The Nomad Coach

Larry Brown

A nomad is a person who never really stays at one place for a long time. A person who always seems to be on the move. Professional head coaches always seem to be on the move, in European football it is not uncommon for a coach to be in charge of 5 or 6 clubs during their career, in North America they don't not move around as much or should I say they are only in charge of one or two organizations during a career. Legendary coach Phil Jackson coached only the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers, of course that also helped he was winning. Then there is Larry Brown the nomad of basketball, Larry Brown has never stayed longer at one place more than five years. Coach Brown was hired as the Southern Methodist University coach, he has not coached since he stepped down from the Charlotte Bobcats last season, one of his hand full of losing seasons he has ever had.

Larry Brown started his coaching career in the now defunct American Basketball Association (ABA) with the Carolina Cougars leading them to the playoffs in both seasons he was with them. Following the two seasons with the Cougars the Denver Nuggets picked him up where he lead them to the ABA finals in his second season and was with them in their first three seasons in the NBA after the NBA-ABA merger. Browns first three seasons in the NBA were all winning after which he sent two at UCLA, where he took the Bruins to the tournament in both seasons and reaching the Final Four in the first one. After the two years at UCLA Brown was on the move again and back to the pros where he took the reigns of the New Jersey Nets, in the first season he took them to the playoffs but six games left in the 1982-83 season he stepped down with the Nets standing at 47-29. After just two season in the NBA Larry Brown was back in the college game and coaching Kansas, this would end up being Brown’s longest tenure in the college game and his second longest stay in one place overall. In the five seasons at Kansas he took the Jayhawks to the NCAA tournament every season and not losing more than 11 games in a season. Kansas made to the Final 4 twice and winning the national championship the second time around with Danny Manning being named the player of the year. Of course after winning an NCAA title Coach Brown was on the move again back to the NBA, in his five seasons at Kansas and the two at UCLA he had won 74% of his games. Next Brown would coach the next 18 seasons in the NBA, during this string he would coach six teams. He would go one to miss the playoffs only three times, make it to the conference finals five times, making it to the NBA Finals three times and winning it once. In those 18 season Brown coached the San Antonio Spurs, Los Angeles Clippers, Indiana Pacers, Philadelphia 76ers, Detroit Pistons and the New York Knicks.

He is probably most known for trying to keep Allen Iverson and his ego in control for six seasons and making it to the NBA finals in 2001 to the Los Angeles Lakers. In 2004 he finally won his NBA title with the Pistons by beating the Lakers 4 games to 1, to be fair the team was already pretty good they just couldn't get over the hump of making it to the finals. In 2005 the Pistons lost to the Spurs and Brown was lured away from Detroit by the big city lights of New York and the paycheck of the Knicks. Brown ended up spending one season with the Knicks, took three season off, which was the longest he had been away from the game since he started playing as a kid. Michael Jordan and the Bobcats brought in Brown and in his second season he took them to the playoffs but got off to a slow start this season and stepped down after 28 games.
From SMU’s standpoint hiring Brown looks like a stroke genius, they will be moving to the Big East conference with a coach with a name. On the flip side Brown has not coached the college game in twenty five years so it will be interesting how it will go.