LL Cool Scott wrote:Ya'll might have some short memories...
Larry Brown almost always overacheives with what he's been given.
Took UCLA to its 1st championship in decades
Took the Clippers to their 1st playoff berth in years
Took a completely overmatched Sixers team to the Finals
Took the Pistons to their only championship of this era
If all you remember is the Knick debacle, you have pretty short memories. I don't know much about the dude personally, but he constantly overacheives professionally. He'd also give us some visibility and credibility on a national scale...
I am not going to comment on the UCLA thing because...well..who cares(well, to be more fair...I don't). This is the NBA.
I won't mention the Clippers either, because Mike Woodson has a chance to take the Hawks to their first playoff berth in years. Doesn't mean he should stay the coach.
The Sixers? Well, lets see. Yes, he got them to the finals on the back of one amazing player and a bunch of defensive players. But when they lost in the finals, guess which amazing player he threw under the bus the next year when they were eliminated from the playoffs(after some pointless roster shaking moves by Brown, as always)? They lose in the playoffs, and of course it wasn't because his team was less than or that he was outcoached. It was because Allen Iverson missed some practices in the early season. Then he tried to trade Allen Iverson to the Pistons but Matt Gieger blocked the trade.
The Pistons? The Pistons won a championship. And you know one of the best reasons they won? They had a bench crew led by Jon Barry, Corliss Williamson and others that night in and out would just plain destroy the other team. Williamson won the 6th man of the year I believe that championship year and was a monster mismatch for anyone that tried to play him. So of course, what should you do after winning the championship? You should trade the bench guys, and blame the team for not being able to sustain playing the monster minutes they had to because the bench was gone. Then he makes it back to the finals, and instead of pointing out that he was simply out coached and made numerous stupid decisions in Game 7, he, again, threw the team under the bus and said that they didn't play hard enough. He then became so "sick" that he had to get out of that Pistons job.
Oh, lets not forget his horrid coaching job of the Olympic team where he made sure to keep Carmelo Anthony, Lebron James, Amare Stoudimire all on the bench and then blamed everyone from the players to the olympic committee for the results.
My problems with Larry Brown are this:
- He throws anyone under the bus as soon as he possibly can in the media.
- He ALWAYS has to tinker with the roster. Despite success, a offseason without trading someone in the rotation is a wasted one for Brown.
- He has a pretty sucky eye for talent yet wants to be a GM. Or he has a good eye for talent, but just prefers trading them for less talented players.
- While he was a great coach, I think there is a chance that with time, he has become just too much of a liability. there are good coaches to be had without the baggage. Think about it. He managed to get fired a year after winning a championship and the next year taking the team to the finals.
- Last but not least HE TANKED A SEASON IN A ATTEMPT TO GET CONTROL OF A TEAM.
That is disgusting. I don't care what you have ever done in your career, purposely tanking is as bad as gambling against your team while coaching to me. He had a lineup his year as Knick coach that produced a 4 game winning streak. So in the 5th game, he benched the guys that were getting the minutes. DNP's for them and shoved the others out there. He was trying to lose. He suggested and asked Isaiah for the Francis trade then asked for him to be cut a week later. That is insane(although Isaiah would have traded Penny and David Lee to Portland for Darius Miles...so...yeah...a bad trade was happening regardless).
I understand the guy has a history of success, but just look at what he has done the last decade. Despite the success, he has been as disgusting a individual as anyone else in the NBA. I personally think that any short term success we might have at him at the helm would destroy the franchise for years to come. When you see that Josh Smith for Trenton Hassell trade or the Joe Johnson for Keith Bogans trade you would see what I mean.