Brown Out

Yahoo has the rumor today that Larry Brown is getting out of his deal in Charlotte and returning to Philadelphia to be the coach and president of the Sixers. It's a classic Brown move, in that it undermines his current team (Charlotte) even while they were trying to prolong their season in a playoff against Orlando, and it gets him out of a situation where he had (a) turned over the roster for short term gain, and (b) created mild success out of utter despair. The Bobcats have never been to the second season before Brown came to town, and while getting swept is never encouraging, when your best player is either Gerald Wallace or Stephen Jackson, the simple fact of the matter is that you probably shouldn't be winning a playoff series, even in the East.

A small note about the Magic: do not be fooled by the sweep. Dwight Howard was a non-factor offensively in this series, with nearly historic levels of incompetence at the free throw line. Vince Carter didn't look that great, and the outmanned Bobcats were in most of these games. But the Magic do play defense much better than they used to, and against a Bobcat team who played a collection of big men that would be outgunned in the D-League, they had no chance of putting up enough points against a team that can hit some three pointers. Mikael Pietrus in particular looked good for Orlando, but I can't see them making it out of the East, and I keep expecting them to snap and beat hyper annoying coach Stan van Gundy to death with a rake.

Getting back to the Bobcats and Brown... you can see why the guy would want to get out from under Michael Jordan. It's not as if the Charlotte franchise looks particularly hale and hearty, with super deep pokcets and a vibrant local community that's enamoured with pro hoop. Even with a committed Jordan, you can't help but think this is an NBA backwater, and once Brown's gone, they'll remember that they aren't particularly talanted or terribly interested in sacrificing their numbers for the good of the team. When Brown leaves, it's rarely a good thing for the team he bails on, unless you're the Pistons.

As for what he'll do in Philadelphia, assuming he comes here again... well, he certainly fits in with the current roster more than the Princeton Offense Abomination that they tried to inject last year. He'll either get defensive intensity out of Sam Dalembert or Elton Brand, or he'll play kids. The team won't be afraid to gamble defensively and play for steals / open court offense, which is exactly what a backcourt of Andre Iguodala and Jrue Holliday should be doing. And yet, it could be a wipeout of epic proportions.

Holliday was the youngest player in the NBA this year, and he plays the position that Brown played back in the day (Larry was a pretty damned good player, actually). If he can actually make Larry happy with his play there, he might be the first in Larry's long sad history of crushing your players at the point. Personally, I'm scared that This Way Lies Larry Hughes, but at least when Brown wasted that resource, he had the excuse of placating Allen Iverson.

Which isn't to diminish the scope of what Brown has accomplished, what with the taking of eight different teams to the playoffs. But the bigger issue is where this all ends, seeing how Larry is 70 now, and redefines nomad in our time... well, I suppose it'd be good news for the franchise. But it isn't going to end with more than 45 wins and a second round playoff loss, more or less the same way it worked out before. There's a reason why you bring Larry in, but there's also a reason why he never sticks around.