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Miami Heat coach Stan Van Gundy spoke with InsideHoops.com and other major media outlets in a teleconference a few days ago. Here are the questions and answers:

Stan Van Gundy's Opening Statement: Obviously, we had both figuratively and literally the largest acquisition in the NBA in the offseason and we are very excited about that. We’ve got nine new players in Miami, so our challenge is to get every one on the same page; get in our system, offensively and defensively, that is quite a bit different than it was a year ago. So far it has gone well; though, with Shaquille’s injury last week he missed two of the preseason games, so we haven’t had our group together since the first week of the season. Hopefully, he can play tonight and we can get back working toward what we hope will be a good start to this season Nov. 3.

Q: Talk about Rasual Butler’s development.

Stan Van Gundy: We’re very confident with Rasual’s ability to shoot the ball. I think he’s one of the better perimeter shooters in the NBA. He shot well over 45 percent from three last year and he can hit the mid-range jumper as well. Obviously, what we need him to do a little bit better is to defend and to rebound the ball, especially on defense. I think he’s put a lot of effort into those areas. We just need to continue to monitor him and see how he develops in those areas. Right now, I’d say he is the leading candidate to start for us at the three spot.

Q: Talk about what it’s meant to get Shaq and what you’ve had to do to rethink your approach offensively.

Stan Van Gundy: First of all, we’ve gone from being totally a perimeter team last year that ran a lot of pick-and-rolls and brought guys off screens on catch-and-shoot plays and tried to open up the floor and driving it, to now being a primarily a post-up team, so there has been a lot of change in terms of our system. We have gone out and I think Randy [Pfund] and Pat [Riley] did a great job this summer bringing a lot of shooters here. We’ve just got to spend a lot of time playing with Shaquille, because we know he is going to get double-teamed a lot, just getting our spacing right and being able to play out of double-teams. I think it’s something that will come along pretty quickly, but it will take some time and we need to get into some more game action and see that type of defense.

Q: What does that mean to Dwyane Wade? Will he have to change his approach?

Stan Van Gundy: A little bit, but we are not going to make any drastic changes with Dwyane. I think he’s a great attacker. We want him to continue to attack. I think people are saying he will not have the lanes to the basket that he has had in the past because Shaq clogs up the middle. I think it’s going to be the opposite. I think what happens a lot is opposing centers are very reluctant to take a body off Shaquille to go help. So Dwyane’s lanes to the basket actually get bigger and easier. We saw that a little in the first game in Houston and we’ve seen it in practice – people really stay attached to Shaq, even on the weak side of the floor. It allows a guy like Dwyane to get to the rim. We aren’t going to change him much. Obviously, he’s going to have to throw the ball to the post a lot more than he did last year, but I don’t think that requires a great adjustment.

Q: Talk about the difference in coaching philosophies between having to prepare for Shaq and coaching him.

Stan Van Gundy: I’ll tell you this: It’s a lot better being on this side of it. I think Shaq is the one guy in the league that really causes every team to change from their normal defensive system and philosophy. You just can’t play Shaq, no matter how your defense is played, the same way you play everybody else. Everyone has to adjust every time they play us. I’ve been on the other side of that, where you are trying to play a system for 80 games and adjust for the other two. It’s not easy. For us, there’s no basic change in our philosophy. I don’t think coaches change their basic philosophy on how they think games should be played. What changes is your system. Again, on the offensive end, it goes from us being a perimeter team to being a post-up team that wants to get the ball inside at every opportunity. At the defensive end, it means we will probably not be out on the floor trapping and rotating quite as much. We will probably try to – as much as possible – keep our bigs, especially Shaq, around the basket.

Q: You brother has said on several occasions that Shaq has the ability to distort the game. Do you see it distorted in a positive way from the aspect of coaching him?

Stan Van Gundy: Obviously, when you are on this side of it, it makes things easier. You are faced with a tough choice, you play Shaq any normal conventional way in the post and he is going to be virtually impossible to stop. If you choose to double-team team or even become more drastic and play a guy in front and behind him before he gets the ball, you obviously open up shots for other people on the perimeter. In some ways, the game gets a lot easier. The thing we haven’t been through, in terms of our other players, is playing with someone like that and knowing you are going to see all these different things and really getting comfortable in your attack against different schemes that people throw at Shaq. That will come as we come, as we start to experience more and more.

Q: Does one player moving conferences switch the balance of power?

Stan Van Gundy: Let me say two things. When I first came in, this is my 10th year, the balance of power was in the East. We were a team in Miami trying to get over the top and couldn’t get past the Bulls. For a lot of that time, we felt we were the second best team in the league. I think it is all overplayed. It doesn’t matter where the balance of power is because in the end – people think I’m joking when I say this and I’m not – regardless of the balance of power, there is going to be one team from the East and one team from the West. It doesn’t matter if you think the top eight teams are in the West, The Finals are still going to be East vs. West. And all that matters is who is the best in that match-up. It doesn’t matter who your third-, fourth-, fifth-best teams are. So, first of all, I think it’s all pretty much irrelevant. Second of all, I don’t think the balance of power really changes. On paper at least, there are more good basketball teams in the West than there are in the East.

Q: You went with Dorell Wright in the draft instead of a point guard like Jameer Nelson. What was your thinking on that move?

Stan Van Gundy: Because Jameer was the next guy picked everybody automatically assumes it was a case of picking one guy over the other, which I guess in some sense, it was. The thinking was basically … you have to remember that this was pre-Shaquille O’Neal, so what we had at the time was a young, very athletic, developing team. Our philosophy was we were going to build a team with those kinds of guys – long, athletic guys. We saw that in Dorell Wright and were going to add him to guys like Lamar Odom, Eddie Jones, Dwyane Wade, Caron Butler, Rasual Butler. We think those guys are very effective in the NBA. We still feel that way and Dorell is a developing guy. It’s going to take him some time. We hope it is sooner rather than later, but that draft pick was made for what we thought was the best athlete, best player on the board for the long-term.