Stan Van Gundy just won’t leave it alone.  I was one of the very few in the blogger community that took Shaq’s side in his quarrel with SVG.  It looked like it would end with Shaq running his mouth about his former coach, but Van Gundy found it necessary to fire back when prompted by the media:

“That’s not his normal comments,” Van Gundy said after Orlando’s practice Thursday. “Obviously I struck a nerve and hurt his feelings. Shaq’s a very sensitive guy. If I hurt his feelings, I’m sorry.”

Sigh…Stan, I know that you are not going to trash-talk like Shaq does, but being passive aggressive like that is not any better. In fact, it may even be worse.  First you threaten his man-hood and you follow that up by calling him “very sensitive.”  What is interesting is that most fans thought that Van Gundy looked like the biger man up to this point, but then he responded to Shaq.  It seems like he just wants the final word, a trademark of the Van Gundy family.  You don’t have to give the media anything, you didn’t need to speak up and protect yourself or anyone else.  It isn’t a heart-felt apology. Had he wanted to apologize, he needed to contact Shaq privately, not publicly. Just let it go, but obviously you can’t:

“I’m pretty sure that every player who’s ever played for me doesn’t hate me,” Van Gundy said Thursday. “Now we’d have to do a survey, but I’ve coached a lot of guys, and I’m pretty sure there’s one or two that don’t hate me. I don’t know that any liked me. But I’m pretty sure there’s one or two who don’t hate me. So I don’t worry about that because, quite honestly, I don’t think it’s true.”

The quote that I find most interesting is the one that comes from Rashard Lewis:

“We like him,” Lewis said of Van Gundy. “I mean, sometimes we don’t because he screams and yells all the time, but that’s just a part of him being the coach. As long as we continue to win games, you can’t complain too much.”

Usually we only hear the talking heads say that the player’s won’t complain unless the team isn’t winning, rarely do you hear it out of a current player, especially not said anonymously. That I find kinda asinine.   If a coach doesn’t scream and yell and the team does bad, it is because he is too much of a player’s coach.  If the coach does and the team yells, he is not communicating to them.  That’s another post in itself.  Anyway, if what Lewis said is how most of the player’s feel, and if  Orlando struggles at any point this season or gets their asses handed to them again in the playoffs, there could be some backlash towards SVG.  Way to plant the seed of doubt, Shaq!

Stan, Shaq has the upper-hand now.  He can choose to not react and save face, or he can respond with more derogatory comments that will split people once again. My guess that he will take the basketball player route and shoot back.  When the message gets to you, just ignore it.

Sparty is Editor-in-Chief and Founder.  He can be reached at sparty@spartyandfriends.com

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