Stan Van Gundy Says Markieff Morris Hasn’t Earned the Right to Trash Talk

The most unexpected beef in the NBA continues to simmer — after Markieff Morris blasted him in the media, Detroit Pistons head coach Stan Van Gundy stood up for second year guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.

SVG argues that the Phoenix Suns forward doesn’t have enough stripes in the L to run his mouth.

Shots fired, and all that …

Per the Pistons’ team website:

Caldwell-Pope took the high road Thursday, basically shrugging it off. He hadn’t heard the quote, but heard about, he said. […] “Hey, that’s his opinion. I know what I can do, how I carry myself, so that’s his opinion of me. It is what it is.”

 

A little more willing to engage in verbal counterpunching was Stan Van Gundy, never one to let one of his get picked on. […] “I’m not quite sure – maybe he knows – but I’m not quite sure what Markieff Morris has accomplished in the league that gets him to the point of mouthing off. I don’t like the mouthing off, anyway. It seems to me you should at least participate in a playoff game before you do. But maybe not. Maybe that’s not the standard anymore.”

 

Referees quickly intervened once Caldwell-Pope stood jaw to jaw with Morris and teammates pulled the players away before either crossed a line. But Van Gundy didn’t mind that Caldwell-Pope needed a little friendly restraint. […] “I thought KCP was ready to go,” he grinned. “You like that. You like having to pull a guy away a little bit. If we would have all just walked away – referees, us included – KCP was ready to go. He wasn’t backing down from anything.”