The Knicks quickly will become winners again under Larry Brown. That’s what Hubie Brown thinks.
“Larry Brown is the ultimate teacher-coach and one of the top quick-turnaround people in the history of the ABA and the NBA,” one of the Knicks’ highest profile coaches ever, Hubie Brown, said in a telephone interview from Atlanta yesterday. “I honestly feel he will do it in a short period of time and have them playing entertaining basketball.
“He is the right person, a perfect match,” continued the man who coached the Knicks for four-plus seasons. “I don’t doubt they’ll get it quickly. And they’ll get it quicker than with anyone else they could have hired.”
Hubie, no relation, rolled off the strengths Larry will bring: discipline, organization, teaching skills, attention to detail just for starters.
“You need a teacher with organization and discipline and the most important thing is he’s going to make them all accountable,” stressed Hubie, who recorded more than 500 head coaching victories in the NBA and the ABA – where in its last season, 1975-76, Larry’s Denver Nuggets beat Hubie’s defending-champion Kentucky Colonels in the playoffs.
Larry Brown lives and dies with defense. And the Knicks’ roster, well, it’s not the Detroit Bad Boys of the ’80s and ’90s.
“The organization is the difference. And this is not a man carrying a blank resume. He has known nothing but success. There’ll be no [butt]-kissing here. You’re either going to play as a pro or you’re not,” said Brown, who was the NBA Coach of the Year with Memphis in 2003-04.
“It’s going to be a great learning experience for players under contract there. You never assume people cannot do things. Every coach brings an approach and a philosophy at both ends. Larry Brown is a disciplinarian and he’s got a style, a winning style,” Hubie added.
And all of Larry Brown’s strengths will enable him to handle the glare and the unrelenting spotlight of New York. Above all, he will make the Knicks winners, Hubie predicted. That will ease the glare and lessen the spotlight considerably. The onus is on the players to perform.
“There’s not going to be a laissez-faire attitude toward the last six minutes of a game, toward winning. There will be accountability,” Hubie insisted. “Put all this in cement: He is not going to adjust to them. They are going to adjust to him.”
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Hubie Brown coached parts of five seasons with the Knicks, winning more than 40 games in his first two.