Stan Van Gundy fined $25,000 for criticizing refs in Game 1

Stan Van Gundy's honesty has cost him some money. $25,000 to be exact. Van Gundy was fined on Monday for the comments he made to ESPN's Lisa Salters during a mid-game interview.

After telling Salters that the Pistons were upset about some no calls on LeBron James, Van Gundy added that referees aren't going to call any offensive fouls on LeBron, because LeBron's LeBron. You could then almost hear a cash register noise when Van Gundy cemented the statement (and his fine) with, "He gets to do whatever he wants."

Van Gundy praised the officiating after the game, saying things evened up after the first quarter, but that clearly wasn't going to be enough.

According to eskimo.com, with no certainty toward its veracity, this is the the first time Van Gundy has been issued a publicly disclosed fine during his time with the Pistons and his fifth fine in his coaching career for criticizing officials. Before this one, the website has his last fine coming in January 2011 when he was fined $35,000 for saying the refs were targeting Dwight Howard. In fact, according to that website, his previous three fines were each $35k, so maybe his post-game praise saved him a cold $10,000!

Well worth it all around.

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