Stan Van Gundy Calls Dwight Howard Out for No Playoff Wins

There's probably no need to freak out (completely; just yet anyway) about the Dwight Howard and Stan Van Gundy feud that spilled over into the Cavs game two nights ago and caused Van Gundy to bench D-Ho for a two minute span in the fourth quarter, but judging by some of the Van Gundy quotes that Brian Schmitz had late last evening in his Orlando Sentinel blog, well, maybe there's a little fire underneath all that smoke. Apparently, the rift has been building privately, and because those one-on-one talks didn't work out, Stan went to public with it.

'When you're a great player and a franchise guy, there's more on you. He's got to accept it,' Van Gundy said Tuesday after the club's practice.

'He may not like it. He may not like the way I did it. But I've also done it before many times in private --- just he and I. I didn't think it was making an impact, so now it's out there for everybody. We'll see what happens.'

Well, ideally what won't happen is to have Otis Smith get all cranky about the future of his franchise being elbowed around in public, but one would think Van Gundy spoke to his general manager before publicly chastising his superstar. Or calling him out for the number of playoff wins he has in his career (think, um, none).

Van Gundy said he's only trying to make Howard a great player, which Van Gundy believes is framed by team success. 'I think Dwight wants to be a great player. I think Dwight wants to be a winner. But we're in Year 4 and he hasn't won a playoff game,' he said.

On the other hand, since the dispute purportedly involves the coach's desire to have Howard focus more on rebounding and defense (which lead to Orlando wins) it's hard to imagine Otis is terribly opposed.