“To be successful in anything, you have to have a passion for it, and that leads to being enthusiastic and demanding. I didn’t have it for history. So I wouldn’t have been a good teacher in that area. But I had it for basketball. And that’s what coaching is at every level: it’s about teaching.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I broadcast games. I think there is a huge difference between print journalism and broadcasting. I don’t have to say, ‘sources close to LeBron James,’ five times a game. I can just put my name to it. I say what I believe. It doesn’t mean it’s right. It’s what I believe.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“One of my college roommates was into The Police, and I got to like them. But I hear one of the guys left the band.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“If you coach, and coach every day, you should be getting better if you’re self-evaluating and you’ve got people around you telling you the truth.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“The beauty of growing up in a coaching family, particularly one that isn’t at the very highest level, is that you get to be in the gym – that’s where you grow up.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“My intensity is my greatest strength. It’s also my greatest weakness.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“You start comparing people, and ultimately, somebody feels diminished.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“Systems are overrated; players are underrated.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I frankly think the NBA All-Star game has run its course, the whole dunk contest… The game – if those guys actually played hard in that game, it’d be the best watch ever.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“Among the hardest-working players I’ve ever been associated, Yao stands at the very top of the list. Beyond that, though, here’s what truly separated him from everyone else: His ability to enjoy other people’s successes.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“The triangle itself is just an offense based on freedom of the ball to go to different places, everybody feeling involved. It’s a good thing.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I love Joe Ingles. I think Joe Ingles is a tremendous glue player, terrific shooter, passer, defender.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“As far as LeBron James, to me, he’s on his way to carving out the very best career that’s ever happened in the NBA.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“It’s hard to change a roster around. You’ve got to hit your draft picks right, you’ve gotta hit free agency right, and a team’s got to fit together.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I was asked to do something and represent my country. That’s a great honor. This isn’t about what it could do for me but what I could do for U.S.A. Basketball.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“There have been people who said I was a Pat Riley clone. But I don’t think that’s true. While I did learn a lot from him, I could never be him. I mean, we even dress so differently.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I love listening to Coach Belichick’s press conferences: even though they may not be what the media wants, they’re great coaching, teaching tools.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I think coaches should get the same amount of credit in victory that they get in defeat.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“If you are going to call out your teammates, you have to call out yourself, too. You can’t just separate yourself from the rest, because if you are going to get 90 percent of the credit when you win, you have to be willing to take 90 percent of the blame when you lose.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“Every team has leadership. The leadership is the best players. But there’s positive leadership, and there’s negative leadership.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“Mark Fox is always criticized recruiting: he can’t keep the Georgia kids home. What that means – he’s not cheating and paying. That’s what it means.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“Detroit Pistons basketball slogan: When the going gets tough, we fire the coach.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“You have to be careful as a news organization that you don’t fall into voluntary censorship, that you worry about offending your ‘league partner.’ I never worried about that. I worry about fans listening.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I think anybody confusing a system with a reason for success is making a huge mistake. Systems don’t win games. Players do.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“The public Yao was the private Yao: To his core, there was an unmistakable peace to him.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“As great of a player as Yao was, he was kind and patient with everybody. He wasn’t trying to feed an image or cultivate a brand or manipulate a public persona.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“There is a goodness about Yao that is unique, that never left him through all the pain and injuries and disappointments that accompanied his unprecedented accomplishments and successes.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“Everyone wants to focus on what Ben Simmons can’t do, which is shoot and try to rush him into being a range shooter. I think Simmons in Philadelphia has done a good job in focusing what he does great versus what he doesn’t do as well.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“Life sort of works out the way it works out.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“Why is UCLA and Georgia Tech in China to play a basketball game? Missing all that school, and then force-feeding their fans the idea of ‘student-athletes.’”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“Stop the nonsense about ‘student-athlete.’”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“In one era, it’s hard enough to compare people. But comparing people of different eras… that’s next to impossible.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“All the fascination with numbers conspires to make you forget the beauty of the game sometimes.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I don’t ever remember wanting to do anything but coach. My dad obviously influenced me. But it wasn’t because he sat there and drilled coaching stuff into our heads. We were on the bench keeping the scorebook and traveling with the team on weekends. It was such a great upbringing.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“Providence had a graduate assistant job opening. They asked me if I wanted to apply, and I applied. That break right there put me in position to learn from great coaches. It really jump-started every other good break I ever had in coaching.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I miss coaching – certain elements of coaching.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I don’t know about any others, but coaching basketball is the only thing I can do.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“My father and mother have given me so much love, so much support, that it would trivialize their parenthood if I would reduce it just to basketball. But my dad does call me before and after every game. And when we lost a game we shouldn’t have, he told me it wasn’t my fault. And I appreciated that, because he was trying to pick me up.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I don’t like comparing people or teams.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I think the beautiful part about Yao is that his main legacy won’t be about the game. His legacy will be about helping people. His legacy will be taking on important world causes to better his world.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“People talk about Kobe’s 81-point game, the second-highest scoring game in NBA history. I saw the game. I don’t care if it was 79, 81 – I just remember the game. I remember the moves. I remember the shots. I remember the beauty of it. The numbers? What he shot from the field? I don’t care.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“There are franchise players to build around that have championship-level talent, skill, basketball IQ, and character – it’s hard to find those guys. Those guys are rare.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I’m not a positive guy.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“My one suggestion going forward is, any felony committed against a woman should be a full-season suspension.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I quit the Knicks, so I know what quitting is. I did. I quit. And it’s something I regret to this day. I live with it every day, and I regret it. And I let my emotions come into it. And I was just emotionally spent. I made a bad decision, and I quit.