by Trevor Freeman
Should the United States not win the Olympic Gold Medal in basketball, blame has to be assigned. Look no further than Larry Brown.
Have you ever sat back and watched a supposed coaching legend throw away a lifetime of work in a week? Watched as a man moved from genius to borderline moron. If you have been missing what is going on at the Olympic basketball venue, it is currently happening. If the United States does not bring home the gold medal, all the blame should be put on one man. His name is Larry Brown.
The summer started unbelievably well for Brown. He took home an NBA title with the Detroit Pistons and became the first man to lead teams to both the NCAA and NBA titles. He played the role of genius beautifully. However, this genius has been exposed in this Olympiad. Larry Brown thinks he is still coaching the Detroit Pistons in an NBA game. He isn’t. He is coaching the USA in an international game and has not adapted his style of play nor has he gone with the right rotations (or a set nine-man one for that matter). You can see Brown’s ineptitude burning a hole in his assistant Roy Williams. Williams has to be looking over and saying to himself, “I would never coach this team this way.”
I am really starting to question Brown’s sanity. First off I am going to tackle his rotation which has been handled in just a horrifying fashion. Has anyone watched what Larry Brown has been doing? He has this antiquated notion of not playing young players. It is like he is trying to win these games by adding a degree of difficulty. He doesn’t play Carmelo Anthony and Emeka Okafor at all. With LeBron James and Dwyane Wade he usually sits them for basically the entire game and then puts the two of them in for the majority of the fourth quarter. Sure enough, Wade and LeBron have usually delivered at winning time. Let the record show, that against Lithuania, Brown inexplicably did not play LeBron at all in the second half.
Not playing Okafor is just unbelievable stupidity. You cannot name five better and more intimidating help defenders than Emeka Okafor. Sh*t, Okafor gets half his blocks sliding over and throwing shots of people when they get by their man. It’s like he has an instinctive sense of knowing where another guy’s man is going to get beat and where that man is going. With Carmelo, I just cannot explain why he is not playing. I’m not saying if Carmelo not playing goes back to Larry being the face of the Piston franchise and the Pistons taking Darko over him is a factor. But I am not saying it’s not either. I used to think Larry Brown is a better coach than Phil Jackson. That if you gave him Phil Jackson’s teams he would win with them also. Stupidest thing I ever said. In fact if Jackson were coaching this team, I guarantee you we would be blowing these guys out. The one thing Jackson does well is at the very least he puts the right guys on the floor (which Brown hasn’t).
Larry Brown as the game coach has been just as bad in this Olympiad. I’ll say it before and I’ll say it again. Why are we not attacking on defense from the outset of the game? We should be pressing and trapping and forcing a fullcourt affair and we have not. Larry seems intent to let these teams pick us apart in the halfcourt and I just cannot understand why. Good coaches win their own way, great coaches adapt their style to suit their team and can win any way. Does anyone think for a moment that Coach K would be sweating it out on the sideline with this team against an Australia? What surprises me is that Larry Brown learned at the foot of Dean Smith? Dean Smith may have been one of the best coaches ever in terms of adapting his style of play to the talent on hand.
In terms of recent specific examples of poor in-game coaching look no further than the Lithuania game on Saturday. I think everyone watching at home that knows basketball will always wonder why the United States did not trap Sarunas Jasikevicius to force the ball out of his hands. How do you let Lithuania basically rub him off the same screener in the same spot on three consecutive plays?
The final straw in the camel’s back was when I heard Larry Brown putting these losses on the players shoulders. Does anyone think for a moment that Bobby Knight, Coach K, Dean Smith would pass the blame off on his players? None of these coaches would ever question their guys commitment or say that some guys are having problems accepting roles. The reason why these guys are great coaches is that they usually put the blame on themselves and then move forward and work with the troops in practice.
This has just been a disappointing performance out of Brown. Win or lose he has dropped a notch in my book.
If you have any questions, comments or feedback feel free to e-mail me at [email protected].
7 replies on “Questioning a Coaching Legend”
Couple typos In the first sentence, “blame as to be assigned” doesn’t make much sense. Did you mean “blame has to be assigned?” Also, in the fourth paragraph, “I use to,” should be, “I used to,” I believe. Good story though!
PS, I think Larry Brown is doing this because he likes to be the underdog…either that or he’s a masochist (he did take on the Clippers). Or maybe he wants to look like a genius when the US “suddenly comes together and dominates” because he finally starts doing things right. I have faith in Larry Brown though, he’ll fix this eventually…although I’d be a little more urgent about it if I were him.
I will make the changes Editor
moving it into the voting queue as well x
You gotta do it Brown’s way About time I see someone questioning Larry Brown after all the butt kissing he got after the Pistons won the NBA Finals. I’ve seen most of the qualifying and Olympic games and have questioned a lot of the things LB has done.
Brown is a great coach in the NBA, but these games seem to have gotten the better of him. His players have to do things his way (all out defense & rebounding) and if you don’t do that, you are not going to play. This explains why Richard Jefferson plays so much more than Melo even though RJ was 4-26 before the Lithuania game. I also don’t understand his refusal to give LeBron more minutes, but in the NBA he has always shied away from using younger players. I just hope Team USA can get it together and win the gold.
who wrote the article on Melo needs to step up? He is not even getting a chance. He is firmly in Brown’s doghouse.
Thank you Thanks to the editor for making the changes and thanks to Ian for pointing them out. That’s why writers need editors. I probably read that 5-6 times before I submitted it. A fresh set of eyes always helps.
The elimination round starts on Thursday. I would hope this one-game format provides America with the urgency needed to win this tournament. I think the one thing that will get Larry Brown and the players going is that nobody wants to be on the first All-Star team that surrendered the Olympic Gold Medal.
You gotta do it Brown’s way Larry Brown is like his mentor Dean Smith in that he does not like to play young guys (or freshmen in Dean’s case). However what Brown forgets is that when Dean Smith got a special talent in Michael Jordan he did start him as a freshman. Larry has a couple special young players on the team in LeBron and Dwyane Wade that need to be starting and playing 30-35 minutes. I just cannot see the possible reason for keeping Jefferson and Marbury on the court over these two guys.