The big story is clearly Larry Brown's return to the Palace tonight, but for some reason I'm not that inclined to talk about it too much. I'll point you in the direction of some interesting articles -- here's Larry being bitter, here's Mitch Albom being bitter -- but I'm just not interested to join in the fray.
Why? I'm not exactly sure. I was pretty fed up with Brown before he even left, and now that he's gone I'd rather just be done with him. Besides, nothing I could say about Brown would be that informative -- the book on him has been written several times before. We were fooled after 2004 to think that perhaps he became a changed man, but his wanderlust and pessimism returned, just like it did when he was in Denver, and New Jersey, and Kansas, and San Antonio, and Los Angeles, and Indiana, and Philadelphia. There was a time that I thought he'd finish his career in Detroit, but in the whole scheme of things, his stay here was just a brief chapter in a 22-year (and counting) coaching career.
And for that I'm both disappointed in him and weary of talking about him, not because I think he left the Pistons in worse shape than when he found them (he most definitely did not), but because it seems he spent just as much time here plotting an exit strategy Flirting mid-season with the Knicks and Lakers, talking to Cleveland in the playoffs, complaining endlessly about how awful he felt after the brawl and as such he wasn't sure he even wanted to coach anymore. . . as he did coaching. So his departure didn't feel all that sudden, you know? It was the regrettable but inevitable end to a drawn-out drama he perpetuated all season. And when something leaves a bad taste in your mouth for so long and eventually leaves, you're kind of just happy it's gone, and you're not all that fired about remembering just how bad it tasted.
Back & Bitter [Detroit News]
MITCH ALBOM: Doing things the right way tonight [Detroit Free Press]