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NEW YORK (AP) -- Larry Brown is employed again, and the New York Knicks might just become a team to watch after nearly a half-decade of malaise and mediocrity.
Brown's ``dream job'' became a reality Wednesday when his agent and the Knicks wrapped up contract negotiations. Brown will sign the do ents Thursday before a news conference(noon ET) at Madison Square Garden.
Not since Pat Riley took over the team in 1991 has there been a summertime buzz surrounding the Knicks to match what's been transpiring lately. Brown has made the Knicks relevant in the local sports scene again, and the fans who have watched the franchise stumble and slump into insignificance finally have something to give them some promise.
Sure, the Knicks' roster is sub-par compared to the top echelon of teams in the NBA's Eastern Conference. But with Brown's proven track record of turning losers into winners, those feelings of hope have some legitimacy behind them.
``I want badly for this thing to turn around,'' Brown told The Daily News in Thursday editions. ``I'm going to do my very best. It's not going to happen because of me. It's going to happen because of all the people Isiah has in place.''
Brown will sit alongside team president Isiah Thomas when the Knicks introduce the 22nd coach in franchise history. The final contract details were ironed out less than 10 days after his divorce from the Detroit Pistons was finalized.
The Knicks were Brown's favorite team when he was growing up in Brooklyn, and the eighth stop on his NBA coaching carousel will truly be a ``dream job'' -- just what Brown called it earlier this year.
He'll join a long list of distinguished coaches -- including Joe Lapchick, Red Holzman, Riley and Lenny Wilkens -- who have guided one of the NBA's charter franchises.
In 22 seasons as a professional coach, Brown has compiled a 987-741 record. The le he won with the Detroit Pistons in 2004 was his only NBA championship.
Brown didn't return calls Wednesday night seeking comment.
July has turned out to be a whirlwind month for the coach who will be 65 by the time training camp begins. He began it at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, where he underwent surgery for a bladder problem, then told the Pistons he was prepared to return.
He and Glass met with Detroit owner Bill Davidson and team president Joe Dumars, a get-together Brown originally thought had gone well. But Davidson, peeved that Brown had spoken to the Cleveland Cavaliers during the playoffs, had grown tired of the drama that constantly surrounds the high-maintenance coach.
Just hours after the Pistons finished a severance agreement with Brown that paid him $7 million, Thomas picked up the phone and made it known that New York had a serious interest.
``One of the neatest things is that I get to work with Isiah. I love Isiah,'' Brown told The Daily News.
Meetings with owner James Dolan, interim coach Herb Williams and Madison Square Garden president Steve Mills followed, and Brown gave his agent the go-ahead to hammer out the contract language.
Brown becomes the team's fourth coach in less than a year, following Williams, Wilkens and Don Chaney. The Knicks haven't been to the finals since 1999 under Jeff Van Gundy and haven't won a le since Holzman coached in 1973.
``I know what the New York Knicks mean to basketball, the city and what they mean to the league,'' Brown said to The Daily News. ``I know how passionate people are in this environment and how much they understand the game. It's pretty amazing. They know when you're playing the right way. I used to love to watch them play with Pat and then Jeff.''
Brown takes over a roster that Thomas has transformed into a mix of youngsters and high-salaried veterans. Turning them into a winner will be the latest challenge for Brown in a nomadic NBA career that has included stints with the Philadelphia 76ers, Indiana Pacers, Los Angeles Clippers, San Antonio Spurs, New Jersey Nets and Denver Nuggets.
Brown also coached Kansas to an NCAA le in 1988, had stints with UCLA and the Carolina Cougars of the ABA, and led the 2004 U.S. Olympic team that finished a disappointing third. Part of that roster included Knicks guard Stephon Marbury, who clashed with Brown last summer. Marbury has already publicly endorsed Brown's hiring, and Brown has said he will have no problem coaching the enigmatic guard.
After missing 17 games last season due to a hip replacement operation that led to the bladder problem, Brown's wife, S y, had been concerned about her husband's health. He underwent his third surgery in nine months shortly after the Pistons lost Game 7 of the NBA Finals to the Spurs.
