Crapping on Larry Brown: it’s not just for CSTB comments posters not named Egg and passive-aggressive point guards anymore. In a lengthy piece at ESPN.com, Total Basketball editor Kenneth Shouler spends nearly 1,400 words burying Larry Brown. It’s basically a well-sourced variation on one of the three articles that have been written dozens of different times during the Knicks nightmare season — with the focus here on Brown’s arrogance and intransigence, instead of Isiah’s poor decisions or the team’s miserable performance. For example, you’ve probably read something like this regarding the very public, very embarrassing ongoing Brown/Marbury domestic disturbance:
“Never in all my years have I seen a coach run down his best player in the press like Brown,” one veteran NBA writer said.
“I covered him for six years in Philadelphia and he did it all the time,” said another, unsurprised at his antics this year.
But anonymous writers will talk. When the best-loved public face, sideburns and voice of the Knicks franchise is speaking out, that’s news. Or…I don’t know, make up your own mind:
I asked (Walt “Clyde”) Frazier (above) more specifically about Brown’s contention that Marbury is the problem.”Stephon is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t [according to Brown],” said Frazier. “If he scores, he’s selfish. If he doesn’t, he’s not playing up to his potential.
“They have to get along,” Frazier said. “Marbury wants to win. He came up to me on the plane and pointed to my [1973 championship] ring and said, ‘I want what you have.’ Besides, the guy has skills; he can get to the basket against anyone.”
I come to praise Brown and bury ‘bury…along with 99% of his teammates. The Knicks locker room has been infected with laydownitis for how many years now? And somehow Larry was supposed to change all that in a matter of months.
Face it, people: Most of these “men” masquerading as Knicks players are just selfish, arrogant enough to believe they’re somehow better than a coach who’s proven he can get to the championship and WIN IT. Each game I’ve gone to this season, I’ve been two rows from the Knicks bench, and my Lord it is clear they have no desire to play team ball.
At least the Nets give us Noo Yawkers something to cheer about basketballwise…but what cold comfort that is….
You should cheer for the Nets; Jason Kidd is only a few declining seasons away from being overpayed and unproductive enough to be a Knickerbocker.
I do cheer for the Nets — it’s why I’ve avoided Nets-related posts, because I’m not sure anyone cares as much as I do. But I have followed the Knicks fiasco in part out of carwreck curiousity, in part to work out childhood aggression against the Knicks (being a Nets fan was not always fun, and for a decade or so was always not fun, and most everyone else in my Jersey-based youth was a Knicks fan).
Mostly, though, the weird thing is that the Knicks have, as they’ve gotten worse, brought in players I always kind of liked to watch — I loved Marbury on the Nets, loved Q-Rich on the Clippers, loved Francis at Maryland and even pulled for the Clips to lock up Mo Taylor when I was in college (and he was the best player on the team, somehow). And yet the team is not only unwatchable but unlovable. They seem sad, beaten down and totally confused on defense; I’ve pretty much never seen any pro team worse than them on that end. So they’re kind of fascinating to watch, just to try to figure their problems out. But they’re not easy to watch for very long.