Q&A with Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy

11:45 AM ET

Stan Van Gundy was a central NBA character during his final seasons in Orlando — coach of a perennial contender and outspoken fall guy in the absurdist, candy-fueled Dwightmare. He’s off to the side now, quietly building an interesting, versatile young Detroit team in what had been a dormant NBA market for too long.

At the draft combine in Chicago, Van Gundy — Detroit’s head coach and president of basketball operations — sat down with ESPN.com to discuss the state of the Pistons, Andre Drummond’s game, Hack-a-Shaq and more.

You’re two years in, and you made the playoffs in Year No. 2 as the No. 8 seed. Are you ahead of where you thought you’d be? Behind?

Well, we made progress. You’re never satisfied when you haven’t won even a playoff game. We got swept. We’re not satisfied. But we made progress. The thing we were able to do — we got younger and better at the same time.

That’s not an easy thing to do. Our owner wanted to try to win and get in the playoffs, but he didn’t want to sacrifice the future to do it.

Do you want to give me crap right now on behalf of all the media who said you overpaid for Reggie Jackson?

I just think a lot of those contracts after this coming summer are gonna look a lot different, whether it’s Reggie Jackson or DeMarre Carroll, or whoever. Those contracts are gonna look a bit better after this summer, because this is gonna be crazy.

You had Dwight Howard, Shaquille O’Neal and now Andre Drummond. A lot of people say these guys just need to “try harder” at making free throws. But I know they’re working in practice. What else can you do to improve Andre’s foul shooting?

There are things out there. I’m not getting into specifics.

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Come on!

No. But there are things out there that can help him transfer better what he does on the practice floor into games. In practice, he can go in and make 65 to 70 percent. That should translate closer to 50 percent in games. But that isn’t happening. So obviously, there are things you’ve gotta be able to do mentally to help make that transfer.

Does his form come apart during games?

It breaks down. At times, it’ll be really good, but he can’t consistently do it. It’s like golf. Every once in a while, you put a good swing on the ball, and it’s great, but unless you’re a really good golfer, you can’t repeat it.

We want to get to a point where he can repeat it, and that’s gonna take some different work other than just being in the gym.

Should he try shooting underhand?

Everything’s on the table, whether it’s some things we can do with visual imagery, some virtual reality stuff, changing dramatically how you shoot the ball — it’s all on the table. Andre would tell you the same thing. Over the next couple of weeks, we’re gonna get together as a staff, talk to some outside people, and sit down with Andre to see where his head is. For it to be any good, you have to have buy-in from him.

Is it a bigger issue than you anticipated? There are a lot of games where you take him out, and he sits for a long time.

It’s become a bigger issue because [Hack-a-Shaq] is more prevalent. When I had Shaq in Miami, it was really rare. They’d [purposely] foul him if he got the ball down low, and maybe once or twice in the fourth quarter. Even when I had Dwight, you’d see it some in the fourth quarter, but it certainly wasn’t every night, and it was never in the first half — other than one game where Mark Jackson sent him to the line 39 times.

Unwatchable.

But those games used to stand out. Now it’s a tool. People use it early in the game, and it changes things for us a great deal.

Did you read the thing I wrote last week on Rick Sund’s proposal?

I did. Look, to me, it all depends on what you are trying to do. Are you trying to get rid of it? Or are you just trying to make it look better? I don’t know the answer. I haven’t gotten involved. I don’t think myself and Doc …

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