Stan Van Gundy has some hard feelings toward ESPN over the way that his brother, former Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy, was laid off last year.
Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson had been stalwart color commentators alongside venerable play-by-play broadcaster Mike Breen for many years at ESPN before Van Gundy was let go in a wide round of layoffs last year and Jackson was shown the door shortly thereafter.
Stan, a former ESPN broadcaster who now works for TNT, joined Dan Le Batard’s “South Beach Sessions” podcast and blasted the Worldwide Leader for how things went down.
on the way out the door. Getty Images
“He was hurt by it, I mean he worked for them for 17 years. And it wasn’t even just the fact that they made the move, I mean they s–t on him,” he said, as covered by Awful Announcing.
Jeff Van Gundy had years left on his deal and according to his brother, was not able to expediently obtain a buyout to be able to work elsewhere.
“The timing was awful. They waited until basically the NBA market in terms of coaching jobs, assistant jobs, front office jobs was already gone by to make the move. And then they delayed and delayed and delayed on a buyout that would free him to work for [other] people,” Stan continued.
“I mean after 17 years of being in arguably … the best game broadcast booth in the business in basketball, and being the kind of person he is, ESPN s–t on him.”
There have been rumors that the NBA ordered a “code red” on Jeff, which Commissioner Adam Silver has denied.
Stan tried to clarify that it wasn’t the layoff, per se, that he took issue with on behalf of his brother, but the way that he was treated.
“This stuff happens in the business, we’ve all been through it,” Stan added. “We’ve been fired and everything else, but there’s ways to do it and ways not to do it. … I thought ESPN was absolutely miserable to him after what he had given them for 17 years.”
Le Batard didn’t think Jeff would be thrilled about Stan airing this laundry, to which Stan agreed.
“My brother wouldn’t be happy if I was saying this, but it’s what happened and that’s what I’m going to say,” he said. “And you know what, I don’t think anybody who knows the situation would disagree with me at all.”
Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy were replaced by Doc Rivers and Doris Burke on ESPN’s top NBA team, and then JJ Redick succeeded Rivers when the latter took the Bucks’ head coaching job midseason.