Larry Brown, the Hall of Fame coach who resigned from the 76ers six days ago, will be the next coach of the Detroit Pistons, sources with the league and the Sixers said yesterday.
Sources confirmed that Brown, 62, agreed to a five-year, $25 million contract with Detroit, the same team he lost to in the playoffs two weeks ago.
An announcement by the Pistons was expected early tomorrow afternoon.
"As I've said before, the team that hires me will be the one to make the announcement," Brown said by telephone yesterday. "I won't do it. I'm not confirming nor denying anything. That's the way it has to be."
ESPN reported yesterday that Brown had not made a decision, and that he was expected to choose between Detroit and Houston within the next 72 hours.
Houston general manager Carroll Dawson said, "We have made no formal job offers for our head-coaching position at this time. We expect to soon enough, but we have not pinpointed a time."
The Pistons held a news conference yesterday to announce that they had fired coach Rick Carlisle. Team president Joe Dumars didn't return a phone call afterward to confirm that Brown had agreed to a deal.
Reached after the news conference, Carlisle said, "I heard that Brown would be the next coach [Friday] before I was fired."
Carlisle, the 2002 NBA coach of the year, was let go even though he had guided Detroit to two 50-win seasons, two Central Division titles, and a recent berth in the Eastern Conference finals.
Several players apparently weren't happy with their playing minutes, and few of them approved of Carlisle's coaching style. Players such as Mehmet Okur and Tayshaun Prince reportedly weren't being coached to Dumars' liking.
But the Pistons made history by coming back from a three-games-to-one deficit against the Orlando Magic in the first round. They beat the Sixers in six games in the semifinals. And in the midst of getting swept in the conference finals by the New Jersey Nets, they managed to acquire the No. 2 pick in this month's draft.
And yet, Brown, and not Carlisle, will be coaching the team next season.
Regardless of what Carlisle had accomplished in his two-year stint in Detroit, Brown is the one with more than 1,200 career wins, Hall of Fame credentials, and five consecutive playoff appearances in Philadelphia.
While with the Sixers, he had numerous rifts with star guard Allen Iverson, which many believed contributed to his saying last week, "I've taken this team as far as I can. It's time to move on."
Brown, who still had two years remaining on his contract with the Sixers when he resigned, said he has three criteria for his next coaching stop: He wants to coach for an owner he respects, in a place where he has a chance to win, and in a place where he will have input in personnel decisions.
Earlier in the week, Brown was rumored to be a candidate in Cleveland. By Wednesday, his agent, Joel Glass, had already been on the phone with the Wizards, and it was believed that Brown would be heading to Washington once the Wizards' brass finally elected to fire Doug Collins on Friday.
A day later, reports out of Detroit had him heading to Motown.
"We will talk to Larry Brown," Dumars said at the team's news conference yesterday.
It appears he already has.
so who you going after now sid?