By WILLIAM C. RHODEN
A COUPLE of weeks ago, I championed Herb Williams for the Knicks' coaching job. At the time, the Knicks were trying to figure out whether the Pistons really intended to pull the plug on Larry Brown, the coach who had led Detroit to the N.B.A. title last year and the finals this year.
Williams, my argument went, was a loyal assistant, a Knick through and through, and should be rewarded by being given the opportunity to coach the team for a full season.
I was naïve.
This wasn't the case of a franchise hiring a coach to save a floundering team. What the Knicks needed was someone to jump-start an entire corporation, a combination basketball Ph.D. and C.E.O. who would send electric bolts of excitement throughout Cablevision, from the Madison Square Garden arena complex to Radio City Music Hall, and to its television networks.
In the five weeks since the N.B.A. finals ended, there has been a buzz around the Knicks, and yesterday Madison Square Garden was the scene of one of the largest news conferences in its history to introduce Brown as the team's new coach.
When the Knicks and the Rangers do well, every part of the Garden's sprawling empire works better. In the last three years, there hasn't been a buzz around the Knicks, and the Rangers have lacked one for even longer. Thanks to their successful pursuit of Brown, though, Steve Mills, the president of Madison Square Garden Sports, and Isiah Thomas, the Knicks' president of basketball operations, have created a serious buzz around the team. The Knicks are at least two seasons away from a roar - but for now, they'll take a buzz.
In this respect, Brown was the coach who had to be.
This is an odd but potentially useful marriage of convenience - Brown is the Knicks' 22nd head coach, the Knicks are his 11th team, college and pro. We're talking about two well-traveled partners who go into this with their eyes wide open.
Detroit needed a finishing touch. The Knicks need to be reconfigured to be competitive. They may be more of a Larry Brown team than a Phil Jackson team, but they are not a good team. Now factor in Brown's age - he'll be 65 when the season begins - and his medical issues, and this is the last great challenge of his career.
"I just think in terms of coaching," Brown said, "but obviously I took over a team that won 50 games two years in a row in Detroit. Everything was in place to be successful. The players were all there. Isiah told me this was a work in progress."
He added, "I didn't come here to retire."
He told us the Knicks would be his last coaching job. I've heard that before, and I'm not buying. Health permitting, and another team willing, Brown will coach into his 80's.
In any event, yesterday was a day for words: nice words, kind words, flattering words. This was Brown's day, but the most compelling figure was Herb Williams. Everyone acknowledged Williams with such warmth that I thought I was attending his memorial service.
While the Knicks waited for the Pistons-Brown drama to play itself out, Williams, the interim head coach, led the team's young players in summer league. He never complained about being left to dangle and explained, when asked, that this was part of the business he had signed up for.
From James L. Dolan, the chairman of Madison Square Garden, to Steve Mills to Isiah Thomas to Larry Brown, the Knicks' hierarchy yesterday praised Williams for exhibiting class and grace, for graciously putting the interest of the team ahead of his own.
There was a part of Williams that wished things would have worked out for Brown in Detroit. "I thought about that a lot," he said. "Being the head coach and being in that position, that's what you think about: What are you going to do next year? How successful are you going to be? How are the players going to react to you? How are you going to get the best out of your team? You're constantly running that through your mind."
But Williams lost out to someone with substantial weight in the industry. Weight is a commodity that cannot be bought or bartered but assumed over time. He understood. He lost out to a proven master of the profession.
"You've got to be realistic with yourself," Williams said. "You can fool yourself as much as you want to. You want to be in that position, you want that opportunity to get where that person has been. When someone of his caliber is there and in New York, I think you take the chance."
Is Brown, who will make about $10 million a season, worth the money? If we were talking just basketball, a coach guiding a team for a season, I'd say the Knicks overpaid. They could have stayed with Williams, taken their lumps, fought hard and gone to the lottery.
But the Garden needed more. By hiring Brown, Dolan, Mills and Thomas have tossed a bouquet of hope to fans, and fans and the news media are suckers for stories of hope.
Brown was the only choice. He is the coach who had to be.
