Up to His Old Tricks

WASHINGTON —  Hubie Brown was never really away from coaching. As a television analyst for the past 15 years, Brown coached just about every team in the NBA. As the guest lecturer at clinics around the world, Brown taught coaches how to coach.

Still, when Jerry West called last month to see if Brown was interested in coaching his own team again, the basketball legend and first-year president of the Memphis Grizzlies was taken back by the 69-year-old gym rat’s affirmative answer.

“Yes, I was surprised,” West said earlier this week from Memphis, chuckling at the memory of their conversation. “He is really someone I’ve always admired as a coach and a basketball mind. It’s someone I thought would be perfect for our situation.”

Considering the force of his personality, it’s not shocking that Brown’s message has already gotten across. Considering the farce the Grizzlies have been since their years in Vancouver, it’s astounding how successful Brown has been. They won 23 games last season.

Memphis had won six of eight games after beating Milwaukee on Friday night. And, despite an overall record of 8-12 since Brown took over after the team started the season 0-8 under Sidney Lowe, the Grizzlies have suddenly become competitive.

“I’ve had young teams, I’ve had older teams; you’re only as good as your players,” Brown said. “Our success is because we’re growing every day. We’re nowhere near where we can be.”

The second-oldest to ever coach an NBA game, Brown inherited a team whose players average 24.6 years old. Several of the players didn’t even know that Brown coached 10 years in the NBA and two in the old ABA.

“Some of them were only 7, 8 years old,” Brown said of his last coaching job, a five-year stint with the New York Knicks that ended 16 games into the 1986-87 season. “They weren’t even watching the NBA. They were watching cartoons.”

Shane Battier said that the questions of a generation gap between Brown and his new team were overstated.

“He wasn’t brought in to hang out with us at the mall,” said Battier, last year’s top draft choice out of Duke. “He was brought in to make us a better team. At the time, we hadn’t won a game.”

It took the Grizzlies four games to win their first under Brown -- an 85-74 victory over the Washington Wizards -- and another 12 to settle on a lineup. After moving Wesley Person to shooting guard, Pau Gasol to power forward and Lorenzen Wright to center, Memphis won four in a row, one shy of a franchise record.

“Winning players with potential are always coachable,” said Brown. “They want to be taught. They want the edge. They want the preparation. Losing players with potential get you fired in any business.”

Aside from Person, the player who has prospered most in Brown’s system has been point guard Jason Williams. Known as a player who shot his team out of games more often than not, and contributed to Lowe’s demise, Williams has an assist-turnover ratio of better than 3-1 for the first time in his career.

“He’s been great,” Brown said of Williams. “Since Day One, he gives 100 percent. Practice. Games. He asks terrific questions. Understands exactly what we’re doing. He’s only had one bad night, at Utah, and that’s because we lost two starters that morning.”

Said Williams: “When I heard they hired Hubie, I wondered how he and I were going to get along. But it might have been the best thing that has happened in my career. It’s worked out because I’ve been willing to listen and try to do what he wants me to do.”

If anything, the biggest adjustment Brown has had to make is coaching games in which he has a vested interest. It’s a lot different than working as an analyst, which Brown had done for Turner Sports and CBS and was planning on doing for the San Antonio Spurs this season until West’s phone call.

“Teaching at practice, you do that like a bicycle, preparation, all of that,” said Brown. “The difficult thing is reconditioning your mind to the NBA game, the pressure of the last three minutes because we’ve been in so many close games. You have to condition yourself mentally to get back.”

Drew Gooden, the team’s top draft choice this season, said that playing for Brown reminds him of the four years he spent at Kansas under Roy Williams. Gooden wasn’t aware of Brown’s former life as a coach.

“I’ve been very impressed. He’s not rusty at all,” said Gooden. “He knows how to organize a team, what to do in practice, how to get along with a lot of different personalities. He’s done a great job.”

Wizard Coach Doug Collins remembers hearing the news that Brown was returning to the NBA.

“I was shocked from the standpoint only that he had been out a long time,” said Collins, who returned to coach last year after a three-year stint in television. “But I’ve never seen a better clinician in my life. He’s done clinics for me in Chicago. He was the most incredible teacher I had ever seen.”