Jeff Van Gundy backs players over tentative deal to end lockout – NBA Update
The NBA owners and the players union agreed a tentative deal to lift the almost 5 month old lockout on Saturday and former NBA head coach Jeff Van Gundy has given his backing to the new accord.
Van Gundy believes the players made the best of a bad situation and should now look forward towards the NBA season.
"I woke up and saw that they had come to a tentative agreement, and I was a little bit surprised that the owners had given more," said ESPN's Jeff Van Gundy, who is the brother of Orlando Magic coach Stan Van Gundy. "I think the
players did a good job in extracting as much as they were going to extract from ownership it seems.”
The National Basketball Players Association engaged the owners and NBA Commissioner David Stern in negotiations for over a year but failed to get a deal done. The things took a drastic turn when Stern issued an ultimatum. The players
rejected it and disclaimed the union, allowing them to file class action anti-trust lawsuits against owners.
The threat of litigation did the trick for the players as David Stern immediately backtracked from his ultimatum and a deal was done within just two weeks of the lawsuits being filed. Van Gundy believes the owners followed a very
harsh line in the labour dispute and players got the most they could from the situation.
The NBA has released a schedule for the 2011-2012 season, with training camps beginning on December 9 followed by a Christmas start to the regular season. The season will feature 66 games per team, a move that Van Gundy is pretty
pleased with. He has advocated shorter NBA seasons anyway.
“And I like the length of the season. I think that should be the length of the season under normal circumstances." He said.
Van Gundy also spoke of his former team, the New York Knicks. Jeff is very popular with the Knicks fans as he was a successful head coach at his time with the Knicks, taking them to the brink of an NBA World Championship.
The Knicks have never been close to another triumph since then but Van Gundy believes the new coach, Mike D’Antoni, has a good outfit and is equipped with the tools to bring them success. He also backed the coach to stay at New
York for a long time.
"I think Mike's in a different position than I was in," Van Gundy said. "I think Mike will be the coach in New York for a long, long time. Heaven forbid if both parties decided to part ways after the season, Mike will have 10 teams
trying to hire him because he's really good at what he does."
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