It should be interesting when Jeff Van Gundy calls an Orlando Magic game next year.

During a teleconference Tuesday, I asked Van Gundy about his comments in a radio interview last week with Stephen A. Smith in New York. He blasted Orlando for not only firing his brother, Stan, as coach, but also for the way they handled it.

I asked Van Gundy if that fact that Stan is his brother impacted his comments. He said:

Sure it had an impact. He’s my brother. I know in the three years before Stan came to Orlando, Dwight Howard had never had a winning record.  And he had never won a playoff game, and he had never been the defensive player of the year, he had never been an all‑NBA player.  So I know all those things.

And so when he was fired, listen, teams have the right to change coaches.  Dr. Jack (Ramsey, also on call) has been through it.  Every coach has been through it except for the very few lucky ones.

But there’s a manner in which you go about changing that shows you have a dignity and an integrity about you.  And so a couple ‑‑ their callous disregard for what Stan helped them do, winning more playoff series in his five years than they have had in the entire time that they’ve been a franchise, add into that he’s my brother, sure, it impacted my comments.

But I didn’t overreact.  In fact, if anything, I underreacted.  Because when you see leadership by appeasement or appeasement as a leadership strategy, I think it’s wrong.  I think it’s wrong for the individual player.  I think it’s wrong for the team and the franchise and that’s what I said in many different ways.

Van Gundy also discussed being ranked No. 2 in a Sports Illustrated poll of NBA players regarding their favorite announcer. Charles Barkley was first.

Van Gundy got the nod despite knowing he’s ticked off a few players with his pointed comments. He said:

I never really knew how sensitive the players are (in making the adjustment from coaching to analyst). You might say 99 percent good things, and if you say one thing that you would like to see have been done differently, they get quite angry. I was doing a game in the Playoffs where a player made a basket and he jogged down court, he didn’t look directly at me, but I knew he was looking towards me, and screamed something out I couldn’t share with you for print.

 

But I was amazed, I was like, wow, you know, I’ve been ‑‑ like I say what I see, but some of it I didn’t like in a particular game and I said that.  And I didn’t realize how sensitive guys were.