The Mercenary - Would you let Larry Brown coach your team?

It would be quite humorous if he left the Pistons for the Lakers. Talk about the best job in the league. The Laker job is the best considering Kobe and Shaq still have a few yrs left.

 

Wow. The author really does quite a number on Brown here. I think the article brings up very valid points. Brown is an excellent coach, but he is also smart enough to pull himself out of situations where he is doomed to fail, thus keeping the luster on his legacy.

 

Well he is evil!!!! He made a lot of teams give up their coaches! He is one of the best...I still wish he was the Rockets coach. But it's kinda good that he is not because you never know when he is going to leave....and he is old.

I'd rather get Pat Riley!

 

The real value of Brown goes beyond his short-term hires. With the obvious exception of the Clippers, most of Brown's teams are successful for years after he's gone. His ultimate value is as a teacher. And that value keeps giving after he's gone.

 

pffft.


the #1 criticism of phil jackson is that he always coaches teams that are already great. everyone always says: "oh, but i want to see phil coach a team that sucks and make them better. then i'd respect him.

yet, that's exactly what larry brown does. he has, throughout his career, taken the dregs of the nba and gotten them into the playoffs. this putz author says, yea but over 1/2 of the nba gets into the playoffs! as if getting into the playoffs is an easy thing! tell that to rocket fans of the past 4 years! or clippers, nuggets, bullets/wizards, warriors, or vancouver/memphis fans!

the reality is that larry brown takes teams with huge deficits and turns them into cohesive, well disciplined, succesful TEAMS. yet, there is criticism of him. pffft. bull.

so larry leaves after a few years, right? ok, let's look at why. could it be that he has squeezed the maximum potential out of the team, and realizes that - given his methods - the current team can go no further? is that so bad? maybe if the team acquired more talent, he'd be more apt to stick around. of course, that's the quandry of being a "playoff team". if you're good enough to get into the playoffs, you won't be bad enough to get a good draft pick. eternal mediocrity awaits...unless you have a primo, dominant player (usually a big man).

as far as the washington situation, where is larry brown at fault here? let's see, he won't interview for a job that is currently held by a friend of his. does anyone honestly think he said "fire collins" and then decided not to go? come on now. there is no proof of that. there is, however, proof that washington's players DID NOT get along with collins anyway. and it is reasonable to conclude that washington decided that firing collins was worth the opportunity to possibly hire larry brown. brown is that sharp and collins was that disliked by players. so brown decides he doesn't like the wizard job more than the piston job...ok, um, who can blame him?

questions about larry's character befuddle me. if you say he won't take the chance to lead his teams to greatness, you were just proven wrong by his choice to lead the pistons. there is immense pressure on him to take an overachieving team to the ECF and beyond, all while developing a 17 year old international stud rookie, two 2nd year players (predator lookalike tayshaun prince and mehmet okur), and a young, malnourished rip hamilton. immense pressure...and immense opportunity.

anyone who can criticize larry brown's abilities, imo, is a true blue idiot.

 

Please explain the Indiana Pacers, then, and how Brown left them in their worst season of Reggie's '90s and beyond career (at 37-43), and Bird wins 58 the next year. Please also explain why Brown left SA in the midst of their worst season of Robinson's career.

Could it be that Brown lost Robinson and Reggie to his mercenary methods?

Brown knows his Xs and Os, but his methods are not flawless, despite the hype.

 

Great article.

Dude knows his stuff on Brown.

Cant say I disagree.

 

Heypartner, who are you hoping we'll get? Brown is no longer an option, mercenary or not, but I don't remember reading a preference of yours. I know you wanted Rudy to stay at least another season. I wrestled with it, but decided he deserved to come back. But who would you lean towards now?

 

understand first, that I think coaching in the NBA is closer to soccer than football. I find that Texas fans think coaching changes are the most important that there is...in football, probably, but in continuous motion games with hardly any practice time during the season...it's not the same.

This game is about HOF players who don't need coaches generally always beating players who do need coaches.

I really don't have a preference. I really wanted Brown at first, then he quit on Iverson and I started reading about him and asking some people's opinions who know their **** but aren't rocks fans.

Understand, I am way on the side of the spectrum who believes Xs and Os from an NBA coach are overrated in the importance. The HOF players who play for championships know how to play and make defenses react and counter that, or they can see through defenses and dance in 2-man and 3-man games; I'm talking about the ones who will ever have a chance to win it all. The rest who need to learn (like Francis), likely will never catch up, whoever is coach. In Yao we pray!

I believe the big issue about the coach, to many, is that they as fans need someone to yell at the players, so they can hear it, and through hearing it can be satisfied that the Roxs are not executing properly. Rudy never blamed the players, so people couldn't tell who to blame,,,,the coach or the players. A guy like Brown makes it very simple for fans to place blame. That's what people want now, imo.

I'm not that way. I want stability with Yao as first order of business. Brown was not close to my first choice on stability and growing with Yao. imo, we don't need Brown to discipline Francis and ruin his trade value, then leave before Yao resigns. If Francis can't "get it," just trade him...why do you need a disciplinarian to stubbornly lower his trade value in public before the "genius" wakes up and realizes he can't change him.

that's just a scenario...not the future as I see it.

I just think guys with less ego and more permanent and lasting passion can do better. This team needs a jolt of positive passion as much as they need negative reinforcement. This team is down right now.

We just need someone who can command respect like Rudy, and can give a refreshing look to the problem and the game. *and* someone who won't make desperately bad trades and destroy Francis's trade value.

The rest is about the players.

 

I had a nice reply, heypartner, and it fell victim to a "server glitch" or something. My luck. Thanks for the response, I really appreciate it. I understand where your coming from much better than I did before.

I don't think Brown is a mercenary, to try and stay on topic. I think he has an unquenchable wanderlust and wants to win. As a successful coach he had options and choose the one he felt was the right fit and gave him the best chance to win. Any coach in his position could be called a "mercenary", if the word's going to be used. Brown could have handled it far better than he did, but he's never handled these situations well. I would have liked to have seen the impact he could have made on the Rockets, but that's pretty pointless to discuss given the circumstances.

This is a crucial hire for CD and Les, obviously. After the tumultuous season we just experienced, with brilliant play one game and abject stupidity on display the next, we have to hope that they get the right guy. Who could have thought that Rudy would have been such a superb choice when he was hired? But he was.