But don't be mistaken because Detroit Pistons coach Larry Brown desperately wants to win an NBA championship. The Naismith Hall of Fame coach knows his legacy, and he knows the only thing missing from it is an NBA title.

"I truly believe as a coach, I've gotten a lot of satisfaction out of teams that did not win a lot of games because I felt they played up to their potential, or they played the right way," Brown said. "But when all is said and done, I'm a NBA coach because I want to be part of an NBA championship team.

Larry Brown has a young team to mold in Detroit. Allen Einstein/NBAE/Getty Images

"If it doesn't happen, I am not going to look back at my career and think I did not have an unbelievable ride or I wasn't really blessed. I don't think that will change. But winning a championship is one of the things that motivates me."

Perhaps at age 63 and with 31 years of coaching already behind him, Brown saw that his chances of winning a championship were dwindling. The only time he's been to the Finals was in 2001 with the Philadelphia 76ers, and that quest ended with a 4-1 series loss to the Los Angeles Lakers.

Maybe seeing the window of opportunity closing is why he accepted the job with the Detroit Pistons after resigning from the Sixers after six seasons. The Detroit situation certainly didn't fit the modus operandi for the nomadic coach who had gained the nickname of "Mr. Fix It."

In his six previous NBA coaching jobs, (Denver Nuggets, who were still in the ABA when Brown took over in 1974; New Jersey Nets; Los Angeles Clippers; San Antonio Spurs; Indiana Pacers; and the Sixers) Brown never took over a team with a winning record. But when Brown was named the Pistons coach last June, he inherited a team that had posted back-to-back 50-win seasons under Rick Carlisle and was coming off an appearance in the Eastern Conference Finals.

This wasn't a rebuilding job for Brown, who had 1,339 career victories. The expectations were that Brown was the coach who could lead Detroit to its third NBA championship.

"I thought Larry was the perfect guy to push this team," Pistons President Joe Dumars said at the time he hired Brown. "He would push it so hard that they would not rest on their laurels. I said Rick Carlisle did a great job for us for two years, but with a chance to get a Hall of Fame coach to push us to the next level, if I could get this type of guy, I had to go for it."

And with a championship contender dropping right into his lap, Brown, who ironically had been eliminated from the playoffs by Carlisle and the Pistons a few weeks earlier, had to go for it, too.

"Every season it is a goal of mine to have a championship team," Brown said when he was introduced as the Pistons coach. "I've never before inherited a winning team, but this franchise has everything anyone could look for."

"The expectations are high and should be. I have to build on what Rick did. That's the challenge. In the past you were coming in just trying to figure out a way to get them to be a good team. I like being in this situation."

The irony is that Brown could've had a similar situation several other times during his peripatetic coaching career. But instead of taking a good job with a contender, he instead took on challenges like the 24-58 New Jersey Nets in 1981, the 31-51 San Antonio Spurs in 1988 and 22-60 Philadelphia 76ers in 1997.

By taking struggling teams and turning them around, Brown earned the reputation as the greatest rebuilder in NBA history. He guided the Nets and the Los Angeles Clippers to their first winning seasons as NBA franchises. He led the Pacers to their first playoff series win as an NBA franchise in his first season, taking them all the way the Eastern Conference Finals. He took the Sixers to the 2001 NBA Finals only four seasons after they had posted the worst record in the league.

But Brown always bristled at the notion that somehow a coach who specialized in rebuilding wasn't on par with a coach who won championships. He has strongly denied suggestion that because he has taken on so many reclamation projects his desire to teach outweighs his desire to win a championship.

Brown got his start as a coach in the ABA in the '70s. NBAE/Getty Images

"Are you kidding me?" he exclaimed. "No, I don't like to do it that way [rebuilding]. That's just the way it is. Most of the time when teams are winning, they don't bring in coaches. I always get those jobs where nobody wanted it and they were not real successful.

"But that's OK. I think we don't realize, if you coach a team that's a great team, it's a lot more difficult. You know, when the expectations are so high, not every coach is capable of bringing that potential out. But if I had my druthers, I would like to take my chances with a team that is supposed to win."

Brown, who was voted ABA Coach of the Year three times, was NBA Coach of the Year in 2001 and won an NCAA championship with Kansas in 1988, has finally taken his druthers with the Pistons.

"We didn't bring him in with the mandate to get to the Finals this year," Dumars said, "but the fact that we were in the East Finals last year is not lost on us. If it was only about one year, we would've signed him to a one-year deal. We've got young players, and we want him to make them better."

It seems to finally be the best of both worlds for Brown -- having a young team that he can shape, yet is already on the cusp of winning a title.

"This is a special team, and I ultimately would like to be part of a championship team," Brown said. "The fact it was so young and you have a chance to mold them, with other things being equal, this was a good place."

"Dumars' big thing has been to make this team better for the long run. But personally after the job [Carlisle] did, I felt it was important to move forward and not back."

And moving forward for Brown may finally earn him that elusive NBA championship.