NEW YORK -- Jeff Van Gundy has spent the past few days debating whether his "high moral ground" -- opposition to wearing a microphone -- is worth defending.
Risking a $100,000 fine, Van Gundy had to decide Tuesday whether to acquiesce to the league office and agree to wear a microphone for Tuesday's New York Knicks-Houston Rockets game on TNT."I'll probably end up wearing it," he said Monday, the same day as the league announced it was fining the Seattle SuperSonics and Toronto Raptors $100,000 apiece because their coaches, Paul Westphal and Butch Carter, refused to wear microphones for an NBC telecast Sunday.
Van Gundy said he planned to discuss the matter with team president Dave Checketts and general manager Scott Layden before making his decision.
Teams, not the individual coaches, are responsible for paying the fines, although Carter and Westphal said they were willing to take the money out their own pockets.
"The amount of the fine is unprecedented," Van Gundy said. "You can get into a fight on the court and not get that big of a fine. The only thing you can do is tamper to get a bigger fine."
The controversy prompted the executive board of the National Basketball Coaches Association to speak by conference call Monday. Among those in the discussion was Atlanta Hawks coach Lenny Wilkens, the association president.
"We're examining all our options," said Michael Goldberg, executive director of the association. "We're not going to sit idly by while coaches are forced to do something that from the bottom of their hearts they feel is wrong to do. There are many coaches who feel it has a negative impact on their ability to do their jobs, and we feel it's improper to force them to do it."