I’ve noticed a couple of articles from random media types calling for the Pistons to bring back Larry Brown — MLive’s Full-Court Press points out a columnist from the Orlando Sentinel as well as ESPN’s Scoop Jackson. I’m not surprised people are suggesting as much (I know a few DBB readers have done so in the comments), but I decided against talking about it because, well, the very idea is just too crazy to hold much weight.
It doesn’t look like this discussion is going away quickly, though, so I suppose I’ll finally offer my two cents:
Do I think Larry Brown could return to the the Pistons? No f-ing way.
Brown alienated the entire franchise with his shenanigans in the 2005 playoffs, and even when his actions made it blantantly obvious that he couldn’t return to Detroit’s bench, he refused to simply walk away, instead finagling a $7 million severance package out of Bill Davidson just weeks before he went on to sign a five-year, $50 million deal with the Knicks.
I think it’s fair to say the entire franchise resents the crap that Brown pulled. I interviewed Dave Wieme, Palace Sports & Entertainment Director of Strategic Communications, back in April, and his most colorful responses came when asked about the former coach:
And then, out of the blue the news comes that he has talked with Cleveland and then the talks with New York.
What? Are you kidding? Why now? Why this? What possibly can be gained?
He has betrayed the team. He has betrayed the organization and he has betrayed the people who have supported him throughout. In this organization, disloyalty is not looked upon very highly. And when it’s disloyalty in public, it falls even further down the hole.
For those of you who think Coach Brown wasn’t disloyal, let me put it to you this way. What would you do with an employee who came to you and said they were going to speak to your direct competitor about the potential for a very high-ranking job in their organization? AND they were going to do it when your annual earnings reports were coming out AND they were going to tell everyone and anyone that they were having these discussions?
What would you do? Exactly…you would fire the person. I think Mr. Davidson put it best when he spoke to Bernie Smilovitz right after Coach Brown was let go. Mr. Davidson basically said it just got to be too much Larry and not enough Pistons. It was all about Larry and we can’t have that. This is a team and as a team, it can’t be all about one person. And so he did the deal.
I know there is some animosity towards Coach Brown, from people in the organization and from the media. Me personally, I still respect the man and what he did for this organization, but I’m also very disappointed in his actions and the way he handled the situation. I think he could have done a much better job and avoided the drama.
I think it’s safe to say that Dave’s feeling about Brown probably mirror the entire organization’s. Brown burned far too many bridges to ever return to Detroit as a coach. But even if he hadn’t, why would we want him back? You could argue that without his distractions, the Pistons might have been a bit more focused in the 2005 playoffs. And besides, the Knicks were the laughingstock of the entire league last year, and that’s almost entirely because of the way Brown jerked around his players, many of whom rode a constant carousel from the starting lineup to the bench to the doghouse and back to the starting lineup again.
Brown has always been a hired gun, but after these last couple of years it’s hard to believe that he’s not simply trying to do whatever it takes to get as much money as possible, his reputation and health be damned. Above and beyond the fact that I don’t think the Pistons’ front office has lost confidence in Flip Saunders, there’s no reason to think that Bill Davidson and Joe Dumars want to play another co-starring role in Brown’s soap opera.
More Larry Brown to Detroit rumors [Full-Court Press]
More Chatter About Larry Brown Returning to the Pistons [True Hoop]
Detroit Bad Boys talks with David Wieme [DBB]
On the 15th of February I wrote this piece on the Knick situation. I am reprinting it as a response to many misguided voices in the basketball sports media who refused to see the light:(present very perceptive Detroit bad boys blog reporter not included,)
BROWN OUT IN THE GARDEN
by SEVENPOINTMAN
I remember sitting behind the basket in the late fifties, at the Old Madison Square Garden, with my father and brother.
The swift moves of Sweetwater Clifton, the bumbling feints and falls of Ray Felix, the gliding
sweeping ballet leaps of Willie Naulls, and best of all the long two-handed arching swish heaves of Richie Guerin. This was a youth well spent.
As I Iook back on those days and the interim between, many fond memories and frustrations, about being a long time Knick fan surface.
But nothing increases my angst more than the present situation. As the evening is beginning and as I prepare myself to watch another Knick game, I ask myself what pleasure can I get from
seeing failure ,and being bored by the same unstable coaching of Larry Brown. I have watched this team,certainly talented and athletic enough to possibly contend in the Eastern conference, be confused and berated by a coach who makes countless mistakes of decision in developing and managing this team. After thirty different starting line-ups, playing odd-ball combinations of players, lengthening and shortening playing time without any reason, not establishing any motion in an offense, and chiding his players to perform when they are not given the training and options to do so, I feel that “Brownie is “not’ doing a heck of a job”. True there have been injuries. True the new players are going through a learning curve. True the contracts of some of the players don’t match their talent and efforts-but these factors call out more for a stable guiding hand with consistent but innovative tactics, to teach confidence and strengthen fundamentals.
I am not sure if it’s burn-out or due to stress, or a result of physical problems, but Larry Brown,
should not be coaching the Knicks for much longer. Of course this must lead, eventually, to eating Brown’s contract. I am sure Dolan will not like this –one bit.
But the writing is on the wall,
We true Knick fans cannot sit through four more years of this.
The Knick players cannot be forced to play under these conditions.
We want to see the raining arcs of threes by Q, the Baby Shaq domination and finesse of Curry,
the cross –over shuffle and sailing shots of Mal, the ever-present grit and leadership of Steph, the
the tenacious courage and skillful panache of Nate, the versatility and gun slinging of Channing ,and the leaping feats of Lee.
Something must be done to make this happen.
So we can have a mature later life well spent.
With the reality of a championship preceding the senility of old age.
We agree with you completely. All we’re saying is when you finally shove him out your door, make sure the shove is in a direction other than ours.
Larry obviously won’t be back here. It’s a shame he burned his bridges last year though, because if he didn’t I’d have him back in a heartbeat. We can resent Brown for his personality, attack-dog agent or wandering eye, but after enduring Flip Saunders we have to give Larry his due. He’s a great coach and we’d be lucky to find someone even 80% as good as he is.
Hack-
I wouldnt equate the Pistons success with Brown or your teams failure to make it to the finals to Flip.
Rick Carlisle was the table- setter for the Pistons-he did the grunt work of creating both a defensive and offensive mentality for your team.
When Brown came in he had all the pieces in place and he used his cranky and abusive style to slipstream talent and potential into two championship runs.
With Carlisle as coach Detroit would have basically accomplished the same result.
As for Flip-he is faced with the best starting line-up in all of basketball-in ability, desire and team cohesion-but he is faced with one of the worst benchs and backup players in the NBA.
Exhaustion and the Flash’s rise to prominence pushed the Heat ahead of the Pistons.
You surely don’t want Larry back-you need more depth and power-sharing of minutes to relieve the burden of the starters-then Flip could bring another championship to Detroit.
We’re still talking about Larry Brown because he’s the guy that lead us to the title. That’s why…plain and simple.
We didn’t really want him to leave in the first place. We’re probably going through the same break-up or divorce problems that all of his former teams’ fans have been going through. He lead the Sixers to the Finals a few years ago, and then rolled out and now look at that team? I know you can hardly compare the Sixers to the Pistons but he lead that sorry team to the Finals.
Plain and simple guys…that’s all. It’ll be different next season, we’ve come to expect greatness from our team. We’ll be back…