Stan Van Gundy hopes players speak out about travel ban

Stan Van Gundy will tell you how he feels. Sometimes he’ll hold court on the ridiculousness of trade rumors and sometimes he’ll talk about the moral fabric of the United State of America.

Today, he talked about the latter.

Van Gundy, along with many coaches and players, shared his thoughts on the executive order issued by President Donald Trump that halted the admission of all refugees for 120 days and banned immigrants from seven majority Muslim nations.

Van Gundy, as one would expect, did not hold back. I don’t think Van Gundy cares about the #StickToSports crowd, and, frankly, neither do I.

“It’s just playing to people’s fears and prejudices,” the Detroit Pistons coach said, per Rod Beard at the Detroit News. Van Gundy noted that no domestic acts of terror had been committed by someone from one of the banned countries.

“We’re getting back to the days of putting the Japanese in relocation camps, of Hitler registering the Jews — that’s where we’re heading. It’s just fear-mongering to a certain base of people that have some built-in prejudices that aren’t fair. There’s no reasonable reason to do it. ... But to some people, it soudns good and if you have a prejudice against Muslims in general, it sounds really good to you.”

Van Gundy said he hoped players would speak out on the subject. Twenty nine percent of players are foreign born, including a subset from the banned list, and several American players play overseas.

“This stuff is real and it’s scary and I think everybody should speak up. This isn’t about a person in office or anything else — it’s about policy that’s antiethical to what we’re supposed to be about here in America. I would love for our players to speak out about that.”