Stan Van Gundy has spent enough time on playoff sidelines to know the difference between a star who’s supported and a star who’s surviving. This week, the former Orlando Magic coach drew that contrast in blunt terms while revisiting the postseason chess match of the late 2000s, when his Magic beat LeBron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2009 Eastern Conference finals, then faced Kobe Bryant’s Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals.
Appearing on FanDuel TV’s “Run It Back,” Van Gundy explained why, in his view, Kobe was tougher to game plan for than LeBron in that specific context, not because of a simple “better player” argument, but because of the difference in help. Van Gundy said LeBron “really was carrying that team” in Cleveland, then added a line that lands like both a compliment and an indictment of roster construction: the non-LeBron Cavalier who gave Orlando the most trouble was Wally Szczerbiak.
“No knock on Wally Szczerbiak,” Van Gundy said, “but he is not Pau Gasol.”
That comparison is the point. The Lakers had Pau Gasol alongside Kobe during that title run, another elite, high-skill option defenses had to account for possession after possession, while Cleveland’s supporting cast, even at its best, didn’t present the same level of second-star stress in Van Gundy’s eyes.
Van Gundy’s framing also pushes back against the lazy shorthand that every era’s great debate has to be reduced to a one-on-one verdict. In his telling, the difference he felt in preparing for those teams was structural: what defenses can take away, what they’re forced to live with, and how many fires a coaching staff has to put out beyond the obvious supernova at the center of everything.
Kobe Bryant was harder to gameplan for than LeBron James, says Stan Van Gundy 👀
“It wasn’t because Kobe was necessarily better than LeBron, he just had more around him.”@MichelleDBeadle | @ChandlerParsons | @TeamLou23 pic.twitter.com/cJJKRkq23y
— Run It Back (@RunItBackFDTV) February 24, 2026
