Bush Honors Pistons; Brown Reassures Them

The NBA champion Detroit Pistons visited the White House on Monday, and Coach Larry Brown made it clear he has no plans to leave the team.

“I’m not going to coach anywhere but Detroit,” Brown said after he and the Pistons met President Bush in an East Room reception. “It’s my last pro coaching job.”

Asked whether he would take a college coaching job, Brown said, “Oh, I don’t look at that.”

Speculation that the much-traveled, Brooklyn-born Brown was thinking about leaving the Pistons and taking over the New York Knicks began Friday, when he was quoted in a New York newspaper as saying the Knicks’ job was one he had “dreamed about many times.”

Bush congratulated the Pistons for winning a championship “the right way” -- with teamwork.

Bush joked that he had something in common with the Pistons, who defeated the heavily favored Lakers, 4-1, in June’s NBA Finals.

“Nobody expected you to win,” Bush said. “I know how you feel.”

Also attending the reception were the players’ families, several members of the Michigan congressional delegation, owners Bill Davidson and Oscar Feldman, and Joe Dumars, the president of basketball operations.

Piston leading scorer Richard Hamilton said visiting the White House was something he never could have imagined as a kid.

“I had dreams of playing in the NBA, but if someone told me you’d come to the White House, sit with the president, shake his hand and have him call you by name, I’d tell him, ‘You would be lying,” ’ Hamilton said.

Meanwhile, Piston guard Carlos Arroyo had surgery on his broken nose and is doubtful for the next two games. Arroyo broke his nose Saturday against the New York Knicks.

And in an interesting twist on endorsement deals, Hamilton received an undisclosed sum from Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. to wear his hair in the style of the tread pattern of the company’s Assurance TripleTred product for a week.

Hamilton first wore the hairstyle Saturday against the Knicks and also received free tires in the deal.

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Charlotte Bobcat rookie Emeka Okafor will sit out tonight’s game at Utah after spraining his ankle Sunday against the Lakers.

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After first resisting, former Laker center Elden Campbell agreed to join the New Jersey Nets, who claimed him off waivers after his release Thursday by Utah. Campbell, 36, had balked because he was waived with the understanding that he would re-sign with Detroit, which traded him to Utah on Jan. 21.