With Knicks coach Larry Brown is reduced to diagnosing Trevor Ariza as “delusional”, the New York Post’s Peter Vescey takes issue with Dr. Brown’s bedside manner.
As usual, Larry Brown took care of basketball business by adopting a coward’s approach in delivering negative reviews and bad news on a player’s doorstep. Instead of notifying Trevor Ariza directly he was demoted from the Knicks’ rotation, Brown alerted the beat writers and let them do his dirty work for him.
Traditionally, if there are good tidings to hark the herald angels sing (more regularly about opposing players than his own), the heralded coach will be out front and center.
On the other hand, when it comes to putting on the uniform of a Bad News Bearer and informing a player he’s being traded, released, suspended, deactivated or demoted, 11 times out of 10 Brown will turn over the burden to the GM, or, in this case, the media. Those who’ve been traded claim Brown wouldn’t so much as shoot them a parting glance on their way out of the locker room and all he had to do was turn his head slightly from what he was doing.
Yet Brown, an expert at avoiding confrontations with his cast of characters (getting into the face of a woman journalist comes easier) but notorious for cracking on them behind their backs at postgame/practice press conferences, states coach-player communication is huge.
Brown said he didn’t owe Ariza an explanation for washing him out of the rotation. I agree. Still, does that mean it’s forbidden to apply common courtesy? How many times have we heard Brown wax lovingly about his “kids” and how “special” they are?
By my count, Jerome “Jesse” James is the first player since Hot Plate Williams to get suspended for condiments detrimental to the team.