Jacobs: Brown brightens outlook for Bobcats

When last we saw Larry Brown, he was the living hub of a coaching wheel that touched every school competing in the 2008 NCAA men’s Final Four. Discussing those links, including his fondness for his former Kansas assistant, KU coach Bill Self, Brown admitted he longed to get back to the NBA sidelines, from which he had been absent for two years.

Wish granted.

Brown, the only coach in history to win titles in both the NBA (Detroit, 2004) and NCAA (Kansas, 1988), was introduced Wednesday as perhaps the savior of a Charlotte Bobcats franchise that has failed to captivate fans, make money or win games. The Hall of Famer was successful at most of his numerous coaching stops, earning 21 playoff berths and four coach of the year awards. He is known as a teacher of the game.

The Bobcats, meanwhile, have yet to post a winning record in four years of existence. They finished 32-50 in 2008, fourth among five teams in the Southeast division of the NBA’s weaker Eastern Conference.

The expansion franchise cost $300 million and has already another lost $50 million, not uncommon for an NBA team. Majority owner Bob Johnson, the billionaire creator of the BET cable network, has antagonized many in Charlotte with high ticket prices and a perceived air of arrogant entitlement. He and Michael Jordan, head of basketball operations and a minority partner, remain aloof from fans and media.

The reservoir of good will already was shallow after the shenanigans of George Shinn, who fled to New Orleans with Charlotte's first NBA franchise.

Attendance, never impressive for the Bobcats, has fallen for two straight years. Charlotte ranked 27th of 30 NBA teams in attendance in 2007. That rank improved to a deceptive 24th in 2008, even as the club drew nearly 1,000 fewer fans per game.

But winning cures many ills, and Brown figures to provide such healing in Charlotte, where he began his head coaching career in 1972 with the ABA’s Carolina Cougars.

“I think he's going to do a great job here,” Jordan said upon introducing a coach whose teams won 57.7 percent of the time (1239-907) over 28 seasons. “I think we have the right pieces here. I think the city is waiting and hungry for a very successful franchise here."

Brown’s latest stint herding a feline franchise came after Jordan, in his second year at Charlotte, fired Sam Vincent, a former pro teammate lacking experience as a head coach. Vincent lasted one year with the Bobcats.

“I think they hired the right coach,” Billy King, general manager at Philadelphia for more than 10 years, said of Brown. King employed Brown as head coach of the Sixers from 1998 through 2003, the basketball vagabond’s longest stint in any one place. He re-hired Brown as an executive vice president two years ago.

“That team is ideal for Larry, almost,” said King, an analyst these days on the NBA's TV network. “They’ve got good young talent, they have a couple of veterans. He’s good with teams like that, because he teaches the little things.”

King was among those Brown consulted before taking the Charlotte job. “I told him, ‘You’ll be great there.’”

Brown said at his introductory press conference that he missed being part of a team and “smelling the gym.”

He cited as his major challenge getting his players “to understand the difference between coaching and criticism.” To that end, he promised to promote the sort of teaching atmosphere he encountered as a player at Chapel Hill during the early 1960s under Hall of Famers Frank McGuire and especially Dean Smith.

The 67-year-old Brown readily recounted how Smith, whom he called “the greatest coach to ever coach this game,” stressed the values of functioning as a unit. That started with an admonition posted in the North Carolina locker room to “Play hard, play together, play unselfishly, and have fun." Smith told Brown that good rebounding and defense were useful traits, too.

Other, more subtle skills are also part of Brown’s message to players. King said he will impart to the Bobcats the value of shot selection, of playing defense for all 48 minutes of a game, of sharing the ball, and of playing hard.

“He’s a lot like Coach K,” said King, who played for Mike Krzyzewski at Duke from 1985-88, “in demanding excellence, demanding effort. The team comes first.”

Fall of Famer Alex Hannum coached the 5-9 Brown with the Oakland Oaks in 1969, after the guard had worked as an assistant coach under Smith. “He was obsessed with the game of basketball, always talking about it and thinking about it,” Hannum told Terry Pluto in “Loose Balls,” an oral history of the ABA. “It’s a cliché, but Larry Brown was the kind of little point guard who made your team better, the classic coach on the floor.”

Now Brown brings a near-half century of experience and passion to the professional version of UNC, a franchise awash in former Tar Heels.

Products of Smith’s program have crowded the NBA ranks for decades. These days the North Carolina contingent is represented by executives such as Donnie Walsh with the New York Knicks and the L.A. Lakers’ Mitch Kupchak, coaches like Denver’s George Karl, and 10 active players at season’s end.

But nowhere does the sky-blue flow deeper than with the Bobcats.

Besides Jordan, the team employs Buzz Peterson, Jordan’s UNC roommate, as director of player personnel. Phil Ford, a UNC legend, was on Vincent’s coaching staff and can be expected to stay on. Charlotte’s roster includes ex-Heels Raymond Felton and Sean May, stars of the school’s 2005 NCAA championship squad.

Ty Lawson, take notice. The Bobcats' roster has only unrestricted free agent Earl Boykins, a 5-5 veteran, as a backup point guard. A player with the proper pedigree could quickly find a home in the NBA outskirts of Chapel Hill.