Newsday:Larry Brown's Knicks bosses are disenchanted enough with the job he did this season that they have at some point discussed ways to remove Brown, people familiar with those discussions say.
The viability of a buyout was mentioned in these internal talks. However, it is not known whether they might still weigh a buyout for Brown.
While Isiah Thomas claimed at Thursday's media gathering that the Knicks aren't considering a coaching change - of course, this isn't something they'd admit publicly - club higher-ups are even more displeased than they let on with Brown's job performance and particularly his penchant for publicly criticizing the players and roster.
Maybe Brown really is coming back. But if he does, he returns with a lot less backing than you'd expect a Hall-of-Fame coach to have off one bad year.
And if it's true they now aren't seriously considering a coaching change, it's likely only because they've determined there's no way to smoothly and equitably sever ties with Brown, who has a whopping $40 million left on his five-year contract.
Agent Joe Glass' comments this week to Newsday that Brown was coming back probably sounded more like a threat than promise to Knicks higher-ups. Or maybe they were merely the first salvo in Brown's latest exit strategy, like when Glass insisted publicly last summer that he'd coach only the Pistons this season.
Maybe Knicks people took Glass' recent remarks to heart, or maybe their current stance that Brown's returning is their own negotiating strategy. Either way, if he truly is returning, they aren't exactly thrilled about it.
The Knicks saw a couple of potential openings for Brown close off just within the last week. 1) When Brown said he's feeling better now than he did a year ago, the chances for a successful insurance claim were severely decreased, and 2) When Warriors exec Chris Mullin said they'll stick with Mike Montgomery, a potential landing spot was lost. (Warriors owner Chris Cohan has a home within spitting distance from Brown's home in East Hampton, and there are pictures in the Warriors' offices of one of Cohan's kids being instructed by Brown at his summer clinic there.)
Brown's performance in the 23-59 season was poor (hardly ever playing Stephon Marbury and Steve Francis together after proclaiming them a modern-day Clyde and Pearl comes to mind). But his public rank-out contest with the infantile Marbury is what really galled Knicks owner Jim Dolan, who declined to return calls. People close to the situation say Brown was warned multiple times to cut it out.
