Griz to see Brown, Vandeweghe

Heisley to start job interviews today, will meet with 3 executives, 3 coaches

By Ronald Tillery
Contact
April 25, 2007

The Grizzlies are in the beginning stages of a process to fill their head coach and general manager vacancies, and the team is scheduled to interview two experienced candidates this week, according to an NBA source.

Former New York Knicks coach Larry Brown will meet with Grizzlies majority Michael Heisley today to discuss replacing interim head coach Tony Barone Sr. Former Denver Nuggets boss Kiki Vandeweghe will soon follow Brown to talk to Heisley about replacing team president Jerry West, who announced his intention to leave the organization July 1.

Heisley is expected to meet with three executives and three coaches -- one who remains unnamed -- early on in the process.

The Grizzlies asked for and received permission to talk with Boston Celtics general manager Chris Wallace. He is expected to meet with Heisley this week.

The Grizzlies also want to discuss their openings with Phoenix Suns assistant coach Marc Iavaroni and David Griffin, Suns vice president of basketball operations. Memphis has yet to receive permission to talk with Iavaroni and Griffin. The Griz likely will ask for consent when the Suns have completed their playoff run.

Vandeweghe presents a creative and proven option given how he turned around the once downtrodden Nuggets. Under Vandeweghe as GM, the Nuggets ended an eight-year playoff drought in 2004.

His positive imprints are well-documented. Vandeweghe saved the Nuggets more than $100 million in contracts and created significant salary-cap room with trades in 2002. He also traded forward Antonio McDyess to New York in 2002 for center Marcus Camby and a first-round draft pick that was used to acquire starting power forward Nene.

Vandeweghe's biggest wart during a five-year stint with the Nuggets was drafting Nikoloz Tskitishvili in 2002.

Brown, who now serves as executive vice president of the Philadelphia 76ers, is a familiar name to the local basketball scene. He is a friend of University of Memphis coach John Calipari and interviewed for the Memphis State men's basketball coaching vacancy in 1979. But Brown withdrew his name from consideration and eventually took over the UCLA basketball program.

Brown's name often surfaces whenever coaching jobs become vacant. Brown is the only coach in history to win both an NCAA National Championship (Kansas 1988) and an NBA Championship (Detroit 2004). He was enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach in 2002.

The Charlotte Bobcats are also reportedly interested in Brown because of his close relationship with team executive Michael Jordan.

Still, Brown is a curious candidate for the Grizzlies.

Despite his obvious coaching prowess, Brown has been questioned for disfavoring rookies and foreign players, and for searching publicly for other jobs while still employed.

Brown's last coaching stint wasn't the stuff legends are made of. The Knicks finished the 2005-06 season with a 23-59 record, good for second worst in the NBA. The Knicks then fired Brown and replaced him with general manager Isiah Thomas. They refused to pay him the $40 million left in his contract, arguing that Brown "violated terms of his contract through various acts of insubordination." The sides eventually settled. Brown has also coached in the NBA with Philadelphia (where he hired Calipari as an assistant), Indiana, the Los Angeles Clippers, San Antonio, New Jersey and Denver. He has a career record of 1,010-800 in the NBA.

West is acting as an adviser during the process and is said to favor the Iavaroni-Griffin combination. Neither Heisley nor West has put a timetable on finalizing the coaching and management hires.

I was going to post this. That is scary. Very scary. That is a great tandem there.