Doctors told Brown he needed rest, and he and his wife have decided he'll get enough of it during the next two months before training camp begins.
good luck to LB. I hope his health improves and that he will be able to teach a few more players how to play the right way before he retires. The knicks will be a hard job for larry but i think he will be able to bring them back to he playoffs not championship level for another two years. I predict the knicks will make the playoffs this season.
He has his work cut out for him with Marbury not exactly a Larry Brown type player. Could we see the same problems he had getting through to AI?
well im happy for him now he gets to coach malik rose
Good for Brown if he says that it has always been his dream job.
He had better be good to Malik.
Brown's dream job gives him Knicks' nightmare roster
Chad Ford
ESPN Insider
It's always nice when wishes come true. Right?
Larry Brown wanted Rick Carlisle's job and an NBA le and got both in Detroit.
Earlier this year, Brown wanted a golden parachute from Detroit and got a sweet one with the Cavs.
This month, Brown wanted the Pistons to pay him $6 million dollars to go away. Got that too.
Brown has said coaching the New York Knicks is his "dream job." Now Knicks president Isiah Thomas is about to make Brown's dream come true.
Larry should be the poster boy for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
But, Larry, be careful what you wish for.
The Knicks gig might be Larry's "dream job" in theory, but dig a little deeper and it could be his nightmare.
Brown "loves" New York. Thinks Isiah Thomas is "neat." Believes that Madison Square Garden is a "special" place.
The 15-man, $120-million dollar roster that Isiah has built? Not so much.
Brown might be the best coach in the NBA, but even he knows he doesn't have much of a chance to compete with the Pistons, Pacers, Heat and Nets next season.
Even if the Knicks could compete, his "trade"-mark, so to speak, beyond his coaching ability and his wandering eyes, is his constant desire to fiddle with his roster. Simply put, Brown likes to make trades.
Lots of them.
No one is safe in New York.
He'll love you one day and have to get rid of you the next.
Just this week Brown did a 180 on Knicks point guard Stephon Marbury. In Athens, he reportedly tried to get Marbury kicked off the team after Stephon questioned Brown's offense. Last week he said Marbury "knows how I feel about him" and added that he had a "good" relationship with Marbury. Rhetoric or not, how long before Brown tries to get Steph shipped out of town?
Fact is, no one believes for a minute that the Knicks team as it stands today will be the Knicks team that finishes the season under Brown.
Neither Marbury nor backcourt mate Jamal Crawford plays the way Brown likes his guards to play. His frontline isn't long and athletic enough. Many of the players on the Knicks roster aren't committed to the defense Brown wants them to play.
Isiah can talk all he wants about retaining control of the team. But given the mandate (and paycheck) that Coach Brown has gotten, President Thomas won't have control of it for long.
"There's going to be changes," a longtime associate of Brown told Insider. "Larry's going to want a lot of say on the team. He'll tell Isiah something different. But within a week he'll be in his office looking to make deals. He's going to want guys that he's comfortable with. He's going to need his lead guy [Marbury] to buy in. If he doesn't, he's gone. I don't care who it is. If Isiah holds his ground, he'll just go to the press. Larry's the master of this. Isiah may think he's up to the challenge. I don't see it."
Who's likely to get kicked to the curb once LB takes over?
Stephon Marbury, PG: Marbury has been Isiah's signature acquisition (for better and worse) during his two-year tenure with the Knicks. Earlier in the month, Isiah said that the Knicks would never try to trade Marbury. Then again, Brown said he would never coach the Knicks.
Insider couldn't find one Brown associate who thought the coach and his point guard could coexist unless Marbury agrees to move to the two and Isiah lets Brown bring in a more traditional point guard to run the team. Brown might be able to handle Marbury's offense-first game, much as he did Allen Iverson's, if he had a reliable option to run the team.
Who fits the bill? Eric Snow is at the top of Brown's list. Brown loved Snow in Philadelphia and tried to get Joe Dumars to trade for him in Detroit. Snow is conservative with the ball, plays great defense, and, most importantly, completely buys into Brown's system. The Cavs would be happy to give him and the four years, $25 million left on his contract away. A trade of Snow, Drew Gooden and Aleksandar Pavlovic for Tim Thomas would work under the cap.
