Do Pistons fans love or loathe Larry? Let's find out
By Chris Sheridan

Boo? Yah.

It's a question of how loud the boos will be, and whether they'll drown out the cheers.

Larry Brown returns to The Palace on Friday night for the first time since his acrimonious exit from the Detroit Pistons, and the welcome he receives from the fans who cheered him as recently as six months ago is expected to be mixed.

"Typical fans. Some are going to cheer for him and some are going to boo. That's the nature of the business," Pistons center Ben Wallace said. "It's fair to boo anybody on an opposing team that comes into Detroit."

But in Brown's case, it's no ordinary opponent. The new coach of the New York Knicks took the Pistons to the NBA Finals the past two seasons, winning one championship and nearly winning another before parting ways in a bitter breakup that got personal between Brown and Pistons owner Bill Davidson.

"I was fired," Brown said Thursday on a conference call with reporters, once again throwing out a word that the Pistons chose not to use when they reached their divorce with the much-traveled coach. Brown wore out his welcome in Detroit just two years after Rick Carlisle was forced out to make way for him.

"It's never easy when you leave some place and have to come back, but again, I had two pretty special years there. I was lucky to coach an exceptional bunch of guys," Brown said.

Pistons fans have already booed Brown this season, but not in person.

The team has been playing a highlight montage from last season, and fans have booed when Brown's image has been shown.

To figure out the source of that resentment, ESPN.com solicited e-mail responses from fans in the Detroit area, asking whether they planned to boo or cheer.


A majority said they would cheer, but many were neutral or conflicted.

"Simply uttering the name Larry Brown brings out such a mixed bag of emotions," wrote Evan, a student at Michigan State. "On the one hand, he led us to an NBA title, and minutes from a repeat. Yet on the other, he was one of the most aggravating coaches to stand beside in the league. And I'm saying that after watching a young Rick Carlisle, who would never let his players run and typically blow all of his timeouts after the opposing team's first few buckets.

"Larry made a team out of the Pistons, but he also limited the capabilities of the players. He was able to win a championship, but he nearly killed Darko Milicic, and Carlos Arroyo and Carlos Delfino are only now regaining their confidence. I would feel inclined to boo him if it weren't for Gar Heard's interim coach record. I thought that Larry was great in practice and behind the scenes, not on the court, but apparently we needed him. Heard's record was atrocious, and I never felt confident with him out there.


"So, if I had the money to go to the game on Friday night, I would probably make some strange noise, not quite a boo, not quite a cheer, but something in between. It would probably sound like the 'tractor beam' noise Jim Carrey makes in 'Dumb and Dumber.' Sort of like a hum and a whistle."

Fan Jeff Horowitz wrote: "As a Pistons season-ticket holder, I will surely cheer for a man who won a title and delivered a second consecutive NBA Finals appearance. However, I will guarantee that the majority of the noise will be boos."

More than any other coach in the NBA, Brown tends to be a polarizing force. The Pistons were the seventh NBA franchise he had coached, and his previous six departures typically were as rocky as his exit from Detroit.

As early as the midpoint of last season, there was an air of impending finality to Brown's stint in Detroit. A complication from a hip replacement procedure had led to a bladder disorder, and Brown had to leave the team twice for medical reasons.

He was quoted midseason in the New York Post as having said coaching the Knicks would be a "dream job," and so certain were the Pistons that Brown would move on, they granted the Cleveland Cavaliers permission to speak to him at the end of the regular season regarding a front office role. The New York Times broke the news of Brown's flirtation with the Cavs during the Pistons' Eastern Conference finals series against the Miami Heat, and the story became a huge distraction to a team trying to keep its focus on advancing to the finals.

Brown insisted throughout the playoffs that the only team he wanted to coach was the Pistons, explaining he had spoken to the Cavs because he wanted to keep his options open in the event his medical condition prevented him from returning to the sideline.

But many saw it as another chapter in Brown's long history of never being satisfied with his current job, always with an eye on his next career move when he should have been more focused on the present.

"The conversations he had with Cleveland when we were in the playoffs, I thought it was wrong, and a lot of people felt that was not the right time to do that," said Arroyo, who predicted more than a fair amount of boos. "Not winning the championship, too, people blame the coaches and the point guards."

Brown sought treatment at the Mayo Clinic after the finals ended, then returned to Auburn Hills for a meeting with Davidson that by all accounts went poorly.

Expecting Brown to depart, the Pistons had been focusing on Flip Saunders and Nate McMillan as possible replacements. But with Brown publicly campaigning to remain in the job, regardless of his rumored intentions to leave, the Pistons' hands were tied.

Davidson and Brown's attorney eventually settled on a buyout, freeing the Knicks to court him with a reported four-year, $40 million contract. The agreement was finalized by the end of July, but not before Davidson opined that Brown was "not a good person."

That comment undoubtedly will fuel some of the booing.

"It troubles me that he thought I was a bad guy," Brown said. "When I walk in that building, I don't have any bad memories. I don't have any bad feelings. You move on. I regret the way it ended, but they had the right to make the decision they did. It's obviously worked out really well, and that's good.

"Again, when I took the job I thought it would be my last job. I took it because of Joe Dumars and Mr. Davidson, and I'm not sorry I did.

"I'm sorry the way it ended, but I'm proud [of] what I did for two years."