Jeff Van Gundy and the Los Angeles Clippers have agreed to a deal to bring the former television analyst to the team as chief assistant on head coach Tyronn Lue’s staff, a team source confirmed Tuesday.
ESPN was first to report the news.
Van Gundy, 62, spent the 2024 season as a senior consultant with the Boston Celtics, helping the franchise secure its record 18th championship after the team beat the Dallas Mavericks in Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Monday.
Prior to joining the Celtics, Van Gundy served as an analyst for ESPN for 16 years before being fired last June as part of a series of cost-cutting cuts at the network.
He joined ESPN in 2007 after spending 11 seasons in the NBA as head coach with the New York Knicks and Houston Rockets. During his time with the network, he is best known for appearing on NBA Finals broadcasts alongside Mike Breen and Mark Jackson. His record as a head coach in the league was 430-318 (.575).
Lue played one season under Van Gundy while with the Rockets in 2004 and the two coached together on the USA Basketball staff.
How Van Gundy fits with the Clippers
The Clippers had already been active in the offseason regarding their coaching situation, signing Lue to a five-year contract extension in May, but Lue lost several members of his coaching staff, including associate head coach Dan Craig, the team’s de facto defensive coordinator, who left to work as head assistant for the Chicago Bulls.
That’s where Van Gundy comes in. The Clippers called Van Gundy “one of the brightest basketball minds in the world.” Lue started the 2004-05 season with Van Gundy’s Rockets before being traded to Atlanta for John Barry. Twenty years later, Van Gundy and Lue are on the same team again.
In addition to bringing in a new voice, it will be interesting to see if Lue replaces Craig with coach Van Gundy running the Clippers’ defense. Under Lue’s 2004-05 Rockets, they allowed the fewest points in the paint and ranked fourth in defensive efficiency. Notably, the two players he guarded in the paint were future Hall of Fame centers Yao Ming and Dikembe Mutombo. Van Gundy’s coaching history also includes Tom Thibodeau, who is currently the coach of the New York Knicks and is still known for defending in the paint.
Van Gundy hasn’t coached in the NBA since 2007 and hasn’t served as an assistant since the Knicks fired Don Nelson in March 1996. But Van Gundy has kept his basketball mind fresh, serving as a consultant for the championship-winning Celtics last season and coaching the U.S. basketball team in the 2017 AmeriCup tournament and the 2019 FIBA World Cup qualifiers.
Another coach to watch on Lue’s staff is Dahntay Jones. Jones led the Clippers in summer league last year and will have that role again this year, according to a team source. Jones took on increased responsibility to lead the defense when Craig was injured in 2022. Jones could end up working with Van Gundy as the Clippers look to improve after a season in which they were 16th in defensive efficiency. By Roe Murray, Clippers staff writer
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