Posted by BlueSeats:

Posted by BRIGGS:


i dont think thats true at all. that assuming 29 other GMs have had direct contact and know the character and insides of every player on every team. if that is the case why is jason williams the starting PG of a finals team? beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but a guy like LB carries heavy weight in this league and what he says does matter. if he said marbury is a great player, one of the best hes been around, yet doesnt fit directly into the style of play he wants to install--that hed be a much better fit for an uptempo team--rather than slam slam slam--thats makes a difference--for example.

if a car dealer was selling a car that he said scked--how many would he sell?

Yeah, you're probably right. Guys like you and rvhoss can see their true value but GMs who've spent their whole lives in the sport lack your analytical abilities and your critical eye for talent.

Not only that but as a rule fail to utilize their connections to scouts, players and coaches who've played with, worked out, and/or coached these players before. And forget speaking with their own coaches who develop defensive schemes and gameplans against them. They simply read the "advertisements" and buy sight unseen.

I think you are moving outside of the box here. The bottom line -- LB is talking down his employer's assets while being heavily paid. Is Stephon Marbury as bad a player that is being portrayed by LB or by some people here---NO! Could/would I start to think twice if I was interested in acquiring him after LB's rants? Of course--this is BIG business--these are huge contracts--LB's rants could sway someone away from Marbury. Everything counts with high stakes. A lot of this is not reality---its almost unfathomable to think you would be insuboirdinate publicly 6 months into a job where your employer just paid you that much. LB should've kept his mouth shut and there is no question that he devalued some of these guys.

I didnt attack you personally as you did to me, but the only thing I see coming out of your thesis-like posts is negativity. You write long paragraphs of critiscm time and time again fixated on basically the same subject. When I see how YOU would improve the team, what YOU would do in the draft or transaction wise etc...--give me a ring--but I doubt you sway far from your boring rhetorical diatribes.

By the way did you notice jerome dyson eating up wayne ellington in that AAU tape I posted on the board? Unbelievable 35 1st half points coming from every angle Ive got a pretty good eye for talent and Ive been involved in basketball all over the board since I was a tike. I like watching 7-8th graders as much as I like nBA--at times i think I like them more

Posted by BRIGGS:

Posted by BlueSeats:

Posted by BRIGGS:


i dont think thats true at all. that assuming 29 other GMs have had direct contact and know the character and insides of every player on every team. if that is the case why is jason williams the starting PG of a finals team? beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but a guy like LB carries heavy weight in this league and what he says does matter. if he said marbury is a great player, one of the best hes been around, yet doesnt fit directly into the style of play he wants to install--that hed be a much better fit for an uptempo team--rather than slam slam slam--thats makes a difference--for example.

if a car dealer was selling a car that he said scked--how many would he sell?

Yeah, you're probably right. Guys like you and rvhoss can see their true value but GMs who've spent their whole lives in the sport lack your analytical abilities and your critical eye for talent.

Not only that but as a rule fail to utilize their connections to scouts, players and coaches who've played with, worked out, and/or coached these players before. And forget speaking with their own coaches who develop defensive schemes and gameplans against them. They simply read the "advertisements" and buy sight unseen.

I think you are moving outside of the box here. The bottom line -- LB is talking down his employer's assets while being heavily paid. Is Stephon Marbury as bad a player that is being portrayed by LB or by some people here---NO! Could/would I start to think twice if I was interested in acquiring him after LB's rants? Of course--this is BIG business--these are huge contracts--LB's rants could sway someone away from Marbury. Everything counts with high stakes. A lot of this is not reality---its almost unfathomable to think you would be insuboirdinate publicly 6 months into a job where your employer just paid you that much. LB should've kept his mouth shut and there is no question that he devalued some of these guys.

I didnt attack you personally as you did to me, but the only thing I see coming out of your thesis-like posts is negativity. You write long paragraphs of critiscm time and time again fixated on basically the same subject. When I see how YOU would improve the team, what YOU would do in the draft or transaction wise etc...--give me a ring--but I doubt you sway far from your boring rhetorical diatribes.

