Phil Sheridan: Leave Larry Brown behind forever

The faint whiff of sulfur was unmistakeable.

Larry Brown was in town to coach the Charlotte Bobcats against the 76ers. By miraculous coincidence, on the very day Brown hit Philadelphia, there were news reports that Sixers coach Eddie Jordan would be fired. In a stunning, shocking development, reporters gathered around Brown before the game to get his take on the whole situation.

"They've got a lot of assets on this team," Brown said March 10, "a lot of good young players. I think this thing can turn around. . . . I know what kind of owner we have."

Er, excuse me? What kind of owner "we" have? Before that little slip of the tongue could register, Brown was back in the visiting coach's office. Presumably, he was sharpening his horns and pitchfork.

The devil they know is absolutely the worst guy the Sixers could bring in to revive this comatose franchise. Indeed, Ed Snider and Peter Luukko should have the letters "ABL" tattooed backward on their foreheads so it's the first thing they see when they look in the mirror every morning.

ABL: Anyone But Larry.

It is astonishing that anyone can be discussing the return of Brown not only as a possibility but as a good idea. Brown has been gone from the Sixers organization as long as he was here. Since leaving, he has managed to get hired by three other NBA teams and to exhaust the good will of at least two of them. It's a pretty safe guess the Bobcats are less than enchanted by his behind-the-scenes campaign to return to Philadelphia, where he still has a home.

(Especially on the heels of his previous whisper campaign with the L.A. Clippers; Larry has a house in Malibu, too, don't you know?)

It is very, very heartwarming indeed that Brown wishes to return to the city where his wife and children live. Never mind that he left them behind when he talked his way out of his Sixers gig for a chance to win a title with a Detroit team built by someone else. We'll take Brown at his word, that he wants to be with his family.

Here's one thought. Brown is 69 years old. He has extracted millions of dollars from NBA franchises over the last few years. If he'd like to spend time with his family, maybe he should just go ahead and do that. Retire. Make the school lunches in the morning. Take a turn driving the carpool every week.

But that's not really what this is about, of course. To understand what this is really about, follow Brown's movements over the last seven years.

In 2003, after the failure of his attempts to retool the 2001 Finals team, Brown bailed on Snider and Luukko. They let him out of his contract to take a job with the Pistons without having the good sense to ask for compensation. Brown was so instrumental in leading the Pistons to the 2004 NBA title that he was fired the very next year.

No problem. He immediately was hired to coach the New York Knicks. He was fired after one season.

But that only begins to tell the story. When the Pistons let Brown go, he had three years and $18 million remaining on his contract. He negotiated a buyout that put a reported $6 million in his pocket and allowed him to accept the Knicks' five-year, $50-million offer.

When he was fired from that job, Brown was still owed $41 million. He sued the Knicks' parent company for the full amount, plus $12 million in damages. Brown wound up getting $18.5 million in a settlement.

So he was paid nearly $25 million by the Pistons and Knicks just to go