Knicks Predictions: Marbury to Outlast Brown

Got two predictions and New York Knicks fans are not going to like either one. Sorry, but here goes:

# 1. As anticipated, Larry Brown plus Stephon Marbury is not a productive pairing. In fact, they are bringing out the worst in each other. Prediction: Stephon Marbury is going to outlast Larry Brown with the Knicks.

# 2. Forget the debate over how many years Larry Brown will coach the Knicks. His contract calls for five years. Prediction: Larry Brown will not finish season number one on the sidelines of the New York Knicks.

Most Knicks fans were understandably elated when Isiah Thomas – armed with $50 million of James Dolan's cash - convinced Larry Brown to weasel his way out of Detroit to take on the daunting task of leading the staggering franchise back to respectability. Some fans expected the arrival of Brown to immediately make the Knicks a playoff team. In fact, the over/under in Las Vegas before the start of the season was 40 wins.

Yet now – one-third of the way into the season – the Knicks find themselves at 7-20 with only one team in the entire NBA with a worse record (Toronto at 7-22). The Knicks were bad last season and it still took them until April 1 to fall 13 games under .500. No one could have foreseen it going this bad, this quickly. Yes, the Knicks roster is still flawed. Yes, they're young. Yes, they've got new faces that are still trying to "jell". Yes, they've had injuries. Yes, Larry Brown teams often start off slow. OK, now that we've got all the tired old excuses out of the way, let's be honest: If Larry Brown wasn't Larry Brown, he would already be on the hot seat. Yes, you read that right. If Brown is to be judged purely on the job he has done as the Knicks coach – and not on his Hall of Fame resume – then a fairly compelling case can be made that he is doing a terrible job and the team would be better off with someone else at the helm.

Consider last night's 105-95 loss to Orlando in which the Marbury-Brown relationship – already rocky at best – may have bottomed out. Marbury played 39 minutes and went 0-for-7 from the floor with two assists and no steals. To say he was a non-factor is being charitable. In truth, he appeared to be pouting. So Marbury - in a characteristic display of (im)maturity and (non)leadership – elected to sleepwalk his way through the contest. Brown, in what has already become a predictable and tiresome post-game ritual, blamed individual members of his team – in this case Marbury – for the loss:

"I think he just didn't want to shoot the ball. I thought he'd have 15-20 assists. Just one of those nights he maybe he didn't feel like he was on. He's 0-for-7 shooting with three assists in 41 minutes. He got the ball all the time. I ran as much stuff for him as I have all season. He maybe didn't feel like he had it. He got three assists and no steals. By accident you can get a steal. That makes me think we weren't aggressive defensively."

Brown usually follows these backstabbing sessions with an insincere "Guess I gotta do a better job of coaching". Last night he didn't even bother with his self-deprecating act. But you know what? Larry Brown has gotta start doing a better job of coaching.

Great coaches adjust their coaching philosophy and game-planning to accentuate the strengths and conceal the weaknesses of their personnel. Great coaches do everything in their power to put players in a position to succeed. Larry Brown has not done that this season. On the contrary, Brown repeatedly takes not-so-subtle jabs at the flawed roster that Isiah Thomas has assembled. Even worse, Brown goes out of his way to call attention to the flaws of individual players. Pat Riley used to preach "having each other's backs". Brown's players have to watch their backs or their coach is likely to stab them in it.

Another point on Brown's performance this season: While chemistry is often overrated in basketball, Larry Brown has made a mockery of the concept by using 18 different starting lineups in 27 games. Last night's starting unit – another new one - combined to go 6-for-34 from the floor for a total of 20 points. It's hard to imagine any starting line-up in NBA history has ever been less productive.

So back to the predictions – which, it turns out, are directly related to each other. Marbury will outlast Larry Brown in New York because he is virtually untradeable. While the Knicks make it four teams that Marbury has failed to improve (joining Minnesota, New Jersey and Phoenix), there might still be a team willing to give the 28-year-old another chance if not for one huge obstacle: HIS CONTRACT. Marbury is in only the third season of a six-year, $105 million contract. Yikes. No team – especially when factoring in the dollar-for-dollar luxury tax implications - is going to touch that.

So Marbury is going nowhere any time soon. But why won't Larry Brown see the end of the season on the Knicks sidelines? Simply because he won't want to. The Knicks are not fun to watch and it's hard to imagine they're any fun to coach. Brown is 65. He's rich and no longer needs the hassle. Given his track record, there was no shot he was going to coach the Knicks for all five seasons of his five-year deal. But there was also probably no shot – at least in Brown's mind – that there would be no light at the end of the tunnel ... and absolutely no joy whatsoever in returning to New York to coach his hometown team. Another two months or so of the day-to-day grind of practicing, traveling and losing and Larry Brown will have had enough. He won't quit – that would mean walking way from the most lucrative coaching contract in league history. Most likely, it'll be a recurrence of undisclosed "health issues" that will be the stated reason for leaving. Plus, going the "bad-health" route leaves open the option of coming back next season in the unlikely event the Knicks are able to pull off a major deal – think LeBron James or Kevin Garnett – that makes the prospects of coaching them more palatable to Brown.

Bottom Line: Stephon Marbury will still be Knick at the end of this season ... but Larry Brown will no longer be the guy complaining about the team's deficiencies in the post-game press conferences.