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Larry Brown Is FINALLY Fired
Man....what shocking news to come out of Manhattan. Larry Brown, in just his first season into a 5-yr stint with the New York Knicks, was let go by the organization.
Who saw this coming?? Wow. Amazing. Interesting. It happened so quickly that my head is spinning. I must gather myself to figure out what this all means and what went wrong to make it end so fast.
WARNING: SARCASM ALERT
Truth is...this was done about as badly as any exodus that Mr. Brown has had thus far. Whether it was his "I suck" whining out of Indiana....or the "I won my title, now let me leave" whining out of Detroit....or the "I can't reach Iverson" whining out of Philly....or "dude, this is the Clippers" whining out of Los Angeles.....this one is the saddest and funniest at the same time.
Brown, as you know, left the Pistons....a team he took to two straight NBA Finals, one ended with a title and the other ended in a 7th game....to go to New York to babysit the worst team in the Eastern Conference. His crap at the end of last year disrupted Detroit and could be a cause of the team's inability to repeat. But..New York was his dream job and he was handsomely rewarded for it.
Oops.
We all know the deal. The Knicks sucked, he tinkered with his lineups, he clashed with Marbury, they went 23-59 with by far the highest payroll in the NBA, etc.
Waaaaay back in early May....rumors broke that the Knicks were looking to buy out Brown and replace him with Isiah Thomas, the man upstairs. Despite everyone expecting it....including Brown who called himself a "dead man walking"....it never happened. So Brown was still running the team.....conducting draft workouts, doing all the things a coach would be doing after the season has ended and the draft is about to occur.
Then- swoosh! It is "breaking news" around the sports world....but the story has been told and retold for weeks. The Knicks sucked, Larry Brown acted like an ol' grump and "doing it the right way" didn't work.
Now the fork in the road.
Now, Larry Brown can look for another job. But there aren't any. Not real ones. Denver could open up if George Karl steps down due to personal reasons. Charlotte's Bernie Bickerstaff is just keeping the seat warm until the team is ready to contend for the playoffs. But with Michael Jordan now calling the shots, who knows if Brown has a chance to go back to North Carolina for work. Mike Montgomery is on very thin ice in Golden State that the Warriors job could open up at any time.
But...would you want Brown??? He ended the last two seasons very badly....and he wasn't happy with the NBA Finals contender and wasn't happy in the largest market with the largest payroll. How could he be happy anywhere else?
On the other side....now everything sits in Isiah Thomas' lap. Many feel that he's to blame for all of this. As President, he dealt for all these players. He took on these contracts. He dealt was became the #2 pick in this draft for Eddy Curry, a guy with a heart problem. It is his mess and now he must clean it up.
If he isn't, well, there is no one left to can but him. He bought this team....and he's coaching it.
Good luck New York!
sportzassassin at 1:28:00 PM EDT Blog about this entry |
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Brown has a tendency to do amazing after his first year with a team. Just check out my article and you'll see what I'm talking about.
http://journals.aol.com/zbar88/callingtheshots/
6/24/06 10:30 PM