Stan Van Gundy is enjoying life.
In the spring, he took his wife, Kim, on a European vacation, their first as a couple.
Last month, Kim gifted him with birthday tickets to the Fox Theater where they grooved to the sounds of Gladys Knight and the O'Jays.
The next day, he played fetch with family dogs, Opie and Eastwood, in the backyard of his lakefront home in Clarkston, Mich. Later, he was a picture of comfort inside as the dogs slumbered, worn out from playing on the warm August day.
It's clear the former Pistons coach doesn't have to work another day the rest of his life. A comfortable retirement where he works at his leisure awaits _ if he wants it.
But with his May firing still fresh, he's not sure he wants comfort.
He thinks he might want to coach again.
With NBA training camps opening this week, he knows there's nothing out there to replace his competitive itch.
His wife sees a profession that brings misery, and it's clear she is ready for him to retire from coaching, a career that started as an assistant at Vermont in 1981.
The situation leaves Van Gundy, 59, at a crossroads. He can see a path forward, he just doesn't know which path to take.
"I don't care who you are, what job you are in, when you've worked at something for a long time and tried to become good at it and everything else, it's not easy to walk away _ particularly when it's not on your own terms," Stan Van Gundy said last month. "Kim's major thing is that I'm not happy (during seasons). You don't need to do it so why are you going to do something that doesn't make you happy.
"If I'm not happy, it's hard for the people around me to be happy."
