The Drama Queen Chronicles continue: Brown wants $40 million

Oh, Star doesn't need proof when he's on a roll. Kinda like Blutarsky and the Germans bombing Pearl Harbor.

And yes, Brown will definitely get at least half of what is owed him.

 

Thanks and our next caller is Alonzo from Miami...'Zo are you still there?...

 

It has nothing to do with anyone's personal feelings about Brown, including Stern's. There's a contract and lawyers get really serious and precise about the way things are written in them. Dolan was foolish enough to give him a contract worth that much and now he's going to have to pay an awful lot to get out of it.

 

C'mon, Cran. You can't argue law and logic against Starman Justice.

 

I think Stern will give Brown most, if not all, the money. Star's take on Brown's sabotaging of the Knicks is pretty much right on, but that's not what the Knicks are using to challenge the contract. They're saying that Brown breached it by talking to the press when they told him not to and by talking about trades with other teams behind Isiah's back. He's hardly the first coach to do either one. The Knicks could have fined or suspended him, but they're crazy to think they can void the man's contract over these minor offenses.

Much as Stern would love to shove a red-hot poker up Brown's ass, he can't do it here. If he tries to screw him out of his money, Brown will take the NBA to court and even if Stern thinks the league would win, which it probably wouldn't, he doesn't want this thing to get any uglier and more drawn out than it already is. He'll tell the Knicks to give Brown his money and be done with it.

 

I read somewhere that the reason for the firing (and avoidance of paying the contract) was that Brown took part in media interviews that were not arranged by the Knicks.

If that rule was enforced, then every coach in America could be fired.

The Knicks should give Brown all the money simply because (not counting that they signed the contract) they thought they could avoid it by coming up with such a bullshit lame excuse.

They'll end up giving him at least half because that's what happens nowaday. Sign a coach to a big contract and eventually pay him a lot of money to go away (see Butch Davis).

 

I agree completely. He deserves every cent left on his contract.

The deal he got to leave Detroit was pretty slimy, but in this case he did nothing wrong. He couldn't win with a group of shit player that Isiah got him and was treated like shit before he was run out of town.

If I was Dr. Evil (Stern), I would award every cent Brown is owed. Maybe that will make some of these idiot owners think twice about paying these guys $10 million a year...

 

Stern is Dr. Evil? I thought he was Mini-Me.

 

Brown is owed nothing. He intentionally refused to perform the job he was hired for.

Uhhh, probably somewhere in the contract, it says that the coach is supposed to make every attempt in his ability to win games with the roster supplied to him.

Yes, the shit players Isiah got him weren't very good. Anybody intelligent could see this the minute he signed the contract last summer. Anybody intelligent could also see, because of Isiah's incompetence in stockpiling worthless overpaid over-the-cap players, that there was no way possible on the earth we live on, that the roster could be turned over into a grouping of fundamentally sound, dedicated hardworking players who could "Play The Right Way."

Faced with this reality, Brown decided to show the world what idiots Isiah and Dolan were, by intentionally playing the worst combinations of players conceivable, to maximize all their weaknesses and shortcomings, and of course after every game, a press conference to explain in his droning monotone that, while he "accepted all responsibility," really none of it was his fault.

I've worked with fuckers like this. I'm sure you have too. You get assigned to do some project or other, and maybe you don't get all the resources to do it the way you want to. So instead of trying to do the best you can with the material you've got, Mr. Hissy-Fit says fuck it, if it isn't gonna be done his way, he'll fuck it up good, so everybody can see how much better it would have been if it was done his way in the first place. So you all end up eating shit sandwiches, and Mr. Hissy-Fit says, "I told you we should have done it MY way."

 

Look, I like you Starman, so don't take this the wrong way.

But if Isiah doesn't do any better with this roster, i.e. less than a three-win difference from last year's record, will you come back in here one year from today and admit you were wrong?

 

Starman,

If you're a bitter Knicks fan, I don't blame you... But Dolan and Thomas signed Brown to that outrageous contract and they need to be held to it.

I don't disagree that Brown wanted out, but they fired him... Isiah's the one at fault here, not Brown...

 

Actually, how they do next season is pretty much irrelevant. It is a horrible mismatched collection of pseudo-talent (which will also be a year older), so it doesn't matter if the head coach is Larry Brown, Hubie Brown, Sweet Georgia Brown, Isiah Thomas, Justice Clarence Thomas or Rob Thomas of matchbox twenty, they ain't going to win a lot of games. My own completely off-the-cuff guess is, they will win about 30-35 games.

But however many games they do win, it will be because the head coach is actually trying to win games, not throw a hissy fit to discredit his GM and owner (who again, of course, richly deserve plenty of blame on their own "merits" ) and humiliate the players.