Brown also likes Earl Watson and could have Thomas try to work out a sign-and-trade with Memphis Grizzlies president Jerry West. Brown's also a Speedy Claxton fan, and he might be available from New Orleans. And don't forget about Knicks rookie Nate Robinson. Brown loves him and is going to want to find a big role for him coming off the bench.
It's quite possible Marbury won't be traded, in large part because the Knicks will have a hard time finding a taker. His salary is so out of whack with his declining rep that the Knicks would have to take a huge hit to get rid of him and the four years, $75 million left on his contract. It's difficult to come up with any team that would trade for Marbury at that price. The Celtics and the Raptors are the only two teams in need of a point guard that might try it, but both are major long shots.
Jamal Crawford, PG/SG: Crawford rained down a heart-stopping 7.3 3-point shots a game last season and connected on only 2.6 of them (36 percent). To put that into perspective, Detroit's starting backcourt of Chauncey Billups and Richard Hamilton didn't take that many 3s per game combined (and made 40 percent).
Larry hates 3-point shots and hates them even more when you miss them. That's bad news for Crawford because he doesn't do much else. On offense, he rarely gets to the line (averaging fewer than one free throw per quarter) and has a pedestrian 2-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio. He gathers fewer than three rebounds per game, which is weak for a 6-5 guard. And he's a lazy defender to boot.
He does have great size at the point, when he's allowed to play there, but doesn't have the instincts, temperament, unselfishness or self-control that Brown demands out of his point guards.
The problem for Brown and Isiah is finding a trade partner to match the 6 years, $50 million left on Crawford's contract. The Lakers are looking for a point guard and Crawford is familiar with the triangle, but the Lakers are trying to keep bad deals off the books so that they can have cap space in 2007.
The Blazers might be another possibility. The team is trying to get help in the backcourt, and is willing to swap Darius Miles for some help. Brown loves long, athletic forwards like Miles, so that could be a fit. The salaries match up well, though the Knicks would have to wait until the end of August to make a trade because of base-year issues with Miles.
Quentin Richardson, SG/SF: Richardson has many of the same issues Crawford does. He took a whopping eight 3-pointers a game last season with Phoenix, and, like Crawford, made only 36 percent. Combined, he and Crawford averaged more threes than Brown's entire Pistons team last season -- by a lot. He likewise does a poor job of getting to the line.
Two things might keep him in a Knicks uniform. One, Richardson is one of the best rebounding guards in the game. Two, he is excellent at posting up other guards, a skill that was under-utilized in the Suns' go-go style.
Tim Thomas, SF: Thomas knows already what it feels like to play in Brown's doghouse. He also knows what it feels like to be traded by Brown.
The two didn't have a great relationship in Philadelphia and it's tough to see Thomas fitting into Brown's world. The good news for Knicks fans is that Thomas is in the last year of his contract and therefore very tradable.
Look for the Knicks to use both Thomas and Penny Hardaway's expiring contract to pick up players Brown covets.
Besides, both Isiah and Brown are high on super soph Trevor Ariza and want to give him a chance to blossom in New York.
Maurice Taylor, Malik Rose, Jerome Williams, Michael Sweetney and David Lee, PF: The Knicks have five, yes five, undersized power forwards. Rose, Williams and Lee are the type of gritty, blue-collar fours Brown likes. Sweetney looks like he has enough potential to keep around. Taylor is probably the odd man out there if the Knicks can find a taker. His combination of lots of shooting, no rebounding and no defense probably won't sit well with Brown.
Channing Frye, PF/C: He's long and pretty athletic, which Brown should like. But Frye isn't the toughest guy in the world, isn't a great rebounder and prefers finesse to brute strength in the paint. He'll be a project under Brown and probably won't see the light of day for the next year or so.
Jerome James, C: This is where Brown will earn his paycheck. If he can get any sort of effort out of James, this won't be a bad signing for the Knicks. But as Sonics fans can attest, Nate McMillan tried everything in the book and gave up.
Look for James to be the first guy that Brown proclaims love for and puts in the doghouse in the next breath.
Brown took the clippers to the playoffs...
If he can do that... he can do ANYTHING in basketball....
