Larry, we know this isn't on you
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Jon Heyman
SPORTS COLUMNIST

November 11, 2005

If the 2004 Olympics proved to be international torture for Larry Brown, fortunately they lasted only a fortnight. In what might be Brown's most daunting thought to date, he's only getting started here, with 406 games to go (should he overstay all expectations and coach out his five-year contract, that is).

Presumably, there will be lots of ups and downs (so far there are only downs), and maybe Brown needs to pace himself. We're four games in, and already he's acting as if his honeymoon's about to end. It's not.

If it's in him, he needs to take a breath. Whatever happens now, this isn't his fault. This isn't his disaster. These aren't his players. We already knew that.

Brown's always looking for perfect team men, and he is the one who's going to start to sound self-interested if he keeps airing his squad's flaws.

OK, we get it. Brown doesn't love this team. He thinks his roster is out of whack, way too heavy on shooting guards (shooting everything, really), way too light on point guards, and generally not ready for prime time.

Brown's right, of course. There's a lot wrong with a roster chock full of chuckers, too dependent on Stephon Marbury and softer than Buffalo mozzarella. But Brown's the one who's supposed to be the magician here, not Jerome James or Quentin Richardson. Eventually, he's going to have to start working that magic.

Presumably, he had a pretty good idea whom he'd be guiding when he took $50 million of Cablevision money to coach his hometown team. He got that money because he's a coaching genius. Anyone can coach a good team. Brown elected to leave the superbly run Pistons (sorry, I'm still not buying that bunk about him being fired) to see whether he could turn the 33-win Knicks into chicken salad.

There's no sense announcing that what he has here is something other than salad. It doesn't take Red Holzman to see there are problems.

Yesterday's harangue in the wake of the Knicks' fourth defeat in four games may be viewed in some circles as refreshing after the pabulum his milquetoast predecessors used to spout. However, he's skirting the line. If he goes any further, it'll sound like unbecoming excuse-making or unnecessary public politicking.

Brown and Isiah Thomas talk all the time. So why not spell out these concerns for Isiah's ears? Why tell the world Richardson and Jamal Crawford are "out of position" and that he's "not sure exactly how to use Steph " at times?

A day after the Trail Blazers took apart the Knicks, Brown performed his own deconstruction, spelling out potential problems with his roster, some obvious, others not. I'll assume Brown was spot-on in everything he said. He just sounded a tad too worried about his own standing.

The roster is the way it is because this was Thomas' way of cleaning up the unspeakable mess left by Scott Layden. It's better than it was, but it's filled with Thomas' players, young runners and gunners, not the type of tough guys Brown craves for his defensively oriented system.

Oddly, although Thomas and Brown appear to agree on many things off the court -- including how sartorially splendid to be -- their player preferences run in opposite directions.

The one guy Brown would have loved, Kurt Thomas, was shipped out weeks before he arrived, if only to please a player, Marbury, who might never get Brown's way. Eventually the team will be Brown's, filled with the sort of tough guys he admires. But for now, he needs to mold what he's got.

It's fair to say Brown is feeling his way, trying to figure out who can play for him and who can't, and there's nothing wrong with that. His game-to-game changes reflect uncertainty or experimentation. That's OK, too. One game, Matt Barnes is starting; another, he's inactive. If it seems Brown is pulling the lineups out of a hat, maybe he is, I don't know.

Meanwhile, Brown doesn't need to spell out his problems. Many of them are easy to see. Crawford is trying hard to please Brown but might never do so. He and Marbury appear unsure of themselves in Brown's rigid system. James looks as if he doesn't belong at all.

When Brown told us days ago that half the roster was bringing the needed "energy," then proceeded to name six chosen ones (Barnes, Trevor Ariza, Channing Frye, Nate Robinson, David Lee and Antonio Davis), he was issuing a needed warning to the others.

But once he started in on the makeup of the roster, he wasn't helping anyone but himself.

well as said above he got his money to coach the players he knew we had and was looking to get.

Brown and the players will be fine, but they need to make adjustments