good, offensive team, but they’re an above-average defensive team too. And they’ve shown the grit that they haven’t shown before. I give him a ton of credit. Those would be my four teams in the West. I think Willie Green deserves some notice there. He took over a team that didn’t make the play-in last year, doesn’t have his best player all year long, [Brandom] Ingram has missed a ton of games and they’re going to make the play-in.
Howard Beck: And they made a major trade.
Stan Van Gundy: That was a trade that actually ended up helping both teams. I’m not sure you could put Willie with a record like 11 games under .500 in your top three, but he’s done a great job. I think Spoelstra has done an incredible job. Now I’m biased, I worked with Erik for 10 years, so I’ll admit my bias, but come on, man. They were winning games with Max Strus and Cody Martin and Gabe Vincent and Ömer Yurtseven. Those guys were winning games. They have rarely had their whole team. Duncan Robinson has had an off-year, [Jimmy] Butler and [Bam] Adebayo were hurt and they’re sitting at the top of the East. I mean, it’s been absolutely incredible.
I’m with you on Ime. Those would be my two guys, probably in the East. JB Bickerstaff should be in that group. He should, because the only reason they’ve fallen is the injuries just piled up so high and they absorbed everything until Jarrett Allen went down, they were built on defense. Jarrett Allen was like Robert Williams is to Boston. So their defense has not been as good and they can’t win games. So I’d throw him. That would lead me down to seven guys. But at the end, I just have a hard time getting beyond what Taylor Jenkins has done.
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