July 26, 2005

BROWN MAY BE A GREAT COACH BUT HE’S A LOUSY PERSON

      Larry Brown is a curmudgeon.  That is the nicest description I can think to use on the nomadic coach.  Now, most people, when they get older--and become set in their ways-- have a tendency to turn into curmudgeons.  The difference in this case is that Brown has been one his entire professional life.  The positive spin on Brown’s traveling feet is that he likes, and needs, a challenge.  He needs to go to a franchise that has been dormant for many years where he can utilize his unique coaching skills to turn the franchise around.  That spin does not encompass the entire truth.

       Face it—Larry Brown ticks people off.  He ticks off his players, ticks off his assistants, ticks off his superiors, and ticks off the fans.  And to culminate his last stint in Detroit, after taking the Pistons to the Finals two years in a row—and winning it once—he ticked off his owner. 

       Brown is a successful coach—there is no denying that fact.  Wherever he goes the team begins to win.  He stresses team defence and a conservative offensive approach.  The most difficult assignment of his career came in Philadelphia—he just couldn’t turn Allen Iverson into his kind of player, and that, he states, is the main reason why the 76ers never won a title.  His ego rose with each success—a natural human occurrence—but in his later years it began to reach levels not even he could control.  While the Pistons were marching into the Finals this past season Brown was also consulting with the Cleveland Cavaliers just in case his failing health wouldn’t allow him to coach anymore.  Brown was flaunting the NBA rules by playing with two franchises at the same time—in effect he was playing both sides against the middle.  While coaching the Pistons he was helping the Cavs make the necessary decisions to rebuild their management structure.  When the season ended and Detroit told Brown to make a choice Brown refused.  He wasn’t done playing yet.  In the end both the Pistons and the Cavs went in different directions.

      Did this leave Brown out in the cold?  Not a chance.  There is always some desperate team out there willing to pay Brown’s freight and put up with his curmudgeonly behavior simply to win a few more games.  Isiah Thomas and the New York Knicks are precisely that team.  Brown knows that he has no hope in taking the Knicks to a title.  He knows that there is no way that he and Thomas will work off the same page.  He knows that every day will be a struggle.  He knows that his career is coming to an end.  And he knows that he is going to go out with the biggest contract of his career, on the biggest stage in the NBA. 

       And he knows that before things completely blow up in the Big Apple he’ll simply quit, and move on to something else, leaving Thomas to try and steer the broken down Knick ship through the fog.  His last move will be to tick off every basketball fan in the biggest city in the nation.  There is no reason to believe that this leopard will change his spots so late in life.