“We just form a f—— wall. That’s all we do.”

The words echoed courtside at the end of a Pistons-Spurs game in January of 2015. The source? A short-haired, respected man donning a dark jacket and gray shirt. He stood in front of his players and urged them to close the game out. 0.3 seconds left on the clock. Pistons up two. Protecting the rim was the only thing on his mind, hence forming the wall.

The man was Stan Van Gundy.

You could say he brings a lot to the table: Over 30 years of coaching experience, 20-plus years at the professional level, and five years as head coach of the Detroit Pistons. Only three active head coaches have held the title longer: Gregg Popovich, Rick Carlisle and Doc Rivers. Not bad company.

Van Gundy joined the Pistons in the summer of 2011 after serving as head coach of the Orlando Magic. Before that, he was head coach of the Miami Heat, and prior to that he held coaching gigs with several schools at the college level. Van Gundy played high school and Division 3 college ball under his father at Brockport State, and only around then did he discover what he wanted to do as he grew older.

“By the time I was in high school, I pretty much knew that I wanted to coach,” Van Gundy told Def Pen Hoops in a phone interview. “I assumed at that point that I would coach at the high school or small college level when I got out of college. Having played Division 3 basketball for my dad at Brockport state, I was really focused on eventually becoming a small college head coach. That’s where my ambitions lied.”

Van Gundy would continue to climb the coaching ladder and eventually earn himself a spot on Pat Riley’s coaching staff in 1994. He would stay with the Heat for 12 years, taking over as head coach after Riley resigned in 2003.

Simply put, Van Gundy knows what he’s doing. He’s a master at evaluating talent and picking apart his players’ games, as well as at selecting and breaking down each of his players’ strengths and weaknesses. In my conversation with him, it was easy to understand why he coaches some of the greatest basketball players in the world – he was meticulous about everything when he spoke. Specific. Precise. Details were everything, and he knew every in and out of all 19 players who attended Pistons training camp.

Improvement is a necessity for head coaches, and Stan Van Gundy is no exception. That means improvement for himself and improvement for the team. For the Pistons, a team that finished 10th in the Eastern Conference at 37-45, Van Gundy labeled more than one area he wants his club to improve in this season.

“I think we need to improve in a lot of areas,” Van Gundy told Def Pen Hoops. “We went into the offseason thinking that we needed to be a more mature group. That involves both the players here that are maturing, and bringing in the type of serious professionals like Avery Bradley, Anthony Tolliver and Langston Galloway. Guys that we really think can add that to our team.

“We also definitely needed to improve our three-point shooting. Again, we brought in those three guys and drafted Luke Kennard – all guys who can really shoot the ball probably better than anybody other than Reggie Bullock that we have on our roster. So we improved in that area. And then we wanted more guys who could play off the dribble and attack the basket. And I think Avery adds some of that too. So those are the areas we have focused on, but we really just needed a more mature approach, consistency and greater mental toughness to overcome situations. And I think we have added that to this team.”

The term “mental toughness” was repeated over and over again during the interview. It’s something Stan Van Gundy has preached to his players since he entered the league as a coach, and it’s a quality he still seeks in each of his players to this very day.

A perfect example of such toughness can be seen in Avery Bradley, who was traded to Detroit in exchange for Marcus Morris on July 7. Bradley is the perfect player for a Stan Van Gundy system – the kind who works hard every time he takes the court, fights and claws for more playing time, and busts his ass to improve day in and day out.

“I think Avery brings a lot of things,” Van Gundy told Def Pen Hoops. “First of all, he is a serious, mature veteran player who goes about things the right way every day with the right approach. He practices with a great focus every day, does everything right, does every repetition in practice each day, has clearly built great habits throughout his career – and those habits carry over to games all the time. He’s got all of those intangible things that I think are great in terms of being an example for a young team.

“He’s also a really high-caliber defender, obviously. Two years ago he was a First-Team-All-Defense guy – one of the premier defenders in the NBA. So he’s got that to base his game on every night, which I think is great because everyone’s going to have games where they don’t shoot the ball well. Avery just always has a way where he could impact the game. And then he’s a guy who can also shoot the ball, but plays very much within a team framework. He’s a great, great cutter, and a guy who helps make everybody else on his team better, yet he’s capable of being a very good scorer as well. Avery really impacts the game in just about every way possible.”

Van Gundy also expressed his satisfaction with how well certain players played during Pistons camp, but there was one player in particular whose name came up several times in the conversation.

