Ailene Voisin: Don't think about it -- call Larry Brown
By Ailene Voisin -- Bee Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Larry Brown is your guy. End of pursuit. Kings owners and officials can spend the next several days listing criteria and cogitating, can waste weeks interviewing other credible candidates, but there is one answer to the only questions that really matter.
Who is the best available coach?
Who turns this scrimmage into a rout?
Who desperately craves time salvaging his life/career in a rehab center like Arco Arena, that place of group hugs, unconditional love and unfailing support?
This is almost too easy, the answer right there in black and white. Larry Brown. Larry Brown. Larry Brown. Did we mention Larry Brown?
If Geoff Petrie and the Maloofs are intent on pursuing a championship, are confident they can undertake the offseason moves necessary to improve the supporting cast around Ron Artest, Mike Bibby and the emerging Kevin Martin, then one must assume that they already have placed a call to Brown’s agent, Joe Glass.
The initial interview should have been scheduled hours ago. The respective accountants should be swapping offsetting salary figures with the New York Knicks as you sip your morning latte.
The Kings’ medical staff at UC Davis should be sharing pertinent information regarding bladder conditions and reflux – two of Brown’s ailments – with specialists in the Hamptons, where the coach is recovering from his latest procedure.
“We definitely plan to get together and set up some frames of reference, establish some sort or order,” a noncommittal Petrie said Tuesday, seemingly in no rush to judgment, nor particularly keen on Brown. “The main time frame is to get the guy we want, or who we think has the chance of doing the best job. We have a long list to go through.”
This is not a good sign. That list should be short, if a bit of a reach. This is no time to think small town, small time, to become parochial and ignore the world outside the West Coast.
Portland (former home of most Kings basketball personnel) isn’t the only city with talented employees to recruit. New York, for instance, remains both mecca and melting pot. Bill Bradley, Walt Frazier, Willis Reed and Dave DeBusschere once played there. Unfortunately for the departing Brown, Stephon Marbury is taking a more current turn at stardom, and taking the Knicks right down with him.
So why hire Larry in Sacramento? For the same reasons for hiring Larry in Denver, New Jersey, San Antonio, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Detroit, etc., and we won’t even mention his college visits. And they’re all visits.
Brown and anyone is a two-year marriage at best.
But what a passionate two years! Prospects for a new arena heat up immediately. Before Brown self-destructs one way or another, by word and/or by deed, and sometimes by both,the 65-old-year-year-old New Yorker drives everyone within hearing distance to peak performances. That’s the routine. The locations change, but remarkably, the results remain static: Good players develop into great players (Reggie Miller, Chauncey Billups). Great teams become champions (Detroit Pistons).
The Kings’ ownpoint guard, Bibby, emerged as a surprisingly adequate defender while playing for Brown on the 2003 U.S. Olympic team at the qualifying tournament in Puerto Rico. “If you want to play,” Bibby said at the time, explaining his inordinate number of steals and his enthusiasm for outlet passes and an up-tempo pace, “you have to play defense. And I want to play.”
I
ndeed, until Brown arrived in his hometown and joined general manager Isiah Thomas in what has proven to be a fatal attraction, he was regarded as one of the game’s premier tacticians and perhaps its ultimate teacher. A stickler for fundamentals, and certainly for defense, he consistently extracted near-perfect performances out of participants in an imperfect game.
His issues are more personal, his mere presence an uncensored, uncontrollable force. He says what he wants. He says what he thinks he thinks. He invariably says too much. And as intractable as he is regarding certain players – andhis disapproval of the mercurial Marbury is as intense as it is permanent, tracing back to the Athens Olympics – Brown never has been able to repress his wandering eye.
He negotiated with the Kansas Jayhawks while coaching the Nets. He pursued a Cleveland Cavaliers opening while coaching the Pistons into the NBA Finals. He left a fabulous Pistons squad – a club that epitomizes teamwork and unselfishness, two of his most cherished values – for a Knicks roster that would cause Red Holzman to regurgitate. He just can’t seem to help himself, though for a while, he helps everyone else.
What’s so terrible about that?
What’s the hang-up on longevity, anyway?
Keep it short and sweet. Change the culture around here. Give the man a call.
