Larry Brown Out in Detroit

Tough to be a coach in Detroit these days. Less than 2 weeks after Dave Lewis was let go by the Red Wings following a President's Trophy winning campaign, the Pistons and Larry Brown are negotiating a buyout of his contract according to various news sources. Flip Saunders is thought to be the Pistons first choice as new coach.

The Blog That Yost Built's view on this situation is as follows: Personally, I wish that the Pistons and Pound For Pound could've worked things out. I know that Mr. Davidson wasn't thrilled with Larry's wandering eye during the playoffs, but there's no denying that the guy took the Pistons to 2 NBA Finals, and a championship. LB had a good thing going here. That said, for the good of the future of the team, they have to find a way to get Darko Milicic--and to a lesser extent Carlos Delfino--into the game. The only way that Darko isn't going to hightail it out of the D at his first opportunity is if he gets into some games, and it seemed pretty clear that LB wasn't going to play him unless there were no other options. I would have liked to have seen Brown stick around and agree to play the younger guys more, but if LB refused, or there was a legit concern about his health (or if a replacement as good as Saunders would be available should he have to bail later on), then I can see letting him go. It's too bad things happened like this though. I've learned my lesson, however. I will not doubt Joe Dumars.

I wish Larry the best...health-wise and in his future jobs (because I don't doubt for a second that there will be at least one more). In Flip, the Pistons would be getting a guy who hasn't had a ton of success in the postseason (though to be fair, the West has been loaded lately), but whose team was 7th in defense in 2003-04 (without as much talent as the Pistons have). He's also a more offensive-minded coach than Brown. It should be interesting if he gets hired to see how things will look next year.

Detroit is obviously a great situation to get into personnel-wise, but for job security? I can't help but notice that the Pistons will be on their third coach in 5 seasons. The first coach had back-to-back 50 win seasons, back-to-back division championships, and won Coach of the Year. The second coach won an NBA title and had the team one quarter away from a repeat. The first was fired and the second (it appears) is being essentially fired. They've gotten rid of 2 of the top 5 coaches in the NBA in the last 2 1/2 years. Tough crowd.

I hope you like the new look of The Blog That Yost Built. It's going to be a work in progress, but this is what I've got so far. At least the color scheme is right!

Best moment of the ESPYs last night: Michael Phelps wearing a Michigan t-shirt during his interview and closing it by saying "Go Blue". That was awesome. I'm sure it won't hurt swimming recruiting any.

Lastly, the NHL2k5 Michigan team won the President's Trophy and made it to the playoffs. My roommate and I created a team of all the Michigan alumns in the NHL and we play using them. There is also a Michigan State team (was looking great for awhile, lost 18 of their last 20 and finished dead last), a Boston College team (just missed the playoffs), a Boston University team (up 2-1 in their first round series), a CCHA team (down 2-1 in their first round series...second overall in the West in the regular season), a WCHA team (just missed the playoffs), a Minnesota/Wisconsin team (down 2-1 in their first round series), a Hockey East team (didn't get in), and a ECAC team (didn't get in). Yes it took forever and a day to make those rosters. The Michigan team leads Anaheim 2-0 in the first round after a 4-0 win that was much closer than the score indicates and a hard-fought 4-2 win. Anaheim tied it up with 6 minutes to play but a late goal by Mike Cammalleri and an empty-netter by Raffi Torres (there's a few players on each of the teams that aren't from the respective school) put Michigan up 2-0 heading to Anaheim.

Love those 2ksports games. Marty Turco is on the cover of NHL2k6. The goalie animations look just sick for that game. EA Sports is apparently bumping back the release of their game to incorporate the new rules. Not sure if 2ksports is planning on doing the same for NHL 2k6.