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Larry Brown Agrees to Coach the Knicks
A Hall of Famer and a champion, a certified winner at every level, Larry Brown appears ready to add one more title to his considerable résumé: franchise savior. It could be the most daunting role he has accepted in a coaching career spanning three decades.
Brooklyn-born and Long Island-raised, Brown is set to become the next coach of his hometown Knicks, the team he idolized as a child and later watched from a distance while he built his own legacy.
Apparently, the chance to use his considerable abilities to revive the Knicks was too tempting to pass up. Brown, 64, has accepted in principle the Knicks' offer to become their 22nd head coach.
Negotiations could be completed today. Barring any unforeseen snags, the team is expected to make an announcement by tomorrow.
"He's made his decision that he wants to coach the Knicks," Brown's agent, Joe Glass, said yesterday by telephone. "Now it's up to the Knicks and myself to come up with an arrangement that works for both parties."
Glass declined to characterize the talks, but he sounded optimistic that an agreement would be reached before long. On a scale of 1 to 10, Glass said, Brown's chances of joining the Knicks rated an 8.
"There's some other things to hash out, but there's nothing definitive at this point," Glass said before returning to the talks. "A lot of things can happen between the talk and the execution. I'm only secure when it's done."
Brown will replace Herb Williams, who coached the final three months of last season after Lenny Wilkens was forced to resign. Williams, who had dinner with Brown on Monday, is expected to join his coaching staff.
Knicks officials declined to comment yesterday.
Parameters of the contract are unknown, but Brown is expected to earn $10 million to $12 million annually for three to five years.
The deal culminates a whirlwind week in which Brown was let go by the Detroit Pistons - the team he led to the last two N.B.A. finals - then courted daily by Knicks officials. It also culminates a three-month coaching search that often appeared meandering but will now be viewed as a brilliant success. Brown is regarded as one of the best coaches in history. His mere presence will inspire optimism that the Knicks may soon turn the corner after four straight losing seasons.
When Isiah Thomas, the Knicks' president, began his search in April, his goal was to hire Phil Jackson or Brown. He interviewed Jackson first and Brown last, with a dozen others in between, but his shortlist never changed. If Brown and Jackson had declined, Thomas was always prepared to give the job to Williams.
As recently as 10 days ago, it appeared Williams was closing in on the job. He had interviewed Paul Westphal, the Pepperdine coach, for a position on his staff. Meanwhile, Brown was giving signals that he wanted to remain with Detroit. But Pistons management was ready to move on, and eight days ago the sides reached a buyout on the final three years of Brown's contract.
Thomas called Brown that night.
Brown will become the team's fourth coach in 18 months, following Don Chaney, Wilkens and Williams.
He will be Madison Square Garden's most celebrated coach since Pat Riley left for Miami in 1995. Like Riley, Brown has a glossy résumé. In 22 N.B.A. seasons, Brown has compiled a record of 987 victories and 741 defeats (.571), with only three losing seasons. He is the only coach to have won championships in college (with Kansas in 1988) and in the N.B.A. (with Detroit in 2004).
Thomas was similarly introduced as the Knicks' presumed savior when he became president in December 2003. He has not been able to acquire enough talent to change the Knicks' fortunes, but Thomas now has a coach who does not need a star-studded lineup to win.
Brown is known as a gifted turnaround artist who gets the most from his players and turns mediocre teams into playoff powers. That profile makes him a perfect match for the Knicks, who have one established star (Stephon Marbury) and a lot of ill-fitting, and in some cases redundant, role players.
"He's going to make it work," Knicks forward Tim Thomas, who played for Brown in Philadelphia, said in a recent phone conversation. "That's the thing about Larry. It's really not about the style - he's going to change the style. It's all going to come down to the way he wants to run things."
Thomas and Marbury are the only Knicks to have played for Brown, and both sounded eager to have him on the bench.
Marbury, who clashed with Brown during last year's Olympics, said Friday that hiring Brown was "a no-brainer."
Thomas said: "In coaching, there's a lot of teaching. But he's like the professor. He's going to constantly tell you what's right and what's wrong, and he's going to constantly keep teaching. You don't have that in a lot of coaches these days. And he's going to push you to work harder. That's No. 1."
Brown is known, too, for falling in and out of love with players - his own, and those on rival teams. He had Thomas traded to Milwaukee in March 1999.
"I was young and I didn't really know what Larry was trying to do for myself, on and off the court," said Thomas, who was 20 when he entered the league, and perhaps not ready for Brown's perfectionism. "As you get older, you really appreciate that. He's a great coach."
So what will the Brown-led Knicks do that recent Knicks teams did not? Presumably, they will play better defense. Brown's teams have ranked eighth or better in opponents' field-goal percentage in each of the last seven seasons. The Knicks ranked 28th last season.
"Defense: that's big with Larry," Thomas said. "He knows nowadays that pretty much everybody is offensive-minded. And to win games you've got to play defense."
Brown has taken seven N.B.A. teams to the playoffs, a record. Making the Knicks the eighth could require every ounce of his coaching acumen.
"He's the professor, and he's going to definitely be the general," Thomas said. "So the show is going to run through him."
Source: AP