July 8, 2004

by Adam Lucas, Tar Heel Monthly

Much has been said and written about the difficulty in coaching today's professional basketball players. Larry Brown, however, now holds the one thing that causes most players to snap to attention -- a championship ring.

"Coach Brown knows what it takes to win," Carmelo Anthony said after being officially named to the Olympic squad, for which Brown is the head coach and Roy Williams is an assistant. "He just won the championship."

Brown, a Carolina alum who played in Chapel Hill from 1961-63, learned the final names on his roster on Thursday when USA Basketball named Anthony, Carlos Boozer, Lamar Odom, Emeka Okafor, and Dwyane Wade to the squad. The team will begin training camp in Jacksonville on July 26.

Training camp will cap a whirlwind year for Brown, who is currently on vacation decompressing after leading the Detroit Pistons to a 4-1 rout over the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals (a feat that brought the total number of NBA rings won by Carolina representatives to 32, nearly ten times the number of the closest ACC school). Always known as a solid game coach and tactician, his team's run to the title piqued the interest of some of his future players.

"I want to pick his brain as much as possible," Wade said. "He's a defensive coach, and that's something my coaches keep stressing to me. He's a champion. Any time you can be around greatness you want to hear anything he has to tell you."

"His career is extraordinary as a player, coach and person," said Tom Jernstedt, the president of USA Basketball. "One of the things that attracted USA Basketball to Coach Brown in 2004 was his emphasis throughout his career on team play and unselfishness, and it's been exciting to see that pay off for him in the last couple of months."

But the version of basketball his teams will play in Athens will be quite different from the NBA game. Wider lanes, shorter three-point distances, increased reliance on zone defenses and less emphasis on one-on-one offensive play, and a shorter game clock are all part of the international game -- elements Brown will conduct a crash course on during his team's short training period.

He's been given a relatively youthful squad to work with, as the '04 Olympic team's average age is just 23.6 years, easily the youngest since America began sending pros to compete in 1992. Some of that youthfulness was caused by the defection of numerous players expected to play, including Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant and former Tar Heel Vince Carter, who was married this past weekend to a Carolina alum.

"The guys on this team have earned the right by the way they've conducted themselves," Brown said. "We have a very young team but it's a neat mix of kids that really want to be there and give us some versatility. Now it's our job as coaches to go from being an all star team to a real basketball team."

Brown is part of a legion of Tar Heels who have substantial overseas experience and have helped American squads to a combined 109-2 record in the Games. Seventeen different Carolina players or coaches have represented their country at the Olympics, and that number may grow this summer if Dante Calabria (who has Italian citizenship) is selected to the Italian squad. Brown himself has both played and coached -- he played on the 1964 gold medal-winning squad and was an assistant coach in 2000 when Vince Carter and the Americans also won the gold.

He's well aware of the list of players who turned down the opportunity to participate this summer, but the newly crowned NBA champion says he has no regrets about agreeing to coach the team.

"There are a lot of guys missing out on a wonderful opportunity," he said. "Any time you can participate with USA Basketball, it's a phenomenal honor. To wear that jersey or be part of that coaching staff, it's the greatest honor you can have as an athlete."

Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly, click here.