Extenuating circumstances prevented 3QC from having anyone available to cover the Orlando Magic's practice today, so instead we'll pass along this report from Tania Ganguli, who says coach Stan Van Gundy does not regret the comments he made about the NBA's replacement referees after Thursday's practice; those comments resulted in $35,000 fines for both Van Gundy and the Magic organization, which the NBA announced yesterday.
From Ganguli's report today:
"What I said was accurate, reasoned and positive," Van Gundy said. "I thought it was positive about both groups. I don’t regret anything I said.
"You work under the auspices of [NBA commissioner] David Stern. He decides what you can talk about and what you can’t talk about. I talked about a subject I’m not supposed to talk about and he hit us hard."
True to form, Van Gundy made sure to get at least one good shot at the league in:
"It will be the first and probably the only time in my career that I will be fined that kind of money for basically saying very positive things about our referees," Van Gundy said this afternoon. "I would like to tell the league office, I will try not to make that mistake publicly again, saying we had the best 60 guys in the world."
The fine's totally bogus, sure, but it's at least good to know that it's the only real news surrounding the Magic right now. Everyone's reasonably healthy and performing well in the preseason, which continues Monday against the Bulls in Chicago.