National Basketball Association

Larry Brown to Knicks: You're doing it all wrong

Published Apr. 8, 2014 12:29 a.m. ET

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Larry Brown can count the New York Knicks in the not very exclusive club of teams he once coached, but watching their moves from afar these days -- he's at SMU, his third college head coaching job to go along with the 10 pro teams he's coached -- Brown thinks little of what the Knicks are up to.

He doesn't care for the general manager. He doesn't like the move to bring in Phil Jackson as club president. And he especially isn't fond of what he sees as the way the Knicks have hung out to dry their coach, his friend Mike Woodson.

"I'm sick about what's happening with Michael," Brown said on SiriusXM radio on Monday (via USA Today). "The way they've treated Mike Woodson . . . He's done a remarkable job. They've had terrible injuries. They lost a GM (Glen Grunwald) that I thought did a great job. And then they didn't bring any older guys. When you lose Jason Kidd and Kurt Thomas and Rasheed Wallace, you lost your locker room."

Brown also doesn't see the point of having one of the game's great coaches and then sticking him in a front-office role.

"It's just troublesome to me to bring in Phil Jackson, not that he won't be great, but let him coach," Brown said. "You're not going to make the Knicks better by living in L.A. and being there half the time and not talking to your coach. Let him coach. He was the best coach probably ever. . . . Give Woody a way to leave graciously. But he's out on the limb, and that's not fair."

And how about one more shot? What do you think of Grunwald's replacement as GM, Steve Mills?

"I don't know what he knows about the sport, to be honest with you. . . . Steve Mills has no clue."