Krieger: Brown experiencing support system failure from Knicks

June 2, 2006

Suddenly, neurotic, lovable Larry is the bad guy. New York is the place, which is pretty strange. If anybody should understand a neurotic, lovable Brooklyn guy, it's New York.

But let's set the record straight for the rest of the country: The problem back there is Knicks ownership, not Larry Brown, which is why commissioner David Stern apparently took the extraordinary step of advising Knicks owner James Dolan to bring in professional help.

Not on the bench, you'll notice, but in the front office.

Larry's tenure began the way it always does - confronting players who don't play "the right way," both privately and publicly, and advocating constant personnel changes.

Everyone in basketball knows these things about Larry, and has known them for 30 years, more or less.

I take you back to the summer of 1978. Brown is coach of the Denver Nuggets, a team two years removed from the ABA. Brown is agitating for a trade, as he often does.

On Aug. 16, general manager Carl Scheer accommodates him, shipping defensive star Bobby Jones and guard Ralph Simpson to Philadelphia for George McGinnis, a high-scoring 76ers forward.

"One of the things that will be with me to my death, I'm sure," Scheer recalled last year. "I loved Bobby Jones and it was just instinctively a bad deal. I remember all the rationalizations about his health and everything else."

Jones had epilepsy and the high altitude was not considered helpful.

"In a nutshell, it was because Larry asked me to. Larry wanted me to. But the buck stopped with me and I made the deal. We were enamored of McGinnis; he was coming off a great year," Scheer said.

"So we make this big trade, we're training at the Air Force Academy. First day, I get a call from Larry. He said, 'I want you to trade this guy, get rid of him, I can't handle him.'

"I said, 'Who?'

"He said, 'McGinnis.'

" 'McGinnis! What happened?'

" 'He's not for us. He doesn't want to play, he won't run, he won't do the drills.'

"I said, 'Larry, he's been here three hours. One practice. We made this major trade. You've got to at least try.'

"He hangs up on me."

The postscript is that 18 months later, after Brown had moved on, Scheer traded McGinnis to Indiana for a first-round draft pick and a little-known forward named Alex English, who became a Hall of Famer in Denver. All's well that ends well.

But the moral is this is the way Larry is and always has been. Everybody who knows him - which is pretty much everyone in basketball at this point - knows this.

So the story out of New York that he agitated for Steve Francis then threw up his hands in dismay after getting him is perfectly believable. But if GM Isiah Thomas was making deals at Brown's request, he should have known better.

This is why any talk of Brown as a candidate for the Nuggets' vacant GM job is laughable. As fine a coach as Brown is - and he is - that's how bad a GM he is.

But Brown's public confrontations with Stephon Marbury, which are apparently the main reason Dolan wants him gone, are an absolutely necessary part of turning the Knicks around. Marbury must either become more of a team player, as Allen Iverson did under Brown in Philadelphia, or he must go.

That's how it is with Larry. That's how it's always been. And it's always been a successful formula because basketball is, as Larry will tell you, a team game. Ask Iverson what coach helped him make his only trip to the NBA Finals.

Larry has won more than 1,200 pro games, more than 1,400 overall. He's in the Hall of Fame. If you give up on him after one year, you have no conviction.

If Dolan thinks Thomas will be a better coach than Brown, he's nuts. If he thinks he will be less confrontational with his players, he's probably right.

But if the Knicks weren't prepared for the turnaround process Larry brings, they shouldn't have given him that huge contract in the first place.

Now, the New York papers are reporting Dolan will fire Brown or buy him out of the remaining four years and $40 million on his deal. Brown hears no one deny these stories and he can't get Dolan to talk to him. Kind of reminds you of Kiki Vandeweghe's last days in Denver, doesn't it?

Which is ironic because Stern reportedly urged Dolan to replace Thomas with Kiki as GM.

All season, it's been fashionable to bash Larry, not merely because of the Knicks' lousy record but because his former team, the Pistons, seemed better under his successor, Flip Saunders.

But in recent days there's been a certain nostalgia for Larry in Detroit as the Pistons threatened to fall short of the NBA Finals without him.

The way to succeed with Larry as your coach is to support him - he needs a lot of that - and let him coach through the inevitable confrontations and rough patches early on. It looks like the Knicks don't have the fortitude for it. That's on them, not him.

By Isiah flip flopping with Marbury about whos the boss it does not support getting Marbury turned around! Marbury as long as Isiah is around thinks he has his back and won't get traded or benched. And Larry can't get him to play the way he wants to!

Yes larry gets a pass because this is who he is. ANyone dissapointed in him is a Dolanite and did not understand what a pain in the ass he is. Dolan is about appearences more than substance. Larry will drive you crazy if your a GM. Isiah is on weak footing so he gets inside Dolans ass and aligns himself against Larry.

You know, its much less expensive to rid us of Isiah than Larry.

I don't hear much about Isiahs Gag order. We have a GM who is not talking the press either!

Good article!

I resent being called a Dolanite I am an equal opportunity hater, this also goes to show that LB is a prissy primadonna. Thomas was a moron to hire him for the team he created.

[Edited by - buddapaw on 06-21-2006 11:08 AM]

Posted by buddapaw:

I resent being called a Dolanite I am an equal opportunity hater, this also goes to show that LB is a prissy primadonna. Thomas was a moron to hire him for the team he created.

[Edited by - buddapaw on 06-21-2006 11:08 AM]

Well then you must choose sides. I have spoken many times about organizational failure and how moronic the Grunfeld-Layden-isiah thing it and they are just pawns to a petty owner who values his percieved loyalty above all else. Glen Sather kept his job because he was a Dolan kind of guy. Starphuched when told to and absorbed the media attention when directed to him. Larry is the Anti Dolan. Larry's faults are not a prissy premadonna but a difficult man who is unyielding in what he wants and changes him mind on players. THis is his 30 year history! Isiah and Dolan either back him up or don't hire him to begin with.

I think the best thing might be for Isiah to be replaced with a gm that will back up Larry but not cater to his every whim. Standing in the tunnel and getting a sexual harrasement suit is not a reason for him to stay on.

THis team must have leadership. If we are to keep marbury we can't keep Isiah as he has given Marbury entitlement he does not know how to use properly.

Posted by BasketballJones:

Larry Brown should be gone. Not only does he talk to the media, his entire career is a complete failure. None of his victories had anything to do with his coaching ability, it was all luck.

dude, seriosly, have an opinion and state it and back it up. No place for the weak here.

Talking to the media is worse then steroids or betting on your own games!

His plaque should be removed from the Hall of Fame!

Isiah doesn't need a gag order, he's so afraid the press will ask him about Dolan, Brown. Marbury, Anushca, his record and direction, the press are the last people he wants to see. Isiah has his own sock in his mouth.

Mo THE BLACK HOLE Taylor should just be given the Tiny Tim treatment so his contract can fall off the books. Treat him like the way he plays selfish.