News

Everybody Hates Mike

Continued from page 1

On sports radio, the calls center on two themes: LeBron James as Messiah, and Mike Brown as That Moron in the Suit. "I hear people constantly criticize him for his offense, and they seem to overlook his defense," says Rizzo. "The Cavs might have overachieved last year. But if they did, it was because of their defense . . . And that comes from Mike Brown."

The national press happily piles on. During last year's Eastern Conference Finals, Bill Simmons, ESPN.com's couch-bound NBA junkie, wrote that Brown was "so overmatched, it's almost not funny. When Flip Saunders is working you like a speed-bag, it's time to pick another profession."

Though Brown dispatched Saunders in the next four games, Simmons was at it again a week later, pegging Brown at an 11.8 on the "Deer in the Headlights" scale at the start of the NBA Finals. By Game 3, he was calling Brown one of the worst coaches in Finals history.

Though neither Gilbert nor Ferry ever breathed a word of doubt about their coach's future, there was talk by this season that Brown's seat, if not boiling hot, was at least heated by a warming plate. In January, another ESPN columnist, Chris Sheridan, ranked Brown third among coaches most likely to be fired. The odds on getting canned: 12 to 1.

He signed an extension 10 days later.

More patient fans seem to understand that Brown's been hamstrung from the start. To create a winner fast, in hopes of re-signing James in 2006, Ferry belly-flopped into free agency in 2005. But his splashy acquisitions — Larry Hughes, Donyell Marshall, and Damon Jones — have left the Cavs doubly handcuffed. Not only did all three fail to live up to their billing, but lengthy contracts have left them untradable. So while stars like Jason Kidd and Pau Gasol go flying around the league, the Cavs are left without a dance partner and with a roster severely flawed.

Yet somehow, the world has come to the conclusion that Brown has been little more than Witness to the Cavs' success. In most fans' eyes, there's really only one man of import at The Q: LeBron. Everyone else is a burden the star must carry.

It's a notion that makes guard Eric Snow burst into angry laughter: "Do you sense anyone in this organization gets respect? I mean, be real about it. I think that has a lot to do with an extraordinary, tremendous, talented young fellow on your team. And it's easy for people to say it's all because of him. So for all the good things that we do . . . to a certain extent it hurts other people, because you may not get the credit that you deserve."

Brown knows the criticism. All that stuff about his offense, the things you scream at your flat-screen as James pounds the ball, waiting for a screen while the rest of his teammates stand watching — he's heard it.

Not just from you.

From his boss.

Danny Ferry didn't hire Mike Brown; Gilbert did. But the two were close to a package deal. Brown took the job knowing Ferry would likely be the GM. Before he was hired, Ferry gave Gilbert his blessing. As Ferry puts it, "We've got our skins in this game together."

The result is a relationship that's as close as any GM-coach tandem in the NBA. Ferry lurks at nearly every practice. After games, they meet to debrief. Then, when the assistant coaches leave, "Danny and I will sit and we'll talk," says Brown. "It's good for me to hear Danny's perspective . . . Depending on how I'm feeling, Danny could be there with me until one in the morning."

After the Finals last summer, the two met to review the season. But this time, Brown didn't quite appreciate Ferry's perspective. While Ferry is cut from the same defense-first cloth, he saw the Finals the same way fans did: The Cavs' offense just didn't work.

"He's watching the practices, he's watching the games, he's watching us struggle," Brown says. "And that was one of the things he told me. At first, you get offended. You just won 50 games. Screw you!"

Ferry urged Brown to spend time during the off season with Ettore Messina, an Italian coach known for offensive creativity.

"You get defensive," Brown says. "Your insides start to boil over. What does he know? He's not in my shoes!"

But Brown, famous for his devotion to film, had watched the same games that Ferry had. And while it pained him to admit it, he'd come to the same conclusion. "Offensively," he says, "we were horrible."

How that came to be was part design, part DNA. In his first two years on the bench, Brown spent as much as 80 percent of the time talking about defense. "That's what I told Dan Gilbert: 'When I first get to your team, I'm laying the foundation defensively.'"

But defense was also what he knew. Brown played high-school basketball in Germany — his dad was in the Air Force — and college at the University of San Diego. But he was never gifted enough to star on offense.

"I could never score. I could never shoot," he says. "I just go to my strength. You could always just give effort defensively."

That continued into his career as a video coordinator, a scout, and eventually an assistant, as coaches tapped his military-bred attention to detail, his willingness to spend hours in the film room. "As an assistant coach . . . you don't make up offenses," he says. "You don't call plays." By the time he arrived in Cleveland in 2005, Brown says, "I had never put in an offense."

So he went to see the Italian.

Brown spent 10 days at Messina's training camp, studying an offense that, simply put, involves more movement of ball and bodies. What he learned wouldn't turn the Cavs into an offensive juggernaut. Even if Brown wanted to, he doesn't have players to engineer such a transformation. "It's hard when you don't have a point guard," says Ric Bucher, who covers the NBA for ESPN. "You don't have a lot of guys who are good at moving without the ball. So now you're stuck."

And for all of James' talents, Bucher says, "What you can do with him offensively is more limited than you would think."

• 1
• 2
• 3
Next Page »