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I had a great job with the Knicks.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“There are a lot of young teams that all they are is young. That doesn’t mean they have a chance to be good.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“You don’t know a player until you coach him.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“If sports science really has a beat on what’s healthy for the players, then they need to tell the league how many games that is healthy for players to play and then only play that many games.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“Are you playing for your teammates and coaches? That’s how it should be.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“While a guy may not be totally happy, he can be effective and do well for the team.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I think everyone talks about talent. It’s really one of the most overused terms. It comes down to, do you play, and do you win? Talent is one factor, but certainly not the only one.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“Only once did someone talking about my appearance bother me.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“It can get good quickly in this league, and it can get bad quickly.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“Goaltending was brought in because of Mikan and Chamberlain. So rules do change for specific players, in concert with a need to stay up to date on how coaches are taking advantage of the rules.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“Whenever you are coaching, you are trying to get the most balanced team that you can: balance between defense, offense, and rebounding.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I like to watch anyone who has great competitive spirit and will: passionate teams.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“Manu Ginobili – I like to watch him. I would pay to watch him play the game. He will try things that will drive a coach crazy, like a full-court bounce pass, but he has such a flair for the game. I love his energy and his spirit and his unpredictability.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I enjoy watching Gregg Popovich-coached teams.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I have known Marbury since he was in seventh grade, and I have always felt he is a hell of an NBA player.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“If your best offensive players go down, all you can do is hang on.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I grew up dreaming about being an Olympic basketball player: Doug Collins getting smashed into the stanchion, making two free throws. Phil Ford and Mike O’Koren in 1976.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“You can’t hold up in a FIBA game if you don’t have great competitive spirit.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“There are certain aspects that I miss of coaching. But you can’t just pick out the good parts. You’ve got to be all-in and understand there’s some negatives, too.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“It’s hard enough to coach in this league when you’re doing what you believe in. But when you have to try to coach something you may not be sold on, it becomes even more of a challenge. It’s really hard.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“To me, it doesn’t matter who’s out there: NBA basketball is great – if teams are putting out their best players and they’re competing to win.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“Players and coaches alike, you sign up for 82 games. You get paid for 82.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“Everyone’s system in the NBA makes sense. It all comes down to the quality of player and the quality of execution.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“D’Antoni can be successful playing slow or fast because he is a bright guy who has very creative ideas.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“The best player’s responsibility is to unite and inspire your teammates to play up to their full maximum ability, and that never occurs if you try to separate yourself as part of the problem.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“When I’d watch myself coaching, I’d say, ‘Man, I look bad,’ but I never felt I didn’t have a sense of humor with the team. Maybe I was too over-the-top serious.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“Kobe Bryant is a terrific offensive rebounder.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“At first, you can play into the naivete that people think you have because you don’t dress well. They almost give you the benefit of the doubt. But when success comes, that’s no longer a good angle, so now you’re ‘a political animal.’”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I want to control everything that goes into winning or losing.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“Losing has an unbelievably negative impact on me.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I read somewhere that failure is an event, not a person, but I never feel that way. It’s who I am.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“Dwight Howard is a Hall of Fame player.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“Most elite big men are high maintenance.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“There’s always been conflict, inherent conflict between players and coaches.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I always said ‘strength in stars.’”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“Chicken parm is hard to beat.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“You would never find a coach in any sport more giving of his time than Coach Parcells to other New York coaches.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I think greatness is always good for the NBA. Great players, great teams – it’s always good for the NBA.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“When Jordan was averaging over 30 and shooting over 50 percent, he was doing it with less shooting on the floor for himself. He had less spacing to work with. He was going against defenses that were allowed a lot more liberties as far as physical contact, how hard they fouled, and all those things.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“Often, organizations don’t know how good they have it with a player or coach.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“The NBA is a crazy place.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I never lost the desire to coach.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I’ve had two owners – Jim Dolan and Les Alexander in Houston. Both were terrific. They wanted to win badly and gave you the resources to win.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“For professional athletes, I always think about it in these terms: the most difficult diva of women’s soccer would be the easiest NBA player ever.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“Sometimes you try to change, and you go backwards.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“When you have the best player, you can do a lot of things. The best player can usually back it up, too.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“All you try to do in any system you incorporate is put players in their areas of strength and try to hide and minimize their weaknesses.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“Christmas Day is a big day for NBA basketball.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“It’s staggering how many players, even with the sums of money they make, don’t do a great job of saving it.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“It is a player’s league until you lose.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I think there are much bigger differences between players in this league than between coaches. There is a big gap between LeBron James and the small forward for whoever. Far bigger than between two coaches.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I think fans oftentimes get an inferior product on back-to-back games, and I think that has to be the number one thing that gets addressed for the fans and for the players – the elimination or the drastic reduction of back-to-back games.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“Phil Jackson was a brilliant basketball coach, not just because of the offense that he employed, but it was so many other things that went into it.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“I think Jeff Hornacek is a very, very good basketball coach and an outstanding person.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
“When you get a draft pick right, you should be given full credit.”
― Jeff Van Gundy
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