LB will love Malik. He's exactly the type of player he tended to stock up on in Philly: hustles and with limited offensive game.
LB sucks.
July 28, 2005
New Knicks Coach Promises Only to Do His Best
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
The New York Knicks introduced Larry Brown as their new head basketball coach today with the hope that Mr. Brown's history of turning mediocre teams into le contenders will work for a storied franchise that has struggled in recent years.
The Knicks, whose $100 million payroll is the highest in basketball, will pay the Brooklyn-born Mr. Brown about $10 million a season - a salary that will make him the best-paid coach in league history, and among the highest paid in all professional sports.
"I can't promise wins and losses," Mr. Brown said today at a news conference at Madison Square Garden. "But I promise every single day, as a staff, we'll do our very best to make people proud of our franchise and our players and the way we play."
Mr. Brown, 64, is as well known for wandering from job to job as he is for his basketball achievements, which include an N.B.A. le, an N.C.A.A. championship and a spot in the N.B.A. Hall of Fame. The Knicks will be Mr. Brown's eighth N.B.A. team. He also coached an A.B.A. team and the University of Kansas, where he won a national collegiate le in 1988.
But Mr. Brown, who joked about his itinerant nature, said the Knicks will be his final coaching job - maybe.
"God, I think I say that everywhere I've been," he said, but added: "I know this will be my last stop. You know, basketball started for me in this city and you know, I want to be here when it's finally time for me to stop."
Mr. Brown has had health problems in recent years, including hip replacement and bladder surgery.
Mr. Brown grew up watching the Knicks being coached by one of his heroes, Red Holzman. Mr. Holzman - who died in 1998, and won championships with the Knicks in 1970 and 1973 - is the only coach to lead the team to the N.B.A. le.
The Knicks, who played in the N.B.A.'s first game in 1946, made the playoffs every year from the 1987-1988 season to the 2000-2001 season, but have had several disappointing seasons in a row despite the team's large payroll. Last season, they finished 33-49.
Because the Knicks charge the highest ticket prices in the league, they are under more pressure than most other basketball franchises to win games and contend for championships every year. But because the team has no room under the N.B.A.'s salary cap to sign a premier player, they courted Mr. Brown aggressively, in order to try to change their fortunes without rebuilding the entire team.
In each of Mr. Brown's last two seasons as coach of the Detroit Pistons, the team went 54-28 and won the Eastern Conference playoff le. In 2004, the Pistons beat the Los Angeles Lakers for the N.B.A. championship. This year, the Pistons lost to the San Antonio Spurs in the seventh and final game of the championship series.
Mr. Brown, noted for his ability to teach players basic basketball skills and for his belief in ball movement on the court, has turned around nearly every franchise he has coached, including the Los Angeles Clippers, the San Antonio Spurs, the New Jersey Nets and the Philadelphia 76ers, who reached the N.B.A. finals in 2001.
"It's not often you can say with certainty that you've added one of the best to your organizations," said Isiah Thomas, the team's president of basketball operations. "Larry has won every place he's gone."
He'll be there 3 years max and then get another buyout for 9 mil.
I wonder what happens the first time Malik puts his jersey over his head and the guy he is covering scores.
The Knicks aren't afraid to spend money so I'm sure Brown will find himself some players. I think the Knicks will need a year to improve though.
LB will soon find that his "dream job" is really a nightmare.
The Clippers can no longer claim to be be the most inept team in the NBA.
Two consulting American adults practice full-frontal huggery in public.
Where is Ric Santorum when we really need him?
"There oughta be a law ..."
Last edited by boutons; 07-28-2005 at 04:37 PM.
The New York Times
July 29, 2005
Brown Plans to Sharpen Defense, Rebounding
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:40 a.m. ET
NEW YORK (AP) -- Larry Brown made a few things clear at his first public appearance as coach of the New York Knicks: Isiah Thomas will still have final say on personnel moves, Herb Williams will be the coach in case of emergency, and patience will be a necessary commodity for everyone.
''It's going to be ugly early, I can promise you that. That's been my M.O., but it's going to get better,'' Brown promised Thursday after being introduced as the 22nd head coach in franchise history.
