By Don Ellis

The NBA According To Ellis

OK, let's see if I have this straight...

The Pistons get rid of Rick Carlisle after he led them to the Eastern Conference finals. Not that I have a problem with his dismissal -- just the way he "handled" Tayshaun Prince was enough for me. The skinny rookie from Compton was Detroit's third-leading scoring during the playoffs -- imagine how good he would have been if Carlisle had actually played him during the regular season.

But they did this in order to bring in Larry Brown, whose NBA coaching resume says that he's the man to take a bad team and turn them around, and even get to the Finals (once, with Philly) in a really bad conference. But nothing about Brown tells me that he's the man to get a decent young team over the hump. And nothing tells me that things will be any different in Detroit under Brown than they were under Carlisle.

Carlisle's Pistons played a lot of defense and not much offense -- doesn't that sound an awful lot like Brown's Sixers over the past few seasons?

And I'm certainly not convinced that Brown will develop youngsters like Prince, Mehmet Okur, and likely new rookie Piston Darko Milicic any better than Carlisle did. Isn't Brown getting pretty old, meaning he's probably looking to win sooner rather than later? Does Brown kiss corporate booty that much better than Carlisle?

I guess we'll find out in a few months. Meanwhile...

The San Antonio Spurs handily beat the New Jersey Nets in Game One of the NBA Finals. In other news, dog bites man.

There's a reason I didn't do a "Finals Preview" edition of NBA Runaround -- why bother? The Spurs showed that if you just stop Jason Kidd in the open floor -- just get in his way and stop him from initiating an easy-bucket fast break -- the Nets are nothing more than the Pistons with a great point guard. And Kidd at his best isn't great enough to lead the Nets over the Spurs, even in his dreams.

And to tell you the truth, I'm not even convinced that Jason Kidd is all that great. Nobody can deny that the Nets' complete turnaround coincided directly with Kidd's arrival, or that Kidd puts up great numbers, or that Kidd makes his teammates better. But am I wrong in thinking that Kidd's 19/8/8 in the playoffs are somewhat offset by his 40.9% field goal shooting and his 4.3 turnovers? Shouldn't a "great" point guard be able to keep his assist/turnover ratio over 2/1 in the playoffs? Look, Kidd is definitely way up there in the rankings, I just may have a slightly more strict definition of "great" than you do.

On the subject of point guards, word is that several teams are looking to acquire one of the Bulls' talented young point guards, Jamal Crawford or Jay Williams. Meaningful stat you probably hadn't heard: over the past two seasons, the Bulls are 17-20 when Crawford starts and 34-93 when he doesn't. Is it any wonder that Williams has seemingly replaced Crawford on the trading block?

Word out of Denver is that the Nuggets are one of the teams interested in Williams. Some are saying that Gilbert Arenas has a bad attitude and that he is still too young to be paid the $7 million or more that his agent is apparently seeking for next season. The Nugz hold the third pick in the draft, and Carmelo Anthony must look very good to the Bulls, who need a small forward worse than Popeye needs his spinach. Denver could trade for Williams and save their cap money for another free agent. Or for next summer.

If you're reading this in Orlando, I hope you caught me (appearing as Intern #3) in the first segment of Tuesday's "Orlando Sports Reporters" on ESPN 1080. And if you didn't hear it, why the hell weren't you listening? And thanks to WFTV-TV sports anchor Dan Hellie, whose tardiness on Tuesday opened up a headset for yours truly. And I really should throw out some props to producer extraordinare Jeff Taylor -- without him, ESPN 1080 (and I) wouldn't even be on the air.

Enough name-dropping; time to wrap this week up. I didn't forget your e-mail, Mark, but I addressed the Pistons earlier. I know you don't agree, but you're a Pistons fan, I wouldn't expect you to. And I don't have any clue how LeBron James' deal with Nike will affect Kobe's shoe deal -- sorry, but thanks for writing. Keep the e-mails coming to nbarunaround@hotmail.com and I'll keep churning out the gold.


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