I'm not saying I'm an advocate of him coming here. I was pointing out the flaw in your comparison. Should we compare Pat Riley to Mike D'antoni while we are at it?
Mike D'Antoni has never been called one of the greatest coaches in NBA history. Larry Brown, for some reason, has and is held in very high regard. So, go ahead and compare Riley to D'antoni, but do so knowing it has nothing to do with me contrasting Browns 32% 50-win percentage to Phil Jackson. Now, if you'd like to compare Riley to Brown ... Riley has 19 50-win teams in 24 seasons, plus he went 41-20 the year he took over for Stan Van Gundy and won the championship.
sweet.. I'm not comparing Phil to Larry... nor Riley. I'll take the multiple titles vs the 50 win seasons. I do think you are overratting 50 win seasons though.
It could have to do with the fact that he is the only coach in history to win both an NCAA title and an NBA title. No small feat, that.
That's a very impressive feat, but it has seemingly inflated his NBA reputation. I think Larry Brown is a very good coach. I just don't see him as an elite NBA coach, especially at this point of his career.
I wonder why. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that he is the only guy in history who has won an NCAA title and an NBA title as a coach. Or that all his coaching peers regard him as a great. Or that he has never had the talent that Phil Jackson has had, but took the vaunted Jordan Bulls to seven games with an Indy team and demolished a FANTASTICALLY LOADED and UNIVERSALLY FAVORED Lakers team in the finals. Larry Brown is the most versatile coach out there. He's won in college. He took the fucking Clippers to the playoffs - when their best player was a post-surgery Danny Manning. He took a team that was widely considered to have way overachieved under their previous coach and won a title with it. He is the only person in the world that could have got an Iverson team to the finals. And actually won a game against a Lakers team that otherwise swept the entire playoffs. "For some reason" indeed.
That really is a stupid comparison. Do you think that, had Jackson coached the teams Brown coached, while Brown got the Jordan Bulls and the Shaq/Kobe Lakers, they would still have the records they do have?
Not really. I like Popovich, but I can't really evaluate him apart from Tim Duncan. He seems to be very similar to Nate.
Why is it a stupid comparison? Listen, you can make as many excuses for Larry Brown as you want, but I feel he's been overrated as an NBA coach, at least in terms of actual success. The numbers, while not proving my case, certainly don't disprove it, either.
Brown was much more successful at the collegiate level than he was in the NBA. He'd be a Dean Smith/Bob Knight/Coach K had he stayed in the college game. 3 Final Fours in 7 years with 2 different teams, plus a title. Bad ass.
Maybe his need to constantly turn the roster over is because he is a college coach at heart and still have not got the idea that players can stay for a long time in the same team?
Huh? After he left Philly, he led the Pistons to the 2004 NBA championship. Also- he currently has the Bobcats in a playoff spot (currently 7th in the East) for the first time in franchise history. It would be amazing if we could get Brown. He's an awesome coach who has improved every single team he coached (except for the Knicks which no coach could've saved).
I'm a big Larry Brown fan. I love him as a coach. He has done some good things. As a GM...? Yeah, Larry, if you're ever in Portland, other than as an employee of another organization, I hope and pray it's as nothing more than our coach.
A lot of the players that are in Charlotte now are there because of Brown. Stephen Jackson, Diaw, Mohammed, Ratliff. All former Brown players that he brought back, with the exception of Diaw.
