Stan Van Gundy Fined $35,000 For Comments About The Officiating

Orlando Magic Head Coach Stan Van Gundy was fined $35,000 for discussing the officiating of the replacement referees.

“There’s no problem with them. These are guys the NBA in large part has identified. They’re good, young officials on the way up and one day they’ll be ready. It would be like us having to play with an entire d-league roster. A lot of those guys will be ready to play in three years. if you put one of those guys on an NBA crew they’d probably be all right, but they’re all out there together. It’s like me taking a d-league team and going all right, let’s go play the Hornets. It’s not going to look too good.

“There’s no fault of those guys. As much as we get on our own officials, as coaches, those are the best 60 guys in the world. You’re comparing the replacement guys to them. Well, those are the best 60 guys. I don’t care what profession. When you’re getting compared to the best 60 guys.”

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Talk about an over-reaction. Stan complimented the normal NBA officials and just said that these officials needed to gain experience, just like any rookie player would. If Stan was going to get fined for this, he should have gone on a tirade and at least got his money’s worth.

(Andrew Melnick is Howard the Dunk’s lead blogger. Subscribe to his RSS feed and add him on Twitter to follow him daily.)