He's the last person you would expect to endorse the Kings' coaching plan.

Larry Brown, the Hall of Fame basketball coach who got the Pete Rose treatment when he made a run at the Kings' coaching job three summers ago, surely has hard feelings, right? The supposed egomaniac couldn't possibly give a hearty thumbs up to any moves that didn't include admitting they should have hired him, could he?

Indeed, he could. And he did.

"They're going in the right direction," the now-Charlotte Bobcats coach said by telephone recently. "I think they're really lucky to have (first-year coach) Paul (Westphal). He'll be great for the young kids. Jason Thompson and Tyreke (Evans) and with (Spencer) Hawes, they've got a heck of a young nucleus. They'll be fine."

If Brown holds any hard feelings over a past coaching move, it's the one involving Westphal that didn't go down in New York in 2005.

After Brown's acrimonious departure from Detroit led to a five-year, $50 million deal with the Knicks, he quickly learned that even the enormous contract didn't necessarily mean he would have the control he so badly wanted. That much was made clear during the process of hiring assistant coaches.

"I tried to hire Paul to come with me to New York," Brown said of Westphal, who coached at Pepperdine at the time. "He was going to be my top assistant, and (then-team president) Isiah (Thomas) didn't allow me to do that."

Westphal first had been on the Knicks' radar before Brown was hired, as then-interim coach Herb Williams interviewed him to be his top assistant that summer. The New York Post even reported that Thomas had interviewed Westphal for the head-coaching job.

Eventually, Brown's staff would have varying ties and separate allegiances, with some assistants connected to Thomas (his childhood friend from Chicago, Mark Aguirre, and George Glymph), others to Brown (fellow North Carolina products Dave Hanners and Phil Ford, with Brendan O'Connor) and even one holdover from former Knicks coach Don Chaney (Williams).

The Knicks went 23-59 in what was considered the ugliest season in franchise history, with Brown's public tiffs with Stephon Marbury and his power struggles with Thomas leading to the coach's firing after one season.

He had four years and $40 million left on his contract at the time and would eventually net $18.5 million of it through arbitration. Yet if Westphal had been his lead assistant, Brown said, the ending would have been different.

"If Paul would've been with me, I'd probably still be there," Brown said. "I'm serious. They made me keep some guys (that he didn't want to), and I think it's so important that you have your own people. Loyalty is everything.

"I knew having Paul and Dave Hanners and Phil Ford, that I would've been in a much better situation to succeed there because of who Paul is. I knew he'd have my back and would do everything he could to make me be a better coach. I think that was one of the main reasons I wasn't there any more than a year."

It wasn't a pretty picture, which is why Brown said he doesn't hold it against the Kings for showing no interest in him after he made his interest known in 2007.

"If people saw my last year in New York, they probably figured I couldn't coach," he said.

Besides, the Kings and Brown didn't have the look of a good fit. There is an enduring trend with Brown; he succeeds most when there is mutual trust between the coach and front office, as well as an understanding that he'll have a significant say in all roster discussions.

He has it in Charlotte, where longtime friend and Bobcats managing partner Michael Jordan approved four trades involving 13 players in Brown's first season. The roster reshaping led to a 35-win finish and Brown even receiving some votes for Coach of the Year. With just five players remaining from last season's opening-game roster, there is some hope the six-year-old organization could make its first playoff appearance.

Ainge rewrites history

He's the undisputed architect of the fastest rebuilding job in league history, so Danny Ainge has received more than his share of well-deserved credit for his role in Boston's 2007-08 championship. But the Celtics' general manager might deserve even more.

Read the Kings/NBA blog at www.sacbee.com/kingsblog.