“I think a lot of guys have stood out for various reasons, but I think the guy who has [stood out the most], in terms of surprise because it’s not a veteran guy, has been Henry Ellenson,” Van Gundy told Def Pen Hoops. “He’s been very consistent throughout training camp. He’s in his second year out of Marquette, and has played very well virtually every day in camp. He’s gotten stronger, his body’s improved. He has shot the ball well consistently. He can put the ball on the floor and make plays. He’s improving defensively – that’s still an area where he has to get a lot better, but he’s worked hard and improved in that area. I think he’s made the biggest strides out of anyone we have.”

Many will tell you Stan Van Gundy’s greatest years as a head coach came when he served with the Orlando Magic, when he guided the team to multiple successful seasons with star center Dwight Howard as his top player. The infamous breakup between Van Gundy and the Magic is a story that has been told many times before and is considered irrelevant to Van Gundy, Howard and the Magic today.

But a different intriguing, untold story lies within the talent aspect of that team. Van Gundy’s greatest success came when he had a dominant, near-7-foot machine in Dwight Howard manning the interior. Surrounding that machine were shooters such as J.J. Redick, Rashard Lewis, Jameer Nelson, Vince Carter and Ryan Anderson. Damn, were they a problem.

Much like his Orlando days, Van Gundy still coaches one of the top centers in the game today in Andre Drummond. Of course, Drummond is no Dwight Howard, and he has yet to prove that he can match the same potential Howard was able to reach – for now. Drummond, 24, worked tirelessly this offseason on his game after slightly regressing last season. He remains one of the league’s top rebounders, an improving offensive option and a decent defensive player, but Stan Van Gundy hopes to see something relatively different from Drummond this season: A new energy.

“He just needs to play with higher energy on a more consistent basis,” Van Gundy said when asked where he wants to see Drummond improve this season. “When he plays with that high energy level, it brings great intensity to the game. His athletic ability is going to be impactful regardless of how many times he gets the ball or anything else, so we need that on a more consistent basis.

“And then we need him to just play to his strengths as much as he can. He’s been doing that throughout training camp. He’s a great runner. He’s a guy who can play off the dribble and be almost like a point-center type of guy. And then clearly he’s a great rebounder at both ends who makes his living around the basket, so if he can just go do those things and be very consistent with it in terms of how hard he plays, then he can have a very, very good year.”

At just 24 years old, Drummond largely remains a work in progress. Most NBA players typically play their best basketball between the ages of 27 and 30, but Drummond isn’t the only young prospect on this roster. The team also has lottery picks Stanley Johnson and Luke Kennard. For the Pistons and Stan Van Gundy, deciding to draft Kennard at No. 12 in June wasn’t a hard decision, considering the team’s emphasis on improving its shooting this offseason.

“You’re just looking through the draft and at your own needs, and again, we had identified shooting as a major area,” Van Gundy told Def Pen Hoops. “Luke Kennard is a very good shooter. He has great mental toughness. He’s a guy who had several incredible second halves of games at Duke. Maybe he didn’t have great first halves, but he was at his best during big games. All of those things really impressed us, but Luke really has a skill level and knowledge of the game. Plus he’s a better athlete than people give him credit for, but he just really, really knows how to play.”

Despite having been in the coaching business for over three decades – longer than many players have even been alive – Stan Van Gundy continues to stay hungry and motivated when it comes to improving himself and his players. The passion that was present on Day one still very much exists. Passion is a significant word in this business – a necessity to survive as a coach.

“I think it’s the same in any profession you go into,” Van Gundy said upon being asked to give advice to readers who aspire to become prominent coaches one day. “I think you have to have a great passion for it, and then you just have to work to get better at it every day. The one thing I think where young guys make a mistake is that they focus too much on climbing the ladder and where the next job is. It’s more of a, ‘how do I advance,’ rather than getting better at what they do. And so to me, what you do to advance in this profession is you get as good as you can and you just keep working, and working, and working. And then you need a lot of luck. You really do.

“There are people who are a lot better than I am at this job who have never gotten the opportunities I’ve had – great coaches at the high-school level, the small-college level, wherever it may be. You can’t control the breaks you’re going to get in everything else, but you can control how hard you work to get better at your job every day. I think that’s what coaches need to focus on. Going every day, trying to learn from other people. Watching. Learning the game as much as you possibly can, from both players and coaches, and just keep improving. Hopefully along the way you get a couple of breaks and get some opportunities that help springboard your career a little bit. But again, I’ve never had a job where I was looking for the next job or even where another job could be. I know to this day I would’ve been very happy had I coached my entire career at the small-college level, but other things just came up that I felt were too good to pass up.

“Just work, get better and be the best you can be.”

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