I think the article is absurdly overdone. We read that Larry was all "smiles and lies" at the press conference. Nothing wrong with smiles. And the only lie identified in the article was LB's innocuous statement that there was no place he would rather be than Charlotte. Jordan is "hopelessly naive" and Brown has "bombed" in his "last few ... performances." (Really? Two trips to the finals with the Pistons is a bombed performance?) Also wrong on the facts: Bill D. did not pay Larry 18 million when he was fired. It was 7 million.

Larry was extremely successful here. The knock against him was his flirtation with the Knicks and the Cavs jobs while he was employed by the Pistons. If he met with the Knicks and the Cavs front offices while employed, then it almost surely was with the Pistons' permission. The Heat lost a first round draft pick in 1995 after being accused of tampering when they hired Pat Riley from the Knicks. Those tampering rules are taken seriously. The Pistons did not have to give Brown permission to talk to anybody, and maybe they should have just said "No."

I believe LB wanted more money from the Pistons. If he asked them for permission to speak to other teams, then that would have been a clear signal that he was unhappy with his current contract, and perhaps was getting rebuffed by Bill D. in his request for a new contract.

He is by no means a saint, and if he really did seek permission to talk to the Cavs during the playoffs, that timing would be hard to excuse, though I don't know that it would necessitate his firing by Bill D. Before I would say that it required his dismissal, I would want to know more about the conversations with Joe D. or Bill D. about his contract that preceded it. There may well be fault on both sides. I think he deserved a raise after the championship season, and I don't think he should have had to fight and claw for that.