By the way did you notice jerome dyson eating up wayne ellington in that AAU tape I posted on the board? Unbelievable 35 1st half points coming from every angle Ive got a pretty good eye for talent and Ive been involved in basketball all over the board since I was a tike. I like watching 7-8th graders as much as I like nBA--at times i think I like them more

I certainly didn't mean to attack you in the way you took it. Not in the least. I was peaking solely to your insinuation that GMs are less knowledgeable than fans with regard to players with 10 years in the league and they rely on "advertisments" for their info.

And I don't follow college ball and therefore stay out of draft discussions. I value your input into those topics more than my own. I also don't try to be all knowing on all things or to have something to offer for everybody. I just talk about those few things I feel strongly about, and it's fine if you find me tedious, boring and irrelevant. Sometimes I do too.

Now, where I really get tedious is in trying to separate reality from mythology. You keep referring to disasterous LB "rants." Could you quote a few?

As I said elsewhere, until Marbury went at brown with his stuff, like, "I think he's insecure", the worst I heard from Brown was that he "doesn't have heads out there to take pressure off the kids." You seem to be insisting this killed all our players value.

You said that Larry should have said something like this:

"if he said marbury is a great player, one of the best hes been around, yet doesnt fit directly into the style of play he wants to install--that hed be a much better fit for an uptempo team--rather than slam slam slam--thats makes a difference--for example."

Well, most people actually feel that marbury is better in a halfcourt system running the pick and pop, but putting that aside, these were LBs thoughts on March 16th:

“I want Stephon here, this year and next,” said Brown. “Sure, if he’ll buy into what we try to do. I don’t think that impacts him in a negative way at all. I think it’ll help him. There’s no doubt in my mind he can do the things I ask him to do.”

These were his end of season comments:


Q: What are your thoughts on Stephon Marbury?
Brown: We’re on the same page. I met with him …again, I think I’ve expressed this numerous times, before he got hurt, I thought he was doing everything he possibly could to try to play the right way and I thought he was playing great. I told him again that and I said all I want you to allow me to do is coach you. We didn’t talk very long, but I think he understood what I was talking about. He expressed to me he wants to be part of this. I kind of told him that if there was a trade out there that made us better and he was involved, he might not be here. But as far as I was concerned, I was perfectly comfortable with him helping us improve.”

Q: Steph said you made him a better man. Does that comment surprise you?
Brown: He said that to me. All I told him is that the only thing I ever want is to make players better and to feel like you’ve helped them in doing something that they obviously want to do well. I was disappointed in our record. I was disappointed in people maybe pointing a finger at him and blaming him because of what went on this year, but when you’re the coach or you’re the best player or you’re the president, things tend to go our way and rightly so. Again, I think this kid tries to go out and win and he plays hard and I’m hopeful that he’ll get better and better.

Brown's criticisms of Steph just about always had to do with the fact that Steph was opposed to Brown's efforts, not that he was a bad player.

I simply think it's misguided to assume that the things LB said about Brown carry more weight in GMs minds that the fact he's already on his fourth team and on shaky ground as we speak; that Isiah had to tell him he's the worst defensive guard in the league; That isiah had to tell him to carry himself like a man; that he's often estranged from teammates, if they don't want to kill him; that he brings all kinds of embarrassment to the franchise with his "I'm the best" and "I'm Starbuy" comments; that guys like D'Antoni and Cousy don't think he's a point guard; that Flip Saunders teld us how hard he had to work to get the "good" Marbury 80% of the time up from 25%; that he was insolent with Larry and difficult with Lenny, etc, etc.

I'm really not out to insult you, just trying to keep some perspective here. Troublesome players get talked about all the time in this league and the GMs really aren't getting their info from postgame press conferences, like us, they really are much closer to the scene and have their heads in the mix. Marbury's reputation is 10 years old now and Larry gave us little new perspective on him.

Actually Brown had a LOT more negative things to say about Steph. I remember one comment in particular where he said that Steph wasn't capable of keeping up with younger guards and that he's not getting any younger. This was really just silly, since guys that he wants to bring in are often older than steph and I don't believe that many of the top guards in the league any really any faster than Steph. SURE the FEW NEW guards may have a step or two on Steph, but that's not surprising. Besides I don't recall any other guards in the league being able to stop Steph either, even at his current age.

