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Rich
Posts: 27410
Alba Posts: 6
Joined: 12/30/2003
Member: #511
USA
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Man, Selena Roberts will write anything to beat a deadline:
http://select.nytimes.com/2005/11/27/sports/basketball/27roberts.html
November 27, 2005
Sports of The Times
Brown's Power Could Mean Marbury Is Out
By SELENA ROBERTS
THE man in power at Madison Square Garden doesn't slump on his bottomless wallet in his courtside seat, but ambles along the sideline with the wobble of a stagecoach thanks to fickle hips.
The Garden puppeteer isn't James Dolan, the owner who mistakes his inheritance for genius, but Larry Brown, the coach who owns Charlie Brown's doomed disposition.
Such a switch was once unthinkable. But somehow, the vacuous emperor has been pushed to irrelevance by the tormented vagabond. Brown is the new powerbroker to please.
Somewhere, Lenny Wilkens is confused. It's true that Brown does not possess more N.B.A. titles than Wilkens, but his folklore legend as a salvage artist, as a bespectacled professor of fundamentals, as a local favorite, has helped to earn him a perch above all others at the Garden.
Who else but Brown would be celebrated for producing four victories in his first 12 games? Who else but Brown could get away with bemoaning a flawed team that he took on willingly for a generous salary? Who else at the Garden has a voice that carries with as much credibility at Brown's?
But what's really the magic potion to Brown's ascendancy? Brown is liberated to the point of autonomy by his legacy. Brown says what he wants, does what he wants, without thinking about repercussions.
It's actually refreshing to see a control shift at the Garden.
It is in the way Dolan, historically averse to mavericks like Jeff Van Gundy and Marv Albert, has allowed Brown to moan out loud about the very players the franchise is overpaying.
It is in the way Isiah Thomas isn't standing as a shadow coach in the Garden's breezeway anymore, but as a team president reluctantly aboard Brown's coattails.
It is in the way Stephon Marbury was trying to channel the revisionist's pet of Brown's eye - Allen Iverson - as he guided the Knicks against his coach's past life with the Philadelphia 76ers on the floor yesterday in a matinee game.
It didn't matter that Marbury, Jamal Crawford and Nate Robinson were forcing the kind of freelance Cirque du Soleil shots that Brown abhors near the end of the game. In the last second, they played to Brown's right-way mantra when Marbury made a savvy last-second pass to Robinson, the Thumbelina of rookies.
In one heave, Robinson arched a 3-pointer against the Garden's pie-sliced ceiling, and it plunged into the basket for an overtime victory at the buzzer. It was an instant reprieve for everyone under Brown's thumb.
"Stephon is making progress," Brown said.
At last, Crawford and Marbury had exited the abyss. At last, Thomas's players weren't being flogged by Brown.
For a game, Thomas could feel some validation for assembling a square-wheeled roster that Brown has continually cast as a band of misfits. Even before the game, Brown launched into one of his if-I-only-had-a-roster speeches while quantifying the team's shortcomings related to injuries and structure.
How can Thomas offer a verbal defense when Iverson, among others, calls Brown "the best coach in the world"?
This inability to combat Brown's aura of invincibility has left Thomas and Marbury in the same awkward position: seeking Brown's approval over that of Dolan.
This connection between Marbury and Thomas is visible. Thomas has been defined and second-guessed by the blockbuster trade he made to acquire Marbury. And Marbury has been defined and second-guessed for his unconditional loyalty to Thomas.
They are inseparable. When they greet each other, Marbury has been known to air-kiss Thomas. Call it a secret handshake of sorts for the Under-Brown Society.
For different reasons, they need Brown as much as they are repelled by his candid style and blunt assessments, because both are at critical points in their careers.
Thomas is on his fourth tour as a basketball suit after flaming out in Toronto, sinking the Continental Basketball Association and losing to Larry Bird's will in Indiana.
Marbury is on his fourth stop as basketball's chain letter, having been passed from Minnesota to New Jersey to Phoenix to New York as if he were bad karma to possess.
Thomas and Marbury must see Brown succeed to save their reputations. Out of self-preservation, they must let Brown do his thing, even if it means suffering the arrows.
The only difference is, Thomas knows this reality and Marbury is still oblivious to his status as the grumpy albatross to every team he is on.
That is why Thomas will survive the year, and why Marbury will be gone by season's end. Perhaps it is his nearly $7 million-a-year package to be president of basketball operations, but Thomas manages to hold his seething to himself, while Marbury cannot help himself.
But can't Marbury morph into a Brown-altered Iverson?
"Allen is a special player," Brown said wistfully, after he watched his ex-tormentor turned current love drop 40 points on the Knicks. He called Marbury "unique," an adjective short of special.
Marbury has little chance to rise in Brown's estimation. He can attempt to be what Brown desires, but his fits of regression will end up ushering him onto his fifth N.B.A. team.
He will not see such an ending coming, of course. Marbury and Thomas enjoy a special bond, but Isiah is the one who understands the new power structure.
The ruler of the Garden isn't Dolan, so wealthy via privilege. It's Brown, filthy rich in autonomy.
[Edited by - Rich on 11-26-2005 11:52 PM]
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11/26/2005 9:52 PM
