Larry Brown: Michael Jordan’s People in Charlotte ‘Don’t Have a Clue’


After Michael Jordan fired him as head coach of the Charlotte Bobcats in 2010, Larry Brown (SMU’s new bench boss) says he hasn’t spoken to MJ since. Today, Brown teed off on Mike and the Bobcats’ bumbling front-office. Per the Charlotte Observer: “I understand how unfiltered Brown can be from the 2 ½ seasons I covered him coaching the Charlotte Bobcats. But I was still taken aback this morning by how emphatically he ripped his former boss, Michael Jordan, and his former coworkers in Charlotte. Brown is back at work as coach at Southern Methodist. He went on the Dan Patrick Show Wednesday morning and of course was asked about the Bobcats’ plight. Among Brown’s comments regarding Bobcats owner Jordan and the organization that fired him in December of 2010: ‘He’s around people who don’t have a clue … He had people around me that made me sick … It was almost like they were spies wondering what we were doing and getting back to him … A coach, a GM and a president all have to be attached at the hip.’ […] It’s a safe bet Brown’s comments were directed toward president of basketball operations Rod Higgins, who was the buffer zone between Brown and Jordan. Brown was frustrated by a lot of things as coach, particularly the decision to trade Tyson Chandler for what amounted to salary-cap relief when they acquired Erick Dampier’s unguaranteed contract. Brown felt he was handed a team with no chance to compete his last season in Charlotte. He told that directly to the two leaders of that team, Gerald Wallace and Stephen Jackson, in so unfiltered a way that Wallace and Jackson decided Brown had given up on the franchise (and by extension, them). That was the first step toward the Bobcats-Brown divorce three months later.”