University Daily Kansan / Friday, April 28, 1989
19
Own transition game hampers Larry Brown
by Bart Hubbuch Special to the Kansan
Ten months and nearly 900 miles from Lawrence have done little to change Larry Brown.
He still stalks the sidelines in elegant designer suits. He still carries a rolled-up program in one hand and stomps his feet. He still preaches pressure defense and running the fast break.
and Larry Brown still hates to lose, which is a feeling he has had to deal with regularly since leaving the University of Kansas last summer and taking over the San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association.
"It's been disappointing for me to face because I hate to see any team of mine struggle like we are," said coach Kyle McCain, the national championship last spring.
"We're not playing well, and that's a coach's responsibility," he said midway through the Spurs' season, which ended Saturday.
"We made some changes early in the season, but we're still finding our way. This has been a tough year for me."
The Spurs, a franchise that qualified for the NBA playoffs in 1988, took on the appearance of an expansion team in their first season under Brown.
More than half the club's roster had fewer than three years of professional experience before the season began, and the team desperately was trying to trease a coach at center David Robinson, who will join the team this fall.
Robinson, a 7-foot-1 prospect from the U.S. Naval Academy, played for the Bronze Medal team in the Seoul Olympic Games and finished in six military days.
ing two year 2018 history.
The result of waiting for Robinson was a 21-61 record, the worst in the franchise's 17-year history.
It was fallout more severe than Brown or anyone else in the Spurs' organization expected last June when team owner Jim Lowe said he bought Brown from Lawrence with a five-year contract worth more than $3 million, the
largest coaching salary in league history.
“One of the most difficult things about this is that everybody in San Antonio had such high expectations coming into this season,” Brown said. “And those fans are waiting and wait, and we haven't delivered. I don't even know if we're capable of delivering at this point.”
It was a season of discontent psychologically for the 48-year-old Brown, who did not take all of the losing calmly.
Making matters worse, he has been beset with an inner-ear problem and constant migraine headaches that forced him to be hospitalized briefly early in the season. Long-time hip problems also acted up.
"I think I've handled this pretty well," Brown said. "I get upset when my players make mistakes, but I guess I've learned to handle them better." Then I was in college. Still, this has been an awfully grueling time for me.
So grueling that, at one time in mid-season, Brown publicly said he wouldn't be surprised if he were fired by McCombs at the team. He spars. McCombs denied that he had any plans to dismiss Brown.
Part of the problem, Brown admitted, is that he still hasn't readjusted to the move to the NBA. He began coaching in college in 1979 at UCLA after seven seasons in the old Americana. Then in 2008 he caught the NBA's New Jersey Nets and Denver Nuggets before moving to Kansas in 1983.
Brown still talks regularly with several of his former players at Kansas, and he returned to Lawrence on March 1 to see the final home game for seniors Milt Newton, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Scooter Barran and Sean Alvarado.
Brown said he wasn't bothered by the cold reception he received at Allen Field House that night. He was not a fan of the show and cheerers by the near-sellout crowd.
Many of them, no doubt, blamed him for the Jayhawks three-year
NCAA probation handed down last November. Kansas was banned from the NCAA tournament for one year and given other sanctions because Brown played in the State and other gifts to former Memphis State player Vincent Askew.
"I'm glad I am back," Brown said the night of his return to Lawrence. "I was not worried about the crowd. I'm just here to see the kids. I was nervous about coming back, but I felt good once I got back to Kansas."
It was not the first time during the Spurs' season that Brown had encountered his Kansas past. He faced it head-on in December when the Los Angeles Clippers and their star forward, former Kansas all-American Danny Manning, traveled to San Antonio's HemisFair Arena for the team's first meeting with the Sours.
Seated next to Brown that night was assistant Coach Ed Manning, Danny's father.
That was tough for all of us," Brown said. "I didn't tell danny, though. We teased him about that. I knew Danny was going to be nervous, but when crunch time came, he was there like I knew he would be. Even though I was coaching the other team, I was still very proud of him."
The Spurs' effort that night was typical of their entire season. Leading by 23 points midway through the game, Antonio felt apart and lost, 114-108.
Manning, who will be sidedeline for at least a year with a knee injury, scored 10 of his 13 points in the second half of the game.
"Danny's team is a lot like ours — young." Brown said. "Except his team is going upward, and ours is going the other way."
Despite Brown's misgings, the Spurs are not completely without talent. San Antonio has 6-foot-7 forward Willie Anderson, whose 17-point, five-rebound average made him a legitimate candidate for the NBA's Rookie of the Year award. He is joined by guards Johnny Dawkins and Alvin Robertson and forward Greg "Caddilac" Anderson, who are
considered three of the best young players in the league.
But the Spurs came nowhere near to reaching that potential this season. In fact, the notoriously superstitious Brown was so desperate to get his team out of an early season slump that he flew in Ryan Gray — the seriously ill teen-ager from Lawrence who was one of Brown's good-luck charms at Kansas — for a game in December.
The Spurs won that night.
"I wish he could come to all of our games," Brown said. "We could use him. We've been in so many games this season where we had a chance to win and couldn't. But I came here because of David Robinson. When he gets here, that's when I'll start to leave my mark on this franchise."
But Brown has had problems read- ing to the professional ranks after five years of unqualified success at the college level.
He juggled his lineup daily, but the Spurs won only 21 games, six fewer than his NCAA-champion Jayhawk with 30 points. And then Roy Kroger's first Kansas team.
Brown suffered the first losing season of his coaching career.
"It's been a very tough adjustment for me," said Brown, who learned how to coach in the 1960s as a player for the University of North Carolina. Dean Smith at North Carolina
"The league has changed so much in five years that I've had to catch up with some of it," he said. "I don't even know the team's personnel all much more than a much more of a learning experience, than I thought it would be."
"In college, we (assistants) were basically baby sitters." Buford said. "It's so much different here. You've got so much to do, but a lot of time to do it. We can't even practice every day; everything's so hectic."
It has been an adjustment as well for the seven-man entourage that Brown brought from Kansas. None of his four assistant coaches. Ed Sammon, one of their teachers, Alvin Gentry — had any NBA experience before last season
Larry Brown
Not that any of them regret the move from Kansas. Brown especially was eager to leave Lawrence, where the small-town atmosphere and conducive character had his personal life became almost too much for him to bear, he said.
Brown's private life was a hot topic in Lawrence, talk that was fueled by rumors ranging from an alleged affair with a KU student to his penchant for patronizing local bars and nightclubs.
a big, big relief," Brown said. "That's such a small town and such a small state. That made it difficult for me. University of Kansas basketball is big news in that state, and it is hard to get to it I had to get away from all that."
"Getting away from there has been
Brown now is getting accustomed to his new surroundings in south Texas, the latest stop on his winding road of a career.
"The city and the people here have been very good to me, which I thankful for," he said. "That's made everything a lot easier."
Enter your film developing claim check for a chance to win a 35mm camera with carrying case and film.
Each film order picked up at the KU Bookstores at the Kansas or Burge Unions allow you to enter the drawing. Drawing to be held May 31st. Prize will be mailed to the winner!
Cassette and Compact Disc Sale! Hurry for Best Selection!
Macintosh Demo Day
TODAY Level 4 Kansas Union 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
*Come see Apple's latest products*