With present criticism, comes past praise for Brown


Mar 08, 2006

Let me read something to you:

"Larry is the ultimate coach. He is a true teacher who understands basketball better than anyone else and puts players in the best position to succeed as a team. Larry’s teams always perform to the best of their ability and in most cases beyond. Larry blends individuals together to build a cohesive unit that plays as one."

It seems a time that maybe we need a reminder. That one comes courtesy of Jason Kidd, and to pump a book that I was a part of, it comes from the book, “The Perfect Team.” In it, besides putting together as the title implies, the NBA’s perfect team, each member of the team puts together his own team.

And Kidd described Larry Brown that way.

When the season has gone on as long as it has, when the losses have piled up the way they have and the critics have piled on, it seemed time for a reminder.



The Hall of Fame coach has been enduring one of his toughest seasons yet with the Knicks. (AP)
But you might say that Kidd never played for Brown. He never had to endure the practice sessions in which his flaws are picked at. He never had to listen to Brown question him openly to the media.
So let’s go a few pages away from Kidd’s comment and find someone who did play for Brown. How about the most scrutinized relationship that Brown has been a part of in his long coaching career – his constant tug of war with Allen Iverson. Let Iverson explain.

“Phil Jackson is a great coach, and you have to be able to motivate players to have won all of those championships, but honestly, I’d go with Larry Brown as the coach of my team, I honestly would. The man can just coach.”

You almost have to reread that to believe it. But he said it. Given his choice of any coach in the history of the game, that is what Iverson had to say. So you think, maybe someday Stephon Marbury will say the same thing. But that sure seems a long way off right now.

Brown and Marbury have engaged in the sort of back-and-forth this season that make the Iverson-Brown pairing seem like some sort of romance novel. Maybe it started back in the Athen’s Olympics in 2004, but the backhanded snipes back and forth have only reinforced the on-court troubles.

When Marbury commented a few days ago that the team still seemed confused on the court even this late in the season, Brown did not let it pass.

Monday at practice, Brown said, “I don’t react to what he says,” and then proceeded to react.

“If we share the ball and try to guard and try to play hard you’ll generally get something accomplished,” Brown said. “I’ve been preaching that forever. If you want to listen and learn, you’ll get it. If you don’t, chances are you won’t figure it out.”



Marbury and Brown's relationship is played out through the media. (AP)
The criticism of Brown is easy to come by this season. The opportunities to pick him apart haven’t come often in his career, but he hasn’t had many seasons like this one. Shuffling players in and out of the rotation, in and out of the starting lineup and seemingly in and out of New York, the team has seemed lost at times.
But it’s hard to point to eight players who merit a steady diet of minutes. It’s near impossible to create a lineup out of this team that includes five starters who fill the roles that they need to.

When Steve Francis arrived, Marbury declared that it was time to loosen the reins and let the team run. But Brown insisted it wasn’t his intention to stifle the offense – just his belief that any running game needed to start with defense and rebounding.

“I’ve never talked anything about a systems coach in my life,” Brown added Monday. “I’ve been a basketball coach, about guys playing the right way. And I think that’s always been what I’ve said. It’s amazing to me that the guys who have wanted to have really prospered, wherever I’ve been. It’s always about the team and that’s the only thing that matters.”

It’s a way of playing the game that has worked for every other stop in Brown’s nomadic coaching career. And it’s worked for players – like Iverson – who you might not think it would work for. But it did, at least in every stop until this one.

That makes you read through the words of players like Kidd and Iverson. And it makes you wonder if you’ll read that sort of thing from Marbury some day. And if you don’t, you probably won’t have to wonder whose fault that is.






http://msgnetwork.com/content_news.jsp?articleID=v0000msgn20060308T143149937

If you want to listen and learn, you’ll get it. If you don’t, chances are you won’t figure it out.”

so simple, & yet so hard for some to fathom.. i'm making that my new sig.

Larry is the ultimate coach. He is a true teacher who understands basketball better than anyone else and puts players in the best position to succeed as a team. Larry’s teams always perform to the best of their ability and in most cases beyond. Larry blends individuals together to build a cohesive unit that plays as one.

Has LB done that this season? Has he put the Knicks in a position to succeed? Has he "blended individuals together"?

NO.

oohah

i'm pretty amazed at how some people are so anti-larry. i mean, i don't even know what to say anymore except "wow".

Larry is making a point to the young players that no matter what, they have to work for what they get, and that includes playing time, and just b/c the media is saying they should be starting, doesn't mean they have earned it. Our perception of better and earning it over Malik and Mo and Jerome is far different than Larry's, and quite frankly, I trust his perception a hell of a lot more. He knows what he's doing. We don't. He's the one who counts. We're not.

Posted by Allanfan20:

Larry is making a point to the young players that no matter what, they have to work for what they get, and that includes playing time, and just b/c the media is saying they should be starting, doesn't mean they have earned it. Our perception of better and earning it over Malik and Mo and Jerome is far different than Larry's, and quite frankly, I trust his perception a hell of a lot more. He knows what he's doing. We don't. He's the one who counts. We're not.

Posted by fishmike:

the more I watch the more I think Larry IS doing a good job. He's asking the players to do simple things and they dont or they cant. They make the same mistakes over and over again. This is the only thing thats going to bring change, both inside the roster and from the GM

Agreed and agreed. You watch LB's substitute patterns closely. Curry gets 2 fouls in the first half before he is pulled (unless it is part of his normal time rotation). Q chucks a shot more than he should and he gets pulled, BUT he is put back in pretty much immediately if he is playing good D - LB just wants a 1 minute sideline chat. Same goes for the other guys. I have never seen it so much before: A coach pulling a guy for 1 minute and then inserting him back in.

Frye misses a defensive rotation after he is picked in the pick-n-roll, he comes out. Craw leaves his man at the 3-point line twice for open shots, he gets pulled. Nate goes to the basket and jumps and has nowhere to go, he sits. Same all around.