After watching Brown coach this team for 82 games, who wouldn’t want to buy out his contract? I don’t care what team was put out on the floor, the fact of the matter is Brown has horribly coached this team. Plain and simple. The reason why Larry Brown was signed was to make the Knicks a better team and he has made them worse. He was signed for 50 million, making him the highest paid coach in NBA history and he’s one of the main reasons why the Knicks have become a joke this season. Now I’m not going to hear and say Isiah has put together a great team, because he has not, but Brown is mostly to blame this season.
He’s set a record with 40-something different starting lineups, and is the main reason why chemistry has been so terrible. Sure, there hasn’t really been a player who has established himself as a clear-cut starter, but many teams have that problem and there is no excuse for having 42+ starting lineups. A so-called Hall of Fame coach should not have a different starting lineup every other game. That’s one of the reasons why the Knicks’ chemistry has been so shaky; no one has any idea what their roles are. Players will start, play 30 minutes, and produce one game and then not play the very next.
Then there were players who gave 100% effort and produced every game like David Lee. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: David Lee is better than Mo’ Taylor and Malik Rose. People overuse that “tweener” thing when talking about David Lee, but what does it matter as long as he can produce? Channing Frye also played better when he was getting more consistent minutes, but Brown was shuffling with the roster. The same thing goes for Nate Robinson.
Of course Brown’s usage of the media has been an issue. I know coaches criticize their players, but calling someone “delusional” is a little over the top, especially to a 20-year-old sophomore. It’s not Trevor Ariza deserved it, either. His attacks on Marbury were over the top as well. People blame Marbury for what he said, but Brown is just as much to blame as Marbury, if not, more. Brown is a 60-year-old coach fighting with a 29-year-old player. If anyone should have been the bigger man, it should have been Brown, but he not only initiated the conflict, he allowed it to continue.
Losing on the court is embarrassing, but Brown allowed the Knicks to become that off the court as well. People would open up the papers just to watch how pitiful a state we were in. Didn’t Paul Pierce say something along those lines? That’s embarrassing to the entire organization. I dislike Dolan, but one thing I respected about him is how he always wanted the best representation for the organization, even if we weren’t winning.
So yes, if Brown is brought out I wouldn’t mind at all. He’s contributed greatly to the embarrassment of the New York Knicks. There was never a great team put out on the floor by Isiah, but Brown knew what he was getting himself into when he signed his record-setting contract. Many times I hear Brown talking about players putting in effort in their games. It’s so hypocritical because Brown has put little to no effort into his coaching this season. Like Brown has said on countless occasions this season, “I have to do a better job coaching.” He couldn’t have said it any better.
Anyway, I think Larry Brown should be fired.