Link
By Ailene Voisin -- Bee Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Larry Brown is your guy. End of pursuit. Kings owners and officials can spend the next several days listing criteria and cogitating, can waste weeks interviewing other credible candidates, but there is one answer to the only questions that really matter.
Who is the best available coach?
Who turns this scrimmage into a rout?
Who desperately craves time salvaging his life/career in a rehab center like Arco Arena, that place of group hugs, unconditional love and unfailing support?
This is almost too easy, the answer right there in black and white. Larry Brown. Larry Brown. Larry Brown. Did we mention Larry Brown?
If Geoff Petrie and the Maloofs are intent on pursuing a championship, are confident they can undertake the offseason moves necessary to improve the supporting cast around Ron Artest, Mike Bibby and the emerging Kevin Martin, then one must assume that they already have placed a call to Brown’s agent, Joe Glass.
The initial interview should have been scheduled hours ago. The respective accountants should be swapping offsetting salary figures with the New York Knicks as you sip your morning latte.
The Kings’ medical staff at UC Davis should be sharing pertinent information regarding bladder conditions and reflux – two of Brown’s ailments – with specialists in the Hamptons, where the coach is recovering from his latest procedure.
“We definitely plan to get together and set up some frames of reference, establish some sort or order,” a noncommittal Petrie said Tuesday, seemingly in no rush to judgment, nor particularly keen on Brown. “The main time frame is to get the guy we want, or who we think has the chance of doing the best job. We have a long list to go through.”
This is not a good sign. That list should be short, if a bit of a reach. This is no time to think small town, small time, to become parochial and ignore the world outside the West Coast.
Portland (former home of most Kings basketball personnel) isn’t the only city with talented employees to recruit. New York, for instance, remains both mecca and melting pot. Bill Bradley, Walt Frazier, Willis Reed and Dave DeBusschere once played there. Unfortunately for the departing Brown, Stephon Marbury is taking a more current turn at stardom, and taking the Knicks right down with him.
So why hire Larry in Sacramento? For the same reasons for hiring Larry in Denver, New Jersey, San Antonio, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Detroit, etc., and we won’t even mention his college visits. And they’re all visits.
Brown and anyone is a two-year marriage at best.
But what a passionate two years! Prospects for a new arena heat up immediately. Before Brown self-destructs one way or another, by word and/or by deed, and sometimes by both,the 65-old-year-year-old New Yorker drives everyone within hearing distance to peak performances. That’s the routine. The locations change, but remarkably, the results remain static: Good players develop into great players (Reggie Miller, Chauncey Billups). Great teams become champions (Detroit Pistons).
The Kings’ ownpoint guard, Bibby, emerged as a surprisingly adequate defender while playing for Brown on the 2003 U.S. Olympic team at the qualifying tournament in Puerto Rico. “If you want to play,” Bibby said at the time, explaining his inordinate number of steals and his enthusiasm for outlet passes and an up-tempo pace, “you have to play defense. And I want to play.”
I
ndeed, until Brown arrived in his hometown and joined general manager Isiah Thomas in what has proven to be a fatal attraction, he was regarded as one of the game’s premier tacticians and perhaps its ultimate teacher. A stickler for fundamentals, and certainly for defense, he consistently extracted near-perfect performances out of participants in an imperfect game.
His issues are more personal, his mere presence an uncensored, uncontrollable force. He says what he wants. He says what he thinks he thinks. He invariably says too much. And as intractable as he is regarding certain players – andhis disapproval of the mercurial Marbury is as intense as it is permanent, tracing back to the Athens Olympics – Brown never has been able to repress his wandering eye.
He negotiated with the Kansas Jayhawks while coaching the Nets. He pursued a Cleveland Cavaliers opening while coaching the Pistons into the NBA Finals. He left a fabulous Pistons squad – a club that epitomizes teamwork and unselfishness, two of his most cherished values – for a Knicks roster that would cause Red Holzman to regurgitate. He just can’t seem to help himself, though for a while, he helps everyone else.
What’s so terrible about that?
What’s the hang-up on longevity, anyway?
Keep it short and sweet. Change the culture around here. Give the man a call.
Link