The thing is that LB didn't just stomp on Steph, he did it to the whole roster and that's NEVER a good thing. He divorced himself from the team as early as Training Camp. He went on Mike and the MadDog and told the story about some player asking him how to know when the shot clock is running down or something like that and that wasn't right at all. At this point Larry is a joke. He's not able to control his bad habits at all. When your boss tells you to shut up and you just keep chirping away then you stand the chance of being fired.

That report about Steph means NOTHING to me. IF you're a great coach then you have to KNOW your players and what works and what doesn't work in terms of motivation. He's worked with Steph before and he should KNOW what ticks him off and what works. Steph has issues, but then so do a lot of players. NONE of that excuses the job that LB did this year. I really don't get your point at all. How does any of this explain why LB did so many strange and destructive things this year? LB is not GOD and he isn't the best coach in the game. He blew his one chance to come home and succeed and he has no one to blame but himself, for acting like an ASS.

IF Steph rolling his eyes is so bad what do you call blatantly disregarding an ORDER from your BOSS? He never thinks anything is his fault. Somehow people think that this team can't go on to win games without him, but they CAN. LB wasn't the architect of the one team he won a title with and he certainly hasn't in the offseason figured out all the moves we need to make this team a contender. I'd love to keep him, but its too late now.

Posted by nixluva:

That report about Steph means NOTHING to me. IF you're a great coach then you have to KNOW your players and what works and what doesn't work in terms of motivation. He's worked with Steph before and he should KNOW what ticks him off and what works. Steph has issues, but then so do a lot of players. NONE of that excuses the job that LB did this year. I really don't get your point at all. How does any of this explain why LB did so many strange and destructive things this year?

Some of you think I'm so about Larry brown. I'm not, I'm about what he came into and what he had to deal with.

You say you don't get my point with the report. It was in response to your statement that Brown divorced himself from the team in training camp. Well guess what, they came into camp out of shape, mouthy and resistant on day one. That can be summed up as unmotivated, and that was his challenge all year, to find a way to motivate these guys. Playing for the Knicks, playing for millions of dollars, playing for a hall of fame coach; none of that could motivate them to come ready to learn and/or perform. But in spite of that he's supposed to push all the right buttons for each and every player? Be realistic.

And then some guys like to make it sound like there were such simple solutions, like sweet-talking the guys or playing up-tempo. Well Lenny was a pretty sweet talker and it got him all of a 2-15 january and him deciding coming here was the biggest mistake of his career.

And marbury never complained about tempo all of '04-'05 when he walked the ball up every possession, even getting and 8-second violation. Why? Because he still controlled the offense, he got to do whatever he wanted. It wasn't about tempo for him, it was freedom. And why was up-tempo so successful for Nate in Seattle but not Portland? Could it have anything to do with the difference in caliber of players between the teams? What about character of players?

IF Steph rolling his eyes is so bad what do you call blatantly disregarding an ORDER from your BOSS?

But Steph blatantly disregarded the same orders and you care nothing of it.

He never thinks anything is his fault. Somehow people think that this team can't go on to win games without him, but they CAN. LB wasn't the architect of the one team he won a title with and he certainly hasn't in the offseason figured out all the moves we need to make this team a contender. I'd love to keep him, but its too late now.

First of all, you have zero idea what Brown has or hasn't figured out here so I don't know where that comment comes from.

Second, I happen to agree it's too late. I said as much within a day or so of the report he'd be bought out when management didn't refute it. at that point he was already disempowered, and a disempowered coach is useless.

This isn't as much about Larry as you think, it's about why coaches constantly fail here. A COY and two HOFers have failed to get off the ground in 2.5 years under Isiah and you think nothing of it!!!

Now I also asked for reminders of the worst "bashes" and "rants" from Brown and your good memory provided one, so thank you. You wrote:

I remember one comment in particular where he said that Steph wasn't capable of keeping up with younger guards and that he's not getting any younger.

Now lets look at that quote in context and tell me if it was the fireable offense you'd perhaps like to make it out to be. I'll post the article in it's entirety:


Originally published on April 1, 2006

Steph now stiff

Injures left knee in loss to Sixers

BY FRANK ISOLA
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

Stephon Marbury exits last night's game after hurting knee, and injured Steve Francis sits it out.
Stephon Marbury limped off the court last night in what could have been his farewell performance as a Knick, or at the very least, as the team's full-time point guard.
Marbury strained the patella tendon in his left knee during the first half of the Philadelphia 76ers' 117-112 victory and spent the second half on the bench in his suit. He watched Allen Iverson turn in his best performance at the Garden in years, scoring 47 points for Philly while Chris Webber added 34.

Marbury will have an MRI today, and with only 11 games remaining, there is a chance that Marbury - who in recent years has been bothered by knee tendinitis - will be shut down for the season.

"Let's see what happens with the MRI and go from there," Larry Brown said after his team fell to 19-51. "We're not going to do anything foolish."

If Marbury's season is over, speculation about his future will begin in earnest. Earlier yesterday, Brown admitted that moving Marbury to shooting guard could be beneficial to both the Knicks and Marbury.

When asked if one of his goals this summer is to acquire a point guard who would allow either Marbury or Steve Francis to be the shooting guard, Brown replied: "I think we definitely need to get a guy who has that mentality to utilize what those kids could do. The more I see Steph, the more convinced I am that he can play both positions. Defensively, without any problem and offensively I think he's great coming off screens and stuff like that."

Brown, who was quick to point out that Marbury "isn't getting any younger," revealed that he has addressed the issue with Knicks president Isiah Thomas. Also, Brown isn't ruling out the possibility of Jamal Crawford or Nate Robinson emerging as the full-time point guard, but that may be a bit of a reach since both Crawford and Robinson are similar to Marbury and Francis: shooting guards in a point guard's body. Last night, with Francis out with a sprained toe, Robinson scored a season-high 34 points in 44 minutes.

A more likely scenario for the Knicks would involve acquiring a point guard, either through free agency (Speedy Claxton) or a trade (Eric Snow, Brevin Knight, Steve Blake). What that means for Marbury is unclear. With three years and $60 million remaining on his contract, Marbury is not easy to trade.

But his public feuds with Brown and the Knicks' horrible season are more than enough incentive for Thomas to trade his one-time prized acquisition. In the event that Marbury stays a Knick, Brown sees him better suited to play shooting guard. Marbury would be amicable to such a move since he asked to be switched to shooting guard back in November.

"I really like him off the ball," Brown said. "I like the way he guards '2' guards. He's hard to post up. He fights through screens. You know, guarding people out on the perimeter, with all this quickness sometimes it's tough for him. He's not getting younger. But I think for short stretches he'll be able to do that."

It's hard to imagine Brown endorsing the idea of bringing Marbury back. In recent weeks, he's talked about changing the culture by adding hard-working players who are committed to playing Brown's way. When Brown took over a losing team in Philadelphia, he surrounded Iverson with players who bought into his message.

"We had similar problems early on, knowing how to use guys, what style we needed to play, what our priorities were," Brown said. "But we got some grinders and tough guys and character guys in there. And Allen's will to win is so special, I think everybody kind of bought in and we became a pretty good team quickly.

"I think we have a pretty good handle on our players and what we need to do, what we have to accomplish. We have a lot of young kids here that I think have gotten better and have a big upside. We've just got to get everybody buying into how we need to play. We have a lot of work ahead."


Those quotes were 90% praise with the one caveat being that Steph might have trouble staying with the quicker twos on the perimeter. It just so happiness that Steph's speed is primarily frontal and less lateral, but unless he's talked about like the best damned PG AND the best damned SG it's considered a major bash.

I witnessed this as the season wore on, that ANYTHING Brown said became fodder for complaints by fans. When he spoke of Nate not showboating while getting burned for 40+ points by his man while we got blown out it was considered "ragging" on poor Nate. Brown was not even allowed to coach the right things anymore by some fans.

These are the things I discuss. There was a context and a culture that surrounded Brown's moves, but so many just want to divorce themselves of all that and propagate myths, like that Brown wants to trade all the kids for broken veterans when he's only traded three in his 30 year career: Hughes, Ariza and TT. Maybe there were more, but none notable.

Anyway, I don't care about Larry. He's a good coach, One of the best in the league. But I'm far more interested in what preceded him and what will follow him. I only speak so much of the past because it is the best predictor of the future.

[Edited by - BlueSeats on 06-12-2006 11:01 PM]

ouch. That's the one thing I have no answer for.