Headache in a Suitcase said:
the winningest coach in nba history is lenny wilkens. he's also the losingest coach in nba history.
larry brown has many faults, yes. there is no argument to that. but your assesement of him being a vastly over-rated coach is idiotic. if you want to say he's not worth it because his tendency to bolt teams? i have no argument. if you want to say he's not worth it because he's a mediocre or worse coach? you're nuts. he's one of the greatest teachers of the game in the history of basketball.
your stats are great... 
but what those stats don't tell is that larry brown isn't like pat riley or phil jackson, who only hop on to teams with established stars who were already at the top of their respective conferences at the time he took over. brown only did that once... and he won a championship. go figure.
brown takes over teams that suck and make them good. he made the playoffs with the nets when the nets were still a laughing stock. he made the playoffs with the clippers. he had 3 trips to the final four, including one championship... the only coach ever to win a title in both the nba and the ncaa.
you don't know why anyone hires him because of his history of leaving? fine. i can accept that. but to deny his greatness as a coach is just silly.
i think it's a great hire for the bobcats for two reasons... 1, they will get better under him... 2, extra motivation by brown over what isiah and dolan did to him.
You have always been entirely too forgiving of LB for his role in what happened in NY, imo. You let him get off scott free while crucifying everyone else in the organization. Your hatred for Dolan and Isiah blinds you. Brown was constantly bitching about his players to the press. Whether or not the players deserved criticism is besides the point. It doesn't matter. I don't care if your star player has played like shit for 82 straight games, you don't bitch about it to the press. I can't think of any other coach who just blatently talks shit on his players to the press the way Brown does. And the Knicks have a very clear policy regarding this practice. Brown knew damn well it was against the rules and he did it anyway. Dolan then told him not to do it anymore or there would be consequences, and Brown continued doing it anyway. Furthermore, there are also confirmations that Brown had on at least one occassion attempted to go over Isiah's head concerning a trade, talking to another team, as if he were trying to steal Isiah's job through underhanded means. After the season was completed, Brown wouldn't even admit he had done anything wrong at all. This is the kind of character you want being the chief basketball influence on your young team? I'm not defending Dolan or Isiah in any way, as they are both incompetent as hell, but it's not right to play let Brown go free on the matter the way you seemingly have.
You want to talk about his actual coaching ability? Fine. I have always thought he was much better suited to be a college coach than an NBA coach. When I look at head basketball coaches, I generally see two groups - those who coach by teaching, using inflexable systems, and disciplining their players as though they were in high school, and those who are more about getting players to play together, getting egos to work together, and running things in whatever way is most conducive to the most efficient and productive utilization of the players and talent you have(I'm thinking not just PJax and Riley, but Adelman, Popovich, Karl(though he hasn't been so great lately), Daly, Nelson, Stan Van Gundy, D'Antoni). The second style of coaching has indisputably had much more success in the NBA than the first, and I have always felt that everyone in that first group, the 'teachers', not JUST LB, would be better suited to the college game, because that's where you TEACH the game. I am not taking away from the basketball minds of this first group, because often times the 'teachers' have BRILLIANT basketball minds(I mean, I include guys like Mike Fratello and Hubie Brown in this group for pete's sake and they ARE BRILLIANT basketball minds) but don't know how to harness NBA talent, how to keep egos in check, how to get people to put aside their selfish playing styles and their egos in order to run an efficient professional basketball offense(note that this is not the same thing as simply teaching a team how to play together, it's more like GETTING a team to put aside their egos and play together, it's a different skill, it's a 'personality' skill), and that's what NBA coaching is about, imo - people skills, being able to relate to your players, getting them trust you, getting them to believe you so that they will buy into what you're saying, and ego management. And many of those characteristics I just mentioned are percisely the areas in which Brown - and many other college coaches(look at the history of college coaches attempting to jump to the NBA and failing miserably) - fails. He wants to teach and he wants to discipline and he wants things done HIS way. That's an NCAA coach.
I can't stand Brown's personality and, yes, I think he's overrated as an NBA coach. His forte is taking laughingstocks and making them into respectable teams that lose in the first or second round of the playoffs(except for the Knicks, not even he could fix them). He is NOT that great when it comes to making 'good' teams into 'great' teams. That is not a reflection on his basketball mind, it's just a reflection of the fact that the skillset for being a great NBA coach is just much different than the skillset for being a great college coach/basketball teacher.
I will say this: the coaches in the first group are almost always much better commentators than those in the second group. I'll listen to Fratello and Hubie and Doug Collins and JVG over anyone in the second group for commentating - because they have great basketball minds and are more insightful about the game than the great NBA coaches whose fortes lie in the ability to relate to players and make the most most efficient use out talent and ego.
But I still wouldn't want Brown as a commentater, because he always sounds constipated when he speaks publically.
