LB Just Needs to Leave

It turns out Mitch Albom was right all along. The "will he stay or will he go?" saga wore out its welcome during the regular season five months ago. It's July and Joe Dumars still has no idea who his coach will be next season. Nevermind the fact that Brown told Dumars that he would let him know his answer a week after the season ended. That was 13 days ago. Don't expect an answer anytime soon. Brown's agent had the following to say:

I don't know what people expected. Did you think Larry was going to get better overnight?"

Hmmm. I don't know how to respond to that. Why would anyone think anything other than what Brown said himself? People aren't making this stuff up. He actually said he needed three days after the season to decide. Then he changed it to a week. Now, who knows?

Marc Stein of ESPN.com takes a look at how this all might unfold.

Many people in the national media think that the Pistons can't win without Larry Brown. To their credit, I think Detroit sportswriter's are a little more intelligent than that. I'm still trying to figure out how Larry Brown made it through the playoffs without getting lambasted for doing a terrible job. When a good team keeps doing the same stupid things over and over again, the finger needs to be pointed at the coach. I realize the coach isn't on the court but the coach is responsible for trends. The Pistons have more bad habits than any championship-caliber team I've ever seen.

How many times did Lindsey Hunter take crucial shots in the second half of big games? Hunter was the 7th option. I can count five times off of the top of my head where Hunter was thrown the ball with less than 5 seconds on the shot clock forcing him to throw up an airball. How many times did the Spurs pass to Udrih as the shot clock was expiring? The problem here isn't that it happened, but that it kept happening. The same can be said for the offensive droughts. How can a team be so inept on offense so many times? The Pistons can score. They were the first team in finals history to score more than 90 points against the Spurs and they did it four times. The offensive droughts haven't stopped since Brown arrrived. In fact, they seem to have gotten worse. Add on top of that the terrible game management and game to game adjustments. Rasheed Wallace is one of the best post men in the NBA. However, he rarely takes the ball to the basket. Tim Duncan does it everytime. Rasheed either a). doesn't get the ball or b). takes a low percentage turnaround jumper. That's coaching. Rasheed was a force in the post in Portland. He can be again. LB has dropped the ball on Rasheed.

I could go on forever here. The bottom line is that Larry Brown prides himself on playing the right way. By that he simply means make smart passes and play defense. I appreciate his knowledge of fundamentals but in two full seasons, I have to say Brown is very overrated. It remains to be seen whether Rick Carlisle could've won with this team. The defense was there. The hustle was there. The only differences I can see from the Carlisle era is the addition of Rasheed Wallace, the revelation that Tayshaun Prince could play and a team with more experience playing together. Brown had no impact on any of those elements. The Pistons don't need Brown to be a championship team. That would be an insult to what the players have accomplished over the last four years. They need a coach that will fix their problems. I surely won't shed a tear if Brown leaves and a big part of me will be happy