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Larry is in, Sam is out, and Michael is happy…for now.

I am excited, thrilled, elated that Brown has made his NBA comeback here. His abilities as a coach are unquestioned (if, of course, you take the New York Knicks as an aberration, as I and most everyone else has chosen to do). But in all the festivities, we have somewhat neglected one of the things LB likes to do.

That is follow in the tradition of another peripatetic sage coach, Bill Parcells. When asked about the ability to make personnel decisions, Parcells had this now classic quote:

Parcells’ departure from the Patriots was in part because he wanted more control over personnel decisions. “If they want you to cook the dinner, they at least ought to let you buy the groceries,” he said.

And you know from previous stops, LB is from the Parcells school of thought on this. He likes control over not only who plays when, but who plays, period. He has history with two current Bobcats: he benched Emeka Okafor for the duration of the 2004 Olympics, and he tried his best to not play Nazr Mohammed in Detroit. He tried desperately to change the personnel in New York’s disaster, butting heads with Isiah Thomas over player issues. Put simply, LB is a control freak.

Jordan and his surrogate GM Rod Higgins will have to be able to handle Brown’s need for change constructively and hopefully, privately. The core of the Bobcats all are 27 or younger, not Brown’s favorite configuration. If he wanted to go with grizzled veterans, he’s be stuck with “Old Fella” Harrington and the dessicated remains of Derek Anderson. There is just no veteran leader on the squad right now aside from potentially Jason Richardson. Look for Brown to push for at least a veteran guard during the offseason to offset the addition of yet another young player through the draft (and no, they can’t trade the pick…the Stepien Rule would be in full effect).

But that being said, what other options did the Bobcats have? We brought up Paul Silas; the coaching carousel is turning throughout the league, with Avery Johnson being shown the door yesterday, and Mike D’Antoni possibly getting the gate in Phoenix. Surely there were younger coaches out there who may have deserved a chance.

Johnson and Jordan had to make a splash. They had to hire someone to focus the basketball world on Charlotte for one news cycle, and give them credibility to attract free agents and leaguewide attention throughout the season. Brown has a championship in recent years, and wins. The heartburn of dealing with LB’s demands and needs are a small price to pay for the chance to be a team people care about for the first time in its short existence.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 10:23 am and is filed under Michael Jordan, Sam Vincent, Larry Brown, Othella Harrington, Derek Anderson, Emeka Okafor, Charlotte Bobcats. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.