- The NBA released a statement on what happened in the final moments of Game 5 between the Clippers and Thunder.
- At least a few teams are interested in Lionel Hollins as their next head coach, from Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports: “The Jazz, Cavs, Warriors & Wolves have shown interest in Lionel Hollins for head coach openings, a source said. The Lakers, Knicks have not.”
- The Utah Jazz are also interested in Adrian Griffin, from Woj: “The Utah Jazz have received permission to interview Chicago Bulls assistant Adrian Griffin for their head-coaching job, league sources told Yahoo Sports. Utah plans to reach out to several candidates in the next few days. Griffin’s defensive background with Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau is important to Jazz general manager Dennis Lindsey, who wants to improve one of the NBA’s worst defenses. Griffin is considered one of the league’s best young head-coaching candidates. He played for five NBA teams over nine seasons from 1999-2008. Griffin was a finalist for the Philadelphia 76ers’ head-coaching job last year before they hired Brett Brown.”
- The Jazz are also interested in seeing if John Stockton may have interest in taking over the coaching position, from Marc Stein of ESPN: “The Utah Jazz, as part of a broad coaching search expected to feature some 20 candidates, plan to reach out to Jazz legend John Stockton to gauge whether he has any interest in the position, according to sources with knowledge of the situation. Sources told ESPN.com that Jazz officials intend to at least pose the question to the Hall of Fame guard about his willingness to move into coaching, while mindful of Stockton’s lack of previous coaching experience and the fact that he has long loathed the sort of spotlight associated with the job. Jazz general manager Dennis Lindsey declined comment Tuesday night about Stockton or any other prospective candidates when reached by ESPN.com.”
Stan Van Gundy has agreed to sign a five-year deal with the Detroit Pistons. Here are notable statements from the owner of the team and Van Gundy himself, from NBA.com: “The Detroit Pistons announced today that Stan Van Gundy has been appointed head coach and president of basketball operations. Per team policy, terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Van Gundy will be formally introduced at a press conference in Auburn Hills tomorrow. “Stan is a proven winner in our league. He instills his teams with passion, purpose and toughness. He is a great teacher who will help our players grow and develop,” said Pistons Owner Tom Gores. “Stan is more than just a great coach, he’s a great leader. What I’m most excited about is how Stan can help us shape the franchise and instill what it means to be the best. He’s also a great communicator. My time with Stan has me convinced that he will bring our players, team and community to a very proud place.” “It is an honor to be chosen to help Tom Gores build the Pistons into a team that competes for championships,” said Van Gundy. “Tom’s vision of building for the future, while seeking immediate improvement is a challenge that I embrace. We will work to put a team on the floor that reflects the franchise’s rich tradition and embodies the toughness and work ethic of fans in the Detroit area.”
According to Sean Deveney of Sporting News, word around the league is that Van Gundy will look to move Greg Monroe: “Even before the Pistons made the bold move of hiring Stan Van Gundy to be their coach and run their basketball operations on Tuesday, there was a growing consensus around the league that whomever was tabbed to replace Joe Dumars in the front office would be willing to let restricted free agent Greg Monroe go. Now, with Van Gundy in place on an eyebrow-raising contract—five years, $35 million—there is near certainty among league executives that Monroe has played his last game for Detroit. The fact that Van Gundy opted for the Pistons over the other team in pursuit of him—the Warriors—offers some insight, one league general manager told Sporting News. “There are two things that made that job better for Stan,” the GM said. “One is the fact that he gets to make personnel decisions, that is a big deal of course. But the other is Andre Drummond. If you want to build your team around a young player, Drummond is the guy. “You’re not going to build around both him and Monroe, they had too much trouble making that work. You pick Drummond and move on from Monroe.”
- On the other hand, Van Gundy is apparently a big fan of Monroe, according to Vincent Ellis of Detroit Free Press: ‘League source: SVG is a big fan of Greg Monroe. Called Monroe last night when deal was final. Ownership group highly fond of Monroe.”
There is a new recording of Donald Sterling (surprise) ripping V. Stiviano, via Dan Feldman of ProBasketballTalk: ““You could whip me for doing some of the things I did. She’s the most discriminatory person I’ve ever seen. She hates her life. And she looks so different than all the other kids. And she tries so hard to make her skin white. And she does every night.” “Every time, she’s going to say, ‘Well, you know, I can’t help it if my skin is black.’ Well, who cares what color your skin is? Open your legs.” “Did I tell you what she did for a living? She went and bought three cars, and she leased those cars to illegal people who couldn’t get a license in L.A. Then, she leased houses to people who were foreign people, criminals, who couldn’t get a house, didn’t have the qualifications in terms of didn’t have ID. You know what I mean? So, she bought those houses. I mean, she rented those, and then she rented them to the people.” “She asked for money. She said she wanted money. And I said, ‘You know, you never said in the beginning you wanted money, and I gave you money. It was my call. That’s it. OK. OK. OK. I could have stopped her if I had given her more money. But it would have happened next week or two weeks, wouldn’t it?” “She wanted more, and she said she was going to get it – or bring me down.”
- Magic Johnson opened up to Anderson Cooper about the whole Sterling situation here. Here is a transcript of some of his comments, from The AP: “”He’s living in the stone ages,” Johnson said in an interview that aired Tuesday with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, a day after Sterling made his first public comments since racist recordings emerged last month and earned him a lifetime NBA ban. “You can’t make those comments about African-Americans and Latinos. You just can’t do it.”… “Here’s a man who you would think would be educated, and a man who is smart enough to build this type of wealth and own a team and have an incredible platform to change the world,” Johnson said. “But he’s doing it in a negative way.”… “He’s trying to find something to grab on to help him save his team,” Johnson said, “and it’s not going to happen.”
James Park is the chief blogger of Sheridan Hoops. Follow him on twitter @SheridanBlog.
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