The Knicks are coming off a 33-win season in which they missed the playoffs for the third time in four years, and Thomas has placed the team in a long-term rebuilding mode that will make it difficult for Brown to perform his trademark quick turnaround.
Brown said he would emphasize defense, rebounding and unselfishness from the first day of training camp, and predicted he'll drive Thomas ''crazy'' with his requests for personnel changes as his tenure unfolds.
Thomas will retain final say on personnel moves, but Brown will wield all the influence regarding who plays, how much they play, and whether those players will remain in New York long-term.
''You're not always blessed with a roster that's what you really wanted,'' Brown said, explaining that he will make his feelings known to management. ''I'm going to tell them what I think and how we can get better, and the end result is that we have the same goals.''
The Knicks pulled out all the stops for Brown's introduction, flashing ''Welcome Back, Larry'' on the marquee outside the arena, putting together a clip of Brown's career highlights -- even finding footage of him sinking a two-handed set shot -- and serving cheesecake and New York-style overstuffed sandwiches to a crowd of media members that numbered in the hundreds.
Brown's wife and children sat in the front row near Williams, who will join Brown's staff as an assistant coach and who Brown said would run the team in the event his health problems force him to miss any time.
Brown's contract was believed to be for four years with a salary of at least $8 million annually. Had Brown turned down the job, the Knicks would have given it to Williams after he guided the team over the final 43 games last season.
''My greatest hope is that we're going to be good for a long time, and he (Williams) is going to be the next coach of the New York Knicks,'' Brown said.
His face tanned after more than a week of playing golf near his summer home, his appearance perfect in a dark suit, light blue shirt and gray tie, Brown called himself ''a young 64'' as he soaked up the spotlight, waxed nostalgic and tried to keep expectations in line with reality.
The Knicks' roster is overstocked with undersized power forwards and trigger-happy shooting guards, and the team's one star -- point guard Stephon Marbury -- will be asked to change from the shoot-first, pass-second scorer he's been for nine NBA seasons into the type of playmaker and offensive initiator Chauncey Billups became in Detroit.
The adjustments made by Billups helped the Pistons reach the NBA Finals the past two seasons, and the degree of acceptance that Marbury shows will go a long way toward determining whether he'll be a long-term part of the Knicks' pursuit of ending the franchise's 32-year championship drought.
''I don't think by any means, from talking to Isiah, that this is a finished product,'' Brown said. ''This is a work in progress.''
The Knicks will be Brown's eighth NBA coaching job in a career (not including college jobs at Kansas and UCLA) that has taken him to Detroit, Philadelphia, Indiana, Los Angeles, San Antonio, New Jersey and Denver.
This chapter will be different, however, because of the fondness Brown has felt for the Knicks since he was growing up in Brooklyn and Long Beach, N.Y.
Brown recalled taking the train to Manhattan and stopping afterward at bars where the players would congregate after games, remembering how odd it was to see opposing players fraternize.
He also recalled the admiration he felt for former Knicks coaches Joe Lapchick and Red Holzman, saying the first thing he often did when he came into the Garden with opposing teams was to look up to the rafters to see a banner with the number ''613,'' representing the number of Holzman's career coaching victories.
Brown's affinity for New York basketball is part of his love of the game, a feeling nurtured through the compe iveness he learned on the city's asphalt courts.
''I grew up on a playground where if you lost, you went to the back of the line and wouldn't play for a while,'' Brown said. ''And if you took a bad shot, one of the bigger guys would crack you,''
Brown will try to transfer that passion to his newest team, and the players who don't buy into his program will be the ones exiled to a life somewhere other than at Madison Square Garden.
The Knicks' hierarchy is fed up with the mediocrity and malaise that has enveloped the franchise for nearly a half-decade. The hiring of Brown sent a message to their fans that the man guiding the team harbors the same yearning for success as the die-hards clad in orange and blue sitting in the stands.
''The commitment they made to me, I don't take that lightly,'' Brown said, predicting this will be the last stop of his coaching career. ''I'm not here to retire.''
* Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
man i hate liars...
if you can't keep your word don't even dare state it in public
if he can take the Sixers to the freakin Finals....he can do anything...
My thoughts exactly. He may be a good coach, but anything he says now must be taken with a huge dose of salt.
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