Another coach's take on Brown's system

I had a long chat Friday with an NBA assistant coach about how Larry Brown and his priorities would affect the Bobcats, both collectively and individually. This guy’s team uses a variation of the defensive system Brown prefers.

The assistant’s impressions:

-- Adam Morrison will struggle most to fit into Brown’s system, where wing players are expected both to help defensively in the lane and run out aggressively to contest 3-point shots. The goal in Brown’s defense is to force the other team to take a guarded, 2-point jump shot. Morrison might simply not have the quickness and change-of-direction defensively to do all that.

-- Jason Richardson and Gerald Wallace could struggle, as a starting pair, to accomplish what Brown expects defensively. Richardson isn’t a particularly good defender. Wallace is, but more in a takeaway, risk-taking manner. Brown, the assistant surmises, would sacrifice some of Wallace’s takeaways in return for better defensive positioning.

-- While Raymond Felton is a good defender, more will be expected of him, as far as pressuring the entry pass and keeping penetration out of the lane. The standards are high on any Brown point guard.

-- Brown will push his bosses to do what it takes to sign Okafor to a long-term contract extension because he’ll prioritize Okafor’s strengths (rebounding and guarding the rim) more than his predecessor, Sam Vincent.

-- Finally, it won’t surprise this assistant if Brown lobbies for acquiring a mid-size defender off another team to play the role George Lynch did in Philadelphia. Just a guess, the assistant said, but Atlanta’s Josh Childress might fit that description.