“The key thing is I’m not going to do both roles,” Van Gundy said. “You can’t even coach a team in the NBA by yourself, and if you tried to, you’re not going to be very good. That’s why hiring a great, great, great staff is imperative, and it’s the same thing on the player personnel side.”
It sounds like SVG is going to allow the GM a lot of autonomy - that his PBO hat is just to protect him from Miami and Orlando situations but that he's not going to pull rank on GM's and do their job - but it's a protection that he'll have the autonomy to coach, the time and space needed, and can't be fired and scapegoated or ultimately over ruled in any turf war if things ever did go south with the GM.