Healthy outlook a challenge for Brown
MIAMI -- He insists it's no big deal. You listen to him and you think it can't be anything but a big deal.
Before his NBA champions practiced yesterday, Detroit Pistons coach Larry Brown talked briefly about his ongoing health issues and how simply getting through the day has become another challenge this season, a challenge made even harder by the fact he has a pretty stressful day job as well.
Twice this season, Brown underwent surgery, missing 16 games. The first operation was for a hip replacement last November. The second operation came in March. Brown calls it ''the Roto-Rooter job. They call it TURP," he said, using a medical term. According to WebMd.com, TURP stands for transurethral resection of the prostate and surgery is done to help urine flow. In other words, it was bladder/prostate surgery and, well, it didn't exactly go according to Hoyle.
Brown didn't want to get any more specific. But he will need another operation once the Pistons' season is over.
''I'm OK; I can deal with this," he said yesterday, even as he told stories about complications from the surgery that made you wonder how he, or anyone, can deal with it and continue doing what he's doing. ''It hasn't kept me from doing anything. There was that one stretch where, mentally, it was tough and I wondered. But now, I'm fine."
This -- more than Brown's well-document sense of wanderlust -- is the reason many suspect he will not coach next season. It won't be because he's done all he can in Detroit, although a second title in two years would pretty much fit that description. It's because he will need time to mend, physically and mentally. He's been going full tilt for a while, including the last two summers with USA Basketball at the Olympic qualifier in San Juan and the Olympic Games in Athens. He has said more than once that if he does coach next season, it will be for the Pistons, to whom he's under contract. The Hall of Famer turns 65 in September.
The March bladder surgery forced Brown to miss 10 games. The Pistons were 6-4 in those games. The team was 3-3 in the six games Brown missed in November because of the hip surgery. Brown missed an additional game because of the flu in February, a win over the Knicks.
Asked yesterday if Brown's health woes had given him cause to think of a coaching change, Pistons boss Joe Dumars said, ''No question. There were a couple of times when I thought he may not be able to make it through the season. I just say `thank goodness' that he was able to gather himself and get through it."
Indeed, Brown's ability to ''multi-task" is, according to team physician Ben Paolucci, ''remarkable. Initially, I think it affected him, but he has gotten over it. And when the season is over, he'll fix it. In the meantime, he has a great team around him and great people around him. It might be different if things weren't going so good."
While Brown was out, assistant Gar Heard coached the team. While everyone likes Heard, the players (and even Heard himself) know who the unquestioned boss is and were relieved when Brown returned. ''It's a huge difference," Chauncey Billups said the day Brown came back. ''Gar did a good job. But LB is LB."
Brown returned for the April 1 game against the Clippers and the Pistons went on a tear, finishing 10-1 for the month, the best April in franchise history. Reserve forward Darvin Ham said, ''He didn't want to leave us hanging. With the kind of year he's had, he's a source of inspiration to all of us."
Said Dumars, ''I think a guy such as Larry, with his stature and who he is and all he's done, it has allowed him to get through this. Yes, it's a new situation for him, but the fact he had so much experience in this business has helped him get through this. He understands how to get through situations like this."
The players were only vaguely aware of what had been bothering their coach until he told them in no uncertain terms what was wrong.
''He was very frank about it," Ham said. ''He doesn't want people to feel sorry for him and that's what I admire about him. He was real upfront with us because, at one point, we didn't really know. It's tough. But that's LB. As Sheed [Rasheed Wallace] says, ''pound for pound, he's the best in the business."
