Okay, so Dwight Howard didn’t utter those exact words, but he certainly told his coach to stop being such a Negative Nancy.
Dwight Howard To Stan Van Gundy: ‘Chill Out, Bro’
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↵Orlando Magic superstar Dwight Howard told the Sentinel on Thursday that he asked Stan Van Gundy in a private meeting to quell what he perceived as the coach's recurring negativity.
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The fiery, demanding Van Gundy confirmed that he met with Howard, who was speaking on behalf of the team.
"I think, as a team, there was a lot of negativity and it's not like Stan's a negative guy," Howard said before the Magic left for Boston to face the Celtics on Friday night. "But it's like there's always some clashes and focusing so much on our mistakes. Instead of bringing each other down, we have to pull each other up.
"That's the only thing I wanted from coach."
↵Van Gundy said Howard was right and vowed to curb his negativity in the future.
↵I’m of two minds on this. On the one hand, Van Gundy didn’t become one of the league’s best coaches by being a beacon of positive energy. Coaching his way has allowed his teams to overachieve -- nobody expected him to lead Orlando to the NBA Finals last year. On the other hand, you can only scream at players so long until they tune you out in the NBA, in which case you’re probably going to be looking for another coaching job in the near future.
↵Bottom line: I wouldn’t want to be a coach in the NBA. So much pressure, so little job security, so little real power in a league controlled by superstars.
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