Larry Brown on Jason Kidd: "I think this is a phenomenal hire."

Larry Brown is the equivalent of a coaching vagabond with the many stops he has made in his career and has seen many coaches make it as well as well as many coaches flop so he has a good sense of the profession.

Brown is from the old school of coaching where you have to pay your dues and work your way up the coaching ranks to eventually becoming a head coach.

That being said, Brown talks about the recent hire of Jason Kidd as head coach of the Brooklyn Nets without any previous coaching experience.

[quote_simple] NY Newsday

“I think it sends a bad message to hire guys who haven’t coached,” Brown said in a phone interview with Newsday. “I don’t think it’s a good thing for our profession. That being said, I think this is a phenomenal hire. I have no doubt that Jason will do a great job. It’s not an easy transition to make from player to coach, but Kidd is someone who has instant credibility with the Nets and the team is smart enough to put the right people around him.”

Brown did it in the American Basketball Association, going straight from being a player on the Denver Rockets to coach of the Carolina Cougars. Larry Bird had a very successful three-year run with the Pacers in Indiana in the late 1990s. Celtics coach Doc Rivers had no coaching experience when he was hired by the Magic in 1999. And most recently, Mark Jackson, a former player and broadcaster with zero coaching experience, has made Golden State relevant again.

“The biggest challenge is how hard you have to work as a coach,” Brown said. “When you’re a player, you show up for practice, show up for games and go home. When you’re a coach, you’re always working.”

“I’ve had a lot of assistant coaches who were smarter than I am,” Brown said. “He has to have people around him who are smart, who can mentor him and don’t have the kind of ego where they think they should be doing what he’s doing. I think Jason’s going to have that there and he will be very successful.”[/quote_simple]