New York Knicks Fire Coach Larry Brown

If you're going to be terrible, at least be so in an interesting way. I’d say the Knicks have pulled that trick off nicely. Maybe I’m biased because I happen to be a New York basketball fan, but this whole James Dolan/Isiah Thomas/Larry Brown/David Stern/Stephon Marbury mess has been far more fascinating to me than wondering whether or not Shaq would be able to win a 5th ring. The NBA playoffs were pretty exciting this year as Dwayne Wade showed that the successor to Michael Jordan may have arrived at long last, and perhaps he is not named Lebron James after all. But if the return of Pat Riley’s slick hairdo and the ranting of Mark Cuban made the postseason an engaging soap opera, this Knicks fiasco has been an edge-of-your-seat thriller.

The beginning of the Larry Brown era as head coach of his hometown team held much promise. Brown came to the Knicks straight off of two consecutive appearances in the Finals with the Detroit Pistons. With an NBA championship added to his long list of credentials, Brown’s coaching status was upgraded from Hall of Fame caliber to legendary. Surely he was the man to turn the Knicks around after several floundering seasons in the post Patrick Ewing era. He seemed to be one of only a handful of coaches capable of taking the mismatched puzzle pieces assembled by Isiah Thomas and turning them into a cohesive, winning unit. After Phil Jackson rejected the Knicks offer, Brown was the obvious top candidate to come to the rescue. On paper, the Knicks had youth and athleticism and scorers aplenty on their side. Defensive prowess was in rather short supply, but this could presumably be either fixed or else worked around. It was reasonable to assume as many did that the Knicks would improve from woeful to no less than mediocre in year one under Brown’s leadership. After that, the sky was the limit. Obtaining a young, mobile big man like Eddy Curry for what seemed to be a bargain basement price at the time further bolstered the hopes of the Madison Square Garden faithful.