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MaRbUrYiSaKnIcK
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Brown comes to town
See Knick deal by Thursday
BY FRANK ISOLA
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
Larry Brown arrives at West Side Heliport last night to talk to Knick brain trust. Next time he comes to town, he may be coach.
The Knicks have entered the final phase of their recruitment of Larry Brown and could have a deal in place with the Hall of Fame coach as early as Thursday.
Brown met with interim head coach Herb Williams last night in Manhattan to discuss the direction of the team and ask Williams to join his coaching staff. Knicks president Isiah Thomas and Garden president Steve Mills also attended the dinner, which lasted two hours.
"I was happy I got a chance to talk to Herb," Brown said from midtown before heading back to the Hamptons late last night. "That was very important for me. But it was a very good meeting."
When asked if he were going to take the job, Brown said, laughing, "You better ask Isiah that."
As recently as last week, Brown said publicly that he wanted Williams to remain head coach. But that was before the Knicks began courting Brown, who grew up a Knicks fan and dreamed of taking over the spot on the bench that once belonged to Red Holzman.
Also yesterday, Joe Glass, Brown's longtime friend and agent, revealed that he has begun discussions with Thomas. The Knicks are expected to offer Brown a five-year contract worth between $50 million and $60 million. Several details still have to be negotiated, including which assistant coaches will remain with the club and whom Brown might want to hire from outside the organization.
People close to Brown insist he is on the verge of agreeing to become the Knicks' coach and that his wife Shelly, who earlier had advised her husband to take a year off, now is encouraging him to take the job.
Brown wanted to first speak to Williams, who's been loyal to the organization and has maintained his dignity during the coaching search that began in late April.
"It is important that I talk to Herb," Brown said before taking the Cablevision helicopter from East Hampton to Manhattan for the dinner at an undisclosed location. "I have a lot of respect for him."
Brown, who reached a buyout agreement with the Detroit Pistons last Tuesday, met for two hours on Sunday with Thomas and Garden chairman James Dolan at Brown's East Hampton summer house. Three days earlier, Thomas visited with Brown on the eastern end of Long Island for four hours.
Glass maintains that Brown is still undecided about whether he wants to coach again. But others say the contract and lure of coaching in his hometown are too persuasive for Brown to turn down.
The Knicks won just 33 games last season and haven't won a playoff series since 2000. Brown has a history of turning losers into winners almost overnight and the Knicks will be as challenging a job as Brown has ever faced. Already, there are reports that Brown feels the Knicks' roster is weak and that major changes need to be made.
Brown will want a say in personnel decisions and it will be interesting to see how Thomas reacts to having a coach with as much power as Brown. Of course, hiring Brown will rate as Thomas' most important move since taking over as president 19 months ago, akin to Dave Checketts hiring Pat Riley more than a decade ago.
In many ways, Brown is walking into a similar situation. The Knicks, desperate for leadership, will be hiring one of the top coaches in the profession. Brown has been to three of the last five NBA Finals and is regarded as a demanding, defensive-minded coach, just like Riley and Jeff Van Gundy.
Brown, 64, is the only coach to win both an NCAA title and an NBA one. He also is known as a coaching nomad who always has his eye out for another challenge. What is troublesome to some in the Knicks organization is that Brown enjoyed two seasons of success in Detroit, followed by a nasty breakup. The Knicks still are years away from contending for a title and by then Brown could be on to his next job.
"If you're telling me we might just get him for two years, I would still take it," said one Knicks official. "He's a great coach. You just don't hire a guy like Larry every day."
Coincidentally, one week after Brown and the Pistons parted ways, Brown's former club offered Darko Milicic to the Atlanta Hawks for Al Harrington. Brown's reluctance to play the unproven second-year forward caused a rift between the coach and Detroit president Joe Dumars. Now it appears the Pistons are willing to trade the second overall pick of the 2003 draft.
Marbury is finally home at MSG!
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7/26/2005 11:37 AM
