ESPN - 3/24/06 - 'Larry Brown is no genius'

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Brown is no genius

Chris Broussard
posted: Thursday, March 23, 2006 | Feedback

I was as guilty as anyone. Last summer, when the Knicks were pursuing Larry Brown, I said on national TV that he was the best fit on the planet for Isiah Thomas' club. I also said Brown's brow-beating, micromanaging style was crucial to Detroit's success the past two years and that without him, the Pistons would not win the East (while that may yet prove true, it certainly won't be because of Brown's absence).

I was not alone in my exaltation of Brown. In NBA.com's annual preseason survey of GMs, Brown was voted the best coach in the league, and only 15 percent of GMs thought Detroit would win the East without him. Most GMs actually thought Indiana would beat out the Pistons for the Central Division crown, and 73% gave the East to Miami.

That makes me feel better about putting Brown on a pedestal, but as you might imagine, I've had a change of heart.

Since hardly anyone else is willing to say it, I will: Brown is overrated.

He's still a very good coach (historically speaking), but he's not the legendary genius he's been touted as the past two years. He's not in the class of Red Auerbach, Phil Jackson, Pat Riley and Gregg Popovich. And this year, he's been the worst coach in the league. By far.

Brown's been so bad that it's tempting to think he's purposely sabotaging the season. I refuse to make that claim because I can't imagine anyone doing that, but I also can't imagine that he's truly as overmatched as he appears to be.

When the Knicks hired Brown, one of his former players (a retired guy who had a long and productive NBA career) told me Brown was going to create a rift with his best player (Stephon Marbury) and break the Knicks down to rock bottom so that when he built them back up, he would look like a savior.

Obviously, the first part of that prediction has come true, but even if Brown turns the Knicks into a playoff team next season, he won't look like a savior to me. I don't think the Knicks should be nearly as bad as he's made them this year.

If Isiah Thomas had announced when he was hired that in two years, the Knicks would have Marbury, Steve Francis, Eddy Curry, Jalen Rose, Quentin Richardson, Jamal Crawford, Malik Rose and one of the league's top three or four rookies at power forward - all being coached by Larry Brown - New York would have gone bananas (in a good way).

So for all those ripping Isiah, save a little thunder for the head coach.

One highly-respected executive told me last week that "if anything, the Knicks have too much talent.'' He added that he can't understand the moves Brown's been making.

But I am not basing my demotion of Brown on this season alone. While he's had great success all over, he's also had too many missteps to be a "legendary'' coach. People make a lot out of him turning San Antonio from a 21-win team his first season into a 56-win team the next ('89), but the addition of David Robinson had more to do with that resurrection than Brown.

Then, in his fourth and final season in Indiana, Brown failed to get the Pacers into the playoffs. The next season, Larry Bird, who had never coached a game in his life, led those same Pacers to the conference finals.

And of course, there were the 2004 Olympics. Brown was as bad then as he has been this season. I know that team was poorly put together, but it still had two MVPs (Allen Iverson and Tim Duncan) and the four best young players in the world in LeBron James, Amare Stoudemire, Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony.

Yet Brown hardly played the youngsters, even though Anthony was his best shooter and one of the few guys with extensive experience against a zone defense. James made something good happen every time he entered the game, yet he got few minutes.

Why not press fullcourt when depth and athleticism are your major advantages? Why not double team Carlos Arroyo to take the ball out of his hands instead of letting him single-handedly lift Puerto Rico over Team USA?

Even in Detroit, folks forget that Brown's Pistons had lost 7 of 8 games before trading for Rasheed Wallace. Detroit was already a two-time 50-win team that had made the conference finals under Rick Carlisle the year before Brown got there. When Joe Dumars added Rasheed to that club, it was lights out. They went 20-5 the rest of the regular season.

But nobody knew at the time how good they were, so when the vastly underrated Pistons beat the mighty Lakers, who boasted four future Hall of Famers, in the 2004 Finals, the only explanation seemed to be that Brown had worked a coaching miracle.

Never mind that Karl Malone was hurt, or that Gary Payton was a physical shell of himself and in a mental funk because of Phil Jackson's triangle. Never mind that Shaq and Kobe were feuding.

That's when Brown went from being viewed as a very good coach to one of the top five of all-time.

Perhaps the only good thing about this Knicks season is that it has brought Brown, and the rest of us, back to reality.

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Coaching hot seat kinda cool

By Chris Sheridan
ESPN Insider

When he found himself sitting in the hot seat, whether his stint there was real or imagined, Lawrence Frank never felt even a twinge of nervousness.

"It didn't strike up any paranoia, because I know we're all on the same page here. There was supposedly a conflict because I wasn't playing the guys Rod [Thorn] and Ed [Stefanski] brought in, but I speak to Rod and Ed every day, so it didn't really have any effect."

Lawrence Frank
Jim McIsaac/Getty Images
Lawrence Frank says he never felt his seat get warm in '05-06.

Frank's brief flirtation with job jeopardy came earlier this month as he was stuck on 99 career victories and the New Jersey Nets had lost five out of six. An item in the New York Post suggested Frank's job status was shaky, but Thorn came to Frank's defense publicly a day later and the story went away -- the rumor mill having digested a small morsel of disharmony during the dog days of a season in which stability in the coaching ranks has replaced the rampant turnover of recent years.

Only Stan Van Gundy in Miami (Dec. 12) and Bob Weiss in Seattle (Jan. 3) have lost their jobs this season, and the month of March is apparently about to pass without a single sacrificial lamb biting the dust. It's quite a turnaround from March of a year ago, when Maurice Cheeks, Johnny Davis, Don Nelson and Paul Silas lost their jobs.

"Most of the times when there's a coaching change during the season, it's usually a situation where there's such a problem that the team needs to do something just to get through the season," said agent Lonnie Cooper, who represents several NBA coaches. "But there's not a lot of drama out there this year."

One of Cooper's clients, Doc Rivers, had a brief brush with job insecurity earlier this month when The Boston Globe reported that Rivers was mulling a return to broadcasting and might step down as head coach of the Celtics this summer.

The smart money now says Rivers will be back next season.

"I'm certain of it," team president Danny Ainge said Thursday night from the Georgia Dome, where he was scouting the NCAA Tournament.

So if there really is a hot seat, who's occupying it? The best place to look is northern California, which is where we'll begin our listing of each NBA coach and where he stands in terms of job security.

HOT SEATS


Mike Montgomery, Golden State
The Warriors have missed the playoffs for 11 straight years, and it's about to become 12 for one of the biggest disappointments in the West. Montgomery has been the easiest target to aim at, but he has said the criticism he has received has bothered his wife more than it has affected him. With two years remaining on Montgomery's contract, Warriors owner Chris Cohan would have to think twice about letting him go. Does Montgomery expect to be back next season? "Once you start talking about it, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy,'' Montgomery told Bay Area reporters. "The question people have to ask: Is it all me? If it is, then the answer is obvious.'' If there's a No. 1 candidate to lose his job the day after the season ends, Monty is the guy.


Rick Adelman, Sacramento
The coach of the Kings has been on the hot seat all season because of his lame-duck status, but the Maloof brothers have stuck with him out of respect for what he has done for the franchise the past six years. Will Adelman be back next season? It's probably 50-50 right now. "He becomes a free agent at the end of the year, and if he isn't coaching here, there are a lot of other teams that would like to have him," owner Joe Maloof told ESPN.com on Thursday. "We'd love to have him back, but we're not going to make that determination until after we see how we do in the playoffs." There's also the question of whether Adelman will want to return or will feel the same way Nate McMillan did a year ago when he left Seattle after finishing his contract.

WARM SEATS


Sam Mitchell, Toronto
With the arrival of new team president Bryan Colangelo, many are assuming he'll want to bring in a coach of his choosing. But a couple of factors to consider: Mitchell is tight with Chris Bosh, and it'll be Colangelo's main priority this summer to sign Bosh to an extension. Also, if Mitchell is fired and the team performs poorly early next season under Colangelo's guy, all the finger pointing will be directed at Colangelo. Don't count on his setting himself up as a target.

Bernie Bickerstaff, Charlotte
The man who will control Bickerstaff's fate is Bickerstaff himself, and this is one of those rare situations where the coach can have a face-to-face conversation with the general manager simply by looking into the mirror. People close to Bickerstaff say he seems to be enjoying working with the players on the second-year franchise's roster, and he'll probably want to take a shot at having Emeka Okafor back healthy next season playing alongside Charlotte's next lottery pick.


Dwane Casey, Timberwolves
Casey signed a five-year contract this past summer, with the first three years guaranteed, and owner Glen Taylor gave him a somewhat tepid vote of confidence Sunday in an interview with the St. Paul Pioneer-Press. "You wouldn't even think about it until the year was over," Taylor said of a coaching change. "At this point, I'm supporting him and trying to help him as best we can. I still think he's a good coach. We've had a tough season. He's learning. I don't think he would deny that, with young guys and stuff like that."

Bob Hill, SuperSonics
The season has pretty much been a disaster from day one, but Hill got another year added to his contract after he replaced Weiss, which should keep him safe for the summer. It's hard to imagine Sonics management paying two departed coaches, and they'll still be paying Weiss.

Mike Woodson, Hawks
General manager Billy Knight took Woodson off the hot seat early in the season, and the Hawks are on pace to double last season's total of 13 victories. That should be enough progress to keep Woodson around, although all bets are off if Knight enemy Steve Belkin is successful at gaining control over the team's fractured ownership group.

TEPID SEATS


Pat Riley, Heat
He has refused to discuss coaching beyond this season, which some have interpreted as leaving his future in doubt. But if the Heat fail to win the title this season, do you think Riley, who values his legacy so highly, will want to leave on such a negative note? Not a chance.

Jeff Van Gundy, Rockets
The lone remaining Van Gundy in the NBA coaching ranks probably gets a pass on account of the team's record without Tracy McGrady (3-19), but the double whammy of missing the playoffs and performing before an ever-increasing number of empty seats is not sitting well with ownership.

Larry Brown, Knicks
Never underestimate the chances of Brown's switching jobs, although he has 40 million reasons in the next four years to resist the urge to walk away after one of the worst seasons of his coaching career.


Brian Hill, Magic
He has been back with Orlando for only a little over a year, and he's finally starting to give a bigger role to Darko Milicic to defuse whatever tension might have been simmering in the front office. The organization sided with him in the Steve Francis feud, as sure a sign as any that he'll get more time to guide the team through its rebuilding phase.

Doc Rivers, Celtics
If Rivers decides he wants to walk away, it'll be because of family concerns. He had planned to move his family to Boston by now, but that still hasn't happened, and Rivers was worn out over the course of the season by trying to commute to Orlando to help raise his kids.


Jerry Sloan, Jazz
The NBA's longest-tenured coach always has said he'll walk away the day owner Larry Miller tells him he's no longer wanted, and that day is eventually going to come. In the opinion of Charles Barkley, the youngsters on the Jazz have tuned Sloan out.

Lawrence Frank, Nets
Another first-round flameout could doom him, but he has the support and respect of his players and his owner. If the Nets make a major change in the offseason, it likely will be geared toward trading for Kevin Garnett rather than bringing in a new coach.


Eddie Jordan, Wizards
The nation's capital will have playoff games for a second straight year, which should be more than enough to keep Abe Pollin happy and Jordan employed. The only thing that would jeopardize Jordan is getting swept in the first round.

COLD SEATS

Flip Saunders, Pistons: Having the league's best record in your first year will tend to keep your name off the hot seat list.

Phil Jackson, Lakers: Wasn't his relationship with Kobe Bryant supposed to have blown up by now?

Gregg Popovich, Spurs: Named the league's best coach by almost a third of NBA players in a recent poll.

Avery Johnson, Mavericks: No coach has ever had a better first 82 games, and Mark Cuban loves him.

Mike D'Antoni, Suns: The only place he's going is to Japan as Mike Krzyzewski's top assistant for Team USA.

Rick Carlisle, Pacers: Should remain entrenched in Indiana as long as Larry Bird is in the front office.

Mike Fratello, Grizzlies: He'd jump at the Miami job if it came open, but he didn't wait out the Stan Van Gundy thing when he had a chance. For now, he's entrenched in Memphis.

Mike Brown, Cavaliers: He's LeBron's guy, and they're going to the playoffs. 'Nuff said.

Mike Dunleavy, Clippers: The team holds a one-year option, and Dunleavy is much more likely to get an extension than to get canned.

Terry Stotts, Bucks: It's only Year 1 of the Stotts era, and the Bucks have never fired a coach after one season.

Maurice Cheeks, 76ers: No one has lasted two years in Philly since Larry Brown, but Cheeks will. At some point with the Sixers, there has to be some stability.

Scott Skiles, Bulls: This was a throwaway year because of the Eddy Curry trade, and Skiles gets a pass. He's beloved by the organization's higher-ups.

George Karl, Nuggets: If anyone loses his job in Denver, it'll be general manager Kiki Vandeweghe.

Byron Scott, Hornets: Has this vagabond franchise in playoff contention when many thought it'd be the league's worst team. That won't get anyone fired.

Nate McMillan, Trail Blazers: It's only his first year, and ownership is more committed to him than it is to staying in Portland.

Chris Sheridan, a national NBA reporter for the past decade, covers the league for ESPN Insider. To e-mail Chris, click here.

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