Posted by djsunyc:

Posted by Marv:

Posted by BlueSeats:

Posted by Marv:

larry brown has always had a serious problem with his judgement when it comes to how he deals with people. ask folks in nj, detroit, denver, nyc, etc. it's not soemthing incidental imo - it's greatly lowered his overall effectiveness and legacy as a coach.

yeah, why should anyone have to put up with his crap when there are so many losing coaches with sweet hearts.

several franchises ended up feeling really burned by him. he pulled the rug out from under them, negotiated his next job while still employed, bailed out during playoff runs. left a lot of setbacks in his wake. he was saved for many years by the daily social work that pat croce was doing trying to patch together relationships in philly. if larry's goal in ny was to teach young players the right way to play then he could have gone about that task considerably more effectively and successfully than what he ended up doing.

you were funnier before you took your hiatus.

Posted by Bippity10:

Listen, if you sign Brown and don't know he is a diva then you are an idiot. He's proven it over and over again so you can't be surprised when things happen. Instead you deal with his antics and let him build your team. If you don't want to deal with his antics, there is no shame in that, not many people do. But then, don't hire the guy.

Posted by Bippity10:

Posted by TMS:

Posted by Bippity10:

Listen, if you sign Brown and don't know he is a diva then you are an idiot. He's proven it over and over again so you can't be surprised when things happen. Instead you deal with his antics and let him build your team. If you don't want to deal with his antics, there is no shame in that, not many people do. But then, don't hire the guy.

the Knicks hired the right coach but allowed Marbury to run the team... it was a recipe for disaster from the very beginning.

That was the crux of Isiah's problem. He let the players rule the roost and us fans went right along with it.

Posted by GallOfFame:

Knicks 19-25
Bobcats 19-26

Knicks 2-0 season series with 2 more to play. Trade deadline could be the difference between who makes it and who fakes it. All I have to say if we barely make the playoff with a chitty asss record we stand a good chance to miss the following yr because the teams that won't make it have a better chance of improving their team vs us. I really don't understand the value in making the playoffs when we owe Utah a pick next yr, I really don't

Posted by TMS:

Posted by GallOfFame:

Knicks 19-25
Bobcats 19-26

Knicks 2-0 season series with 2 more to play. Trade deadline could be the difference between who makes it and who fakes it. All I have to say if we barely make the playoff with a chitty asss record we stand a good chance to miss the following yr because the teams that won't make it have a better chance of improving their team vs us. I really don't understand the value in making the playoffs when we owe Utah a pick next yr, I really don't

so our young players can get that valuable playoff experience that helped launch the careers of Mike Sweetney & Frank Williams apparently.

Posted by Allanfan20:

We say every year how those teams will be better, yet they aren't.

Larry Brown lost in the NCAA Finals with UCLA in 1980. But he came back to win it at Kansas in 1988.

Brown fell in the NBA Finals with Philadelphia in 2001. But he returned to win it for Detroit in 2004.

The Brown-coached Americans fell short in the 2004 Olympics, settling for a bronze medal. But similarities end here because the Hall of Famer won't be getting another chance to head an Olympic team.

"When you represent your country, it killed me," Brown, who will lead Charlotte against the Nuggets tonight at the Pepsi Center, said about not winning gold in 2004. "I think it killed (assistants) Roy Williams, Gregg Popovich and Oliver Purnell, and all those 12 (players)."

But some of those players have grown from that experience. Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony was one of four holdovers from 2004 to have won Olympic gold in 2008.

The problems between Brown and Anthony in Athens in 2004 have been well-chronicled. Anthony played little and Brown said he didn't buy into the team concept.

When Anthony returns tonight after missing 10 games with a broken hand and runs into Brown, no doubt memories of 2004 will resurface. But a wiser Anthony, 24, looks back on his Athens experience as having helped in his quest to stand on the podium in Beijing.

"It just made me a better person, a better player," Anthony said. "I took that as motivation and inspiration and turned everything around. I turned a negative into a positive.

"I never had a problem with (Brown) as a man or a person, and he's a hell of a coach, a Hall of Fame coach. There's no way I would be able to go out and disrespect that guy."

Brown is "proud" of Anthony coming back to claim gold. But this old-school coach said he wouldn't have done anything different with Anthony in 2004.

"He didn't go to the Olympics thinking about winning a gold medal at 19 (actually 20)," Brown said. "He went to the Olympics thinking he was going to play.

"That's the nature of the game of our young kids going to the NBA. When they get older, then they say, 'I want to be on a winning (team)' . . . I don't hold anything against Carmelo. . . . I think he's a phenomenal player. . . . I thought he was a good kid, but just a 19-year-old kid."

Brown overall makes no apologies about 2004. He simply believes the team was dealt a bad hand.

In the 2003 Olympic qualifying tournament, Team USA went 10-0. That included a 106-73 win over Argentina, which would mine Olympic gold in 2004.

But the following year, nearly all of the top players defected, many due to terrorism fears in Greece. That left Brown with an extremely young roster, including LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, who, like Anthony, were coming off their rookie seasons.

"(USA Basketball) put together a team at the last minute," Brown said. "It wasn't a team. . . . They just picked guys at random."

But times sure changed after that. The year after the Athens disaster, Hall of Fame executive Jerry Colangelo took over the selection process.

Players had to make a three-summer commitment. And while the Americans, under coach Mike Krzyzewski, settled for bronze at the 2006 World Championships, it all came together last summer.

"(Popovich) said (the team assembled by Colangelo) had 95 practices and we had 15," Brown said. "They did it the right way. . . . They had three years to sort it out. . . . If we had three years, I'd take our chances."

Despite not winning gold, Brown believes the 2004 players have been unfairly criticized.

"Those guys all ought to be commended because of all the guys who wouldn't go because they were afraid," Brown said.

Brown has been commended by few. But he's willing to live with it.

"I won a gold medal as a player (in 1964)," he said. "I was an assistant (on the 2000 gold-medal team). . . . Of course, you wanted to be part of a gold medal Olympics team (as a head coach). But I'm pretty proud of what those guys accomplished."