Larry Brown looks out front window, lands on Memphis Tigers’ bench
Larry Brown
Larry Brown is more than a basketball lifer. He’s the best bet for the guy who will start a Roundball League in heaven.
That might be awhile. Larry is only 81. His mother, Ann Brown, died when she was 106. His brother, ex-Trail Blazer assistant Herb Brown, turned 86 Monday and is still going strong.
Brown could be a doing a lot of things at 81. The Naismith Hall of Famer could be playing golf at the country club. A regular at the bingo parlor. Binge-watching his favorite shows on Me TV. Serving on the board of directors at Senior Estates.
Instead, he will be in Portland, sitting on the bench next to Penny Hardaway as an assistant for the Memphis Tigers, who will open play against Boise State in Thursday’s the first round of the NCAA Tournament at Moda Center.
Penny Hardaway
It will be Brown’s first visit to Portland since 2010, when he was head coach of the Charlotte Bobcats.
“Probably went out to get some shoes (at the Nike employee store),” Brown told me Tuesday. “All the players, me and my staff, were Nike guys. They always treated us great out there.”
Brown is in his first season at Memphis working with Hardaway, who played four games for Larry with the New York Knicks in 2005-06 near the end of Penny’s injury-shortened career. Evidently, the tie was strong enough that not long after Hardaway was hired by Memphis in 2018, he began pursuing Brown’s help with the Tigers. Brown thought he might do something in the NBA — perhaps Portland with Chauncey Billups, his point guard on Detroit’s 2004 NBA championship club — and he even considered a high school job near his Long Island home in The Hamptons.
“The main reason I came (to Memphis) was, since Penny got the job, he has been trying to get me to be involved,” Brown says. “I really thought I was going to go with Chauncey or somebody else in the league. But since Penny has been talking about me joining him for so long, I thought it would be more important for me to do that.”
And, as Brown told reporters after he was hired at Memphis: “I wasn’t good at being idle.”
Brown has watched from afar as Billups has struggled in his first season with the Blazers.
“When you lose (Damian) Lillard and (CJ) McCollum and have so many young players, it’s something you expect,” he says. “I took over nine (NBA) teams and eight them had losing records. It doesn’t happen overnight. When you lose quality people and players like Chauncey has, you’re not going to see the results this year.
Memphis State Tigers logo
“Chauncey is a hard worker. The fact he worked with Tyronn (Lue) and sat on the bench (with the Clippers) and watched other people work, that bodes well for him. He’s inquisitive. He’s humble enough to learn and want to get better and confident enough to make the players understand that. I’m encouraged by what I’ve seen from him this first year and what I see down the road for Portland.”
Since his last coaching job in 2018, Brown had divided time between homes in New York City and Charlotte with Shelly, his wife of 29 years. To say he missed coaching is to say an addict misses heroin. It’s in his blood. He visited friends in the coaching business — Bill Self at Kansas, John Calipari at Kentucky, Tubby Smith at High Point (N.C.) and others — attended their practices and watched them coach.
“I got to smell the gym a lot the last three years,” Brown says. “Even with COVID, I got to be involved to some degree, which was fun. I’ve been so lucky with all the people who coached me and the people I coached and were on the bench with me. They all share their stuff and knowledge with me. I want to try to pass it on. But boy, the game’s a lot different today than it was before.”
Brown isn’t just a figurehead, or a consultant a la Pete Carril when he was with the Sacramento Kings. He is a full-time assistant, contributing to game plans, helping with recruiting and “doing what an assistant would do.”
“I do whatever Penny asks,” Brown says. “You try to support Penny in any way you can, and in any way he wants you to help. I’m loving being around him and seeing his passion and how much he cares about the kids and watching him grow as a coach. Pretty neat when you’re around a guy like that who has done so much but is so open to learn. It’s been great for me.
“It’s been a learning experience. I love being around Penny and the staff. We have a lot of young coaches and young (grad assistants) who want to be coaches. I’m trying my best to share what I was taught.”
Brown thought he would be working alongside Rasheed Wallace on the Tigers’ bench. The former Trail Blazer forward, with Billups a starter for Brown on the Pistons’ ’04 championship squad, started the season as an assistant but has not been with the team in an in-person capacity since mid-December because of COVID (he was unvaccinated). Rodney Hamilton, the team’s director of basketball operations, has assumed his on-court duties. Sheed, still officially a member of the staff, is said to have spoken with some of the players via Zoom since then.
Rasheed Wallace
Memphis (21-10) has won 12 of 14 after a very poor start. The Tigers have a balanced scoring attack — eight players averaging between six and 12 points — and are an excellent defensive team, with opponents shooting only .396 from the field and .321 from 3-point range while scoring 68.4 points per game.
Their star is Jalen Duren, a 6-11, 250-pound freshman who was the nation’s No. 1 recruit a year ago. Duren leads the team in scoring (12.2), rebounds (8.1) and blocked shots (2.2) and shoots .626 from the field.
“We’ve had a lot of injuries and lost some kids to COVID,” Brown says. “The last 14 games, we’ve been in a situation where we couldn’t afford to lose. We did a real good job of putting ourselves in the position to make the tournament.”
Brown’s resume through 41 years of coaching is beyond impressive. He ranks eighth on the career win list for NBA head coaches with a record of 1,098-904 over 24 seasons with nine teams. He also coached four seasons in the old ABA (229-107), giving him 1,327 wins at the pro level, fourth all-time behind Gregg Popovich, Don Nelson and Lenny Wilkens. Throw in a 120-115 mark in NBA playoff games and a 266-99 mark through 11 seasons coaching NCAA Division I at UCLA, Kansas and Southern Methodist and he has 1,713 victories, a standard that may never be surpassed.
Besides the NBA championship in Detroit, Brown coached Kansas to an NCAA title in 1988, making him the only coach in history to win a crown at the NBA and college levels. When I ask him for the highlight of his career, though, he chooses something different.
“Being allowed to do what I love,” Brown says. “I thought I would be a football, basketball and baseball coach in high school and teach American history. I got to coach at North Carolina, at UCLA, at Kansas, at SMU, and all the great places in ABA and NBA. How many guys get that chance?”
And this: “The most fun I had and the most meaningful time for me was when I was assistant and freshman coach at Carolina.”
That was a lifetime ago for many — from 1965-67 at his alma mater, the only time he was ever an assistant before now. Frank McGuire coached him his sophomore season before leaving for South Carolina. Dean Smith took over and coached Brown — an All-ACC guard as a senior — his final two years.
“Carolina meant so much to me,” Brown says. “Coach McGuire recruited me and Coach Smith was a mentor for me. Doesn’t get much better than that. Donnie Walsh and I were Coach Smith’s assistants my first year. It was great training for me.”
Brown’s last coaching job was with a professional team in Italy. With his team’s record 5-19, he was fired at midseason. What happened?
“What didn’t happen?” Brown says. “I missed all of training camp because I got sick. Once I came back after being away from camp, things weren’t exactly like I’d hoped they would be. But I learned a lot.”
Last year, Brown was presented by the NBA with the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award, named after the coach who won a pair of titles in Detroit.
“I admired the hell out of Chuck,” Brown says. “You win an award and it’s named after him, that’s special. The NBA was great to me. I’ve loved every experience I had. I appreciate the opportunity the league afforded me, the places I got to coach, the players I got to coach, the coaches who sat with me. When you win an award like that, you look back at all those things as reasons why you won the award.”
When I ask Brown if there is anything he has done through his career that he regrets, he laughs.
“We could write a book about some of that,” he says. “I learned a long time ago that when you get in the car, your rearview mirror is really small and the window in front of you is really large. I want to focus on that. “How many guys at 81 are going to the NCAA tournament with a coach who played for you that you admired the hell out of? I don’t think many people can say that, but I can.”
Brown signed a one-year contract with Memphis. Will he be back next season?
“I don’t know,” he says. “Depends on Penny and the situation with him. At 81, I’m just thankful to be able to get up in the morning.”
I think Brown winds up on an NBA bench next season. It might be Portland.
“I don’t know,” he says. “So many people in the NBA were great to me and impacted my life in a positive way, I wouldn’t mind helping anybody who feels I could be an asset.
“Right now, I’m getting ready to fly to Portland, get some good seafood and hopefully have some good success in the basketball court.”
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