"Larry Brown's demise as Charlotte Bobcats coach was fated the day before training camp, when Brown trashed the team's prospects to the Bobcats' two captains.

That, according to Stephen Jackson, the captain who remains with the team following Brown's firing in December and co-captain Gerald Wallace's trade to Portland in February.

"When I had my beginning-of-the-season meeting, he basically told me we weren't going to be good, that we weren't going to be a playoff team,'' Jackson recalled in a remarkably candid interview Thursday.

"You know me: I'm not going to accept that from anyone - telling me before we even get to see what happens that we aren't going to be any good. He lost me there.''

Brown couldn't be reached for comment.

The Bobcats started the season 9-19, before team owner Michael Jordan fired Brown in mid-December. Paul Silas took over, and put the team on a playoff run before a six-game losing streak in April."