DETROIT -- Joe Dumars and the Detroit Pistons got their man -- at Rick Carlisle's expense.

Larry Brown agreed to a five-year, $25 million deal with the Pistons over the weekend, a source within the NBA said Sunday, making Detroit his seventh NBA stop and 10th big-time coaching job.

Brown was introduced as Detroit's new coach Monday afternoon at a news conference at The Palace of Auburn Hills.

An hour before the team announced Carlisle's firing Saturday, the source -- who had knowledge of the discussions between the Pistons and Brown -- told The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity that Brown would be hired.

"We saw Larry Brown as the perfect guy to come in and establish a strong base for us," Dumars, the Pistons' president of basketball operations, told The New York Times on Sunday. "His track record is unquestioned."

Brown, who resigned as Philadelphia's coach a week ago after six seasons, did not return three phone messages left at his home during the weekend.

Even Carlisle endorsed Brown's hiring.

"Larry Brown is obviously a great coach and his record speaks for itself," Carlisle said Sunday. "That's a great hire."

Carlisle was asked if he thought Brown was hired before he was fired.

"I'm not going to get into that," Carlisle said.

Carlisle was fired after leading Detroit to a 50-win season and a spot in the Eastern Conference finals for the first time since 1991.

At a bizarre news conference Saturday, he sat elbow-to-elbow with Dumars, the man who had just fired him.

Carlisle poked fun at himself during an opening statement, then initiated jokes and even defended Dumars' decision when he was pressed to explain the dismissal.

"If you think he's going to bring in a stiff behind me, you're nuts," Carlisle said Saturday, cutting off Dumars' response to a question. "He's going to bring in a big-time guy, and if he can do that, he will have done his job."

Brown, a Hall of Famer, was released from a contractual clause that prohibited him from coaching another NBA team if he left Philadelphia prematurely. He had two years left on his contract that paid him $6 million a season.

Carlisle was fired with a year and $2 million left on his contract despite winning two straight division titles, 100 regular-season games, a Coach of the Year award and leading the Pistons to two postseason series victories for the first time since 1991.

The 62-year-old Brown began his head coaching career in 1972-73 with Carolina in the ABA and also has made stops in Denver, UCLA, New Jersey, the University of Kansas, San Antonio, the Los Angeles Clippers and Indiana.

The former North Carolina guard also bounced around as player, spending five seasons with five teams in the ABA -- including a championship with Oakland in 1969 -- after helping the United States win the gold medal in the 1964 Olympics.

Brown's tenure with Philadelphia was his longest in his 31-year coaching career. He led the 76ers to the playoffs for five straight seasons, including the 2001 NBA Finals, and will coach the U.S. team this summer in an Olympic qualifying tournament.

He has an 879-685 record in the NBA, and is 1,285-853 overall, including the ABA and college. Brown won an NCAA championship with Kansas in 1988, and became the first coach to take six NBA teams to the playoffs when the Sixers made it in 1999.

Brown will inherit a team that has the No. 2 pick in the June 26 draft. Detroit likely will select a scorer -- Darko Milicic of Serbia and Montenegro or Syracuse's Carmelo Anthony -- to complement a young nucleus of Richard Hamilton, Chauncey Billups, Ben Wallace and rookies Mehmet Okur and Tayshaun Prince.

Brown's brother, Herb, was head coached the Pistons from 1975-76 through 1977-78.