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Tuesday, Nov 24, 2009
An open letter to Larry Brown: Sorry. Plus: Detroiters demand an apology over a joke about riots. Not sorry.
Jun 16, 2004 | Dear Larry Brown,
I owe you an apology. I've written repeatedly that no team coached by you would ever win an NBA championship, and now your Detroit Pistons have gone and won one. Congratulations, you've proved me wrong, and in most decisive fashion.
Somewhere in the third quarter of Tuesday night's 100-87 Game 5 win, maybe after Chauncey Billups' breakaway three-point play, the refs should have just waved their arms and called a TKO. It was that dominating a performance, the best of the four victories. The Lakers were stepping in post holes, answering phones that weren't ringing. The mere 13-point margin at the end was a result of garbage time. This was a colossal blowout.
History will remember this series as a huge upset. I've already seen it called the greatest upset in NBA Finals history, a claim I don't have the historical grounding to dispute, but it appeared in a British newspaper, so take it for what it's worth. But it's a bum rap, Larry. Your Pistons were the better team here. They were not only hungrier and deeper, they were better prepared, and that's on you.
The fact that oddsmakers and chatterers, and typists like me, failed to assess the situation properly -- and didn't know the vital Karl Malone would get hurt in Game 2, which robbed the Lakers of even the most desperate hope -- doesn't somehow make your Pistons' victory some kind of fluke. We were the ones out of our depth, not you guys.
So I apologize. I'm sorry. I underestimated you.
But let me say this: I don't think I underestimated your achievements prior to this year. What I underestimated was your ability to adapt, to change, to take a different approach.
For most of your career, you've been the reclamation guy, moving from town to town, taking on lousy teams and making them better, then moving on again before that team had a chance to either go to the next level or return to lousiness. It's a great way to earn a reputation as a supergenius -- assuming one is a good coach in the first place, of which there's no dispute in your case.
Not only does the team invariably improve, but it does so thanks to your flamboyant coaching gambits. Look! He's got five guards in the game! Look, they're in the box-and-one! "Brown Plays Every Card in Deck," read an admiring Philadelphia Inquirer headline after Game 3 of the 2001 Finals -- which your 76ers had lost to the Lakers.
