Larry Brown on the Road to Charlotte, Will Coach Bobcats

Larry Brown, the official coaching gypsy, has made it official. He's coming back to coach the Charlotte Bobcats and to reunite with basketball legend Michael Jordan. 

While Brown has been successful in just about every stop on his lifetime of love tour, is it really a great idea to coach the Bobcats, a team with little hope of winning?

While Brown has turned around some bad teams with great coaching, I'm not so sure he'll be able to do that here. 

Plus, since Jordan retired from basketball, anything he touches turns to crap.  He hasn't been able to use his extreme will to win to get any franchise to excel...likely why you'll never see him coach any team in the NBA.

But if anyone can turn this team around, it's Brown, who started his coaching career in 1972 with the Carolina Cougars of the ABA.  After two seasons he moved on to coach the Denver Rockets of the ABA, later becoming the Denver Nuggets once the ABA/NBA merged.

He then packed his truck and moved to UCLA.  In two seasons, he took them to the National Championship game, where he lost to Louisville. 

It's a good thing he held onto the moving boxes, because he moved back to the NBA to coach the New Jersey Nets.  After two seasons there he went back to college to coach the Kansas Jay Hawks.  There he would spend a little bit of time. 

While at Kansas, Brown was named coach of the year in the Conference and coach of the year in the NCAA for winning a National Championship in 1988. 

The celebration was short as Brown moved back to the NBA to coach the San Antonio Spurs.  His first season was a disaster, but he turned them around and won two division titles before deciding to leave.

He then took over the Los Angeles Clippers and Indiana Pacers, and he made them both playoff contenders.

His next move would have him working with Allen Iverson and the Philadelphia 76ers.  While in Philly, Brown led the team all the way to the NBA finals against the Los Angeles Lakers, eventually losing. 

Brown lasted two more seasons in Philly before moving on to coach the Detroit Pistons, where he enjoyed his greatest achievement.  He coached the Pistons to an NBA title in his first season and a return trip to the finals in his second. 

His NBA title would make him the first man to win both the NCAA and NBA titles. The ticker tape parade, though, was abbreviated as he moved again.  This time he would take over a New York Knicks team waiting in the emergency room triage for someone to help.

Brown would only last one season in the Big Apple. Perhaps even he realized that he couldn't save the Titanic (Knicks) from going under.

As we get back to his current coaching move, this is certainly a good move for the Bobcats and possibly a bad move for Brown.

To sum it all up Brown has one National Championship and three final fours in his college coaching career and one NBA title, three conference championships, 10 division titles, and 25 playoff appearances in 26 years.

He has also totaled over 1,000 wins and will now be taking over his ninth NBA team.

Quite a resume for the already enshrined Hall of Famer. 

www.rawsportsblog.com