{"id":56691,"date":"2023-10-15T11:33:28","date_gmt":"2023-10-15T15:33:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=56691"},"modified":"2023-10-15T11:33:28","modified_gmt":"2023-10-15T15:33:28","slug":"boston-celtics-hire-former-espn-broadcaster-to-coaching-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2023\/10\/15\/boston-celtics-hire-former-espn-broadcaster-to-coaching-staff\/","title":{"rendered":"Boston Celtics Hire Former ESPN Broadcaster to Coaching Staff"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Boston Celtics have hired Jeff Van Gundy as a <a href=\"https:\/\/bleacherreport.com\/articles\/10093354-celtics-rumors-jeff-van-gundy-hired-as-senior-consultant-for-2023-24-season\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">senior consultant<\/a> to their coaching staff.<\/p>\n<p>Van Gundy had worked for ESPN as a broadcaster next to Mike Breen and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jacksma01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-10-14_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mark Jackson<\/a><\/strong> from 2007 to his <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2023\/06\/30\/jeff-van-gundy-is-gone-from-espn\/\" target=\"_self\">departure earlier this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This news comes just 11 days before the Celtics take on the New York Knicks to kick off the 2023-24 season.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Jeff Van Gundy has taken a role as a senior consultant with the Celtics, per <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BrianTRobb?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@BrianTRobb<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/n6m89feEa5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/n6m89feEa5<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheDunkCentral\/status\/1713215967638036541?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 14, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Boston Celtics Hire Former ESPN Broadcaster to Coaching Staff<\/h2>\n<h3>Jeff Van Gundy&#8217;s Coaching Career<\/h3>\n<p>Prior to his role as a broadcaster for ESPN, Van Gundy was a long-time coach in the NBA.<\/p>\n<p>From 1989-1996, Van Gundy was an assistant coach for the Knicks.\u00a0Van Gundy took over for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/n\/nelsodo01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-10-14_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Don Nelson<\/strong><\/a>, who was fired after a 34-25 start during the 1995-96 season.\u00a0In five full seasons as the head coach of the Knicks, Van Gundy made it to the playoffs each season. This includes a five-game loss to the San Antonio Spurs during the 1998-99 NBA Finals. As of 2023, the Knicks have yet to make another NBA Finals appearance.<\/p>\n<p>Van Gundy was the NBA All-Star Game head coach for the Eastern Conference in 2000.<\/p>\n<p>Before the 2003-04 season, Van Gundy became the head coach of the Houston Rockets.\u00a0In his first year, Van Gundy and company lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in five games during the first round. This was the first time the Rockets made it to the playoffs since 1999.<\/p>\n<p>During his time in Houston, Van Gundy most notably coached the duo of <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mingya01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-10-14_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Yao Ming<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mcgratr01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-10-14_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tracy McGrady<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0The Rockets made the playoffs in three of Van Gundy&#8217;s four seasons as the team&#8217;s head coach. However, they never made it past the first round.<\/p>\n<p>In parts of 11 seasons, Van Gundy has a 430-318 record as a head coach.<\/p>\n<p>Most recently, Van Gundy was the head coach of the senior United States men&#8217;s basketball national\u00a0team at the 2017 FIBA AmeriCup tournament. Additionally, Van Gundy was there for the qualifiers for the 2019 FIBA World Cup in China and the 2020 Olympics.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Mic&#039;d Up: Jeff Van Gundy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3VkbukRINS0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>The Last Word on Jeff Van Gundy to the Celtics<\/h3>\n<p>Van Gundy is a great basketball mind and has been around the league for decades.<\/p>\n<p>As a senior consultant, Van Gundy likely will not sit on the sidelines next to Joe Mazzulla and the Celtics&#8217; assistant coaches.\u00a0However, he will be with the team to provide input and expertise. This can prove to be crucial for Mazzulla, who is entering just his second season as the team&#8217;s head coach.<\/p>\n<p>Only time will tell what type of impact Van Gundy will have with the team. However, this is a great move for the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2023\/09\/24\/2023-24-nba-power-rankings-early-edition-no-4-boston-celtics\/\" target=\"_self\">Celtics<\/a> to hire a basketball expert like Van Gundy, especially since he has NBA Finals experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Boston Celtics have hired Jeff Van Gundy as a senior consultant to their coaching staff. Van Gundy had worked for ESPN as a broadcaster next to Mike Breen and Mark Jackson from 2007 to his departure earlier this year. This news comes just 11 days before the Celtics take on the New York Knicks [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4631,"featured_media":56740,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1608,2,62,3],"tags":[333,922,4765,202,58],"class_list":["post-56691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celtics","category-basketball","category-featured","category-nba","category-news","tag-houston-rockets","tag-jeff-van-gundy","tag-joe-mazulla","tag-nba-news","tag-new-york-knicks"],"modified_by":"Jordan Pagkalinawan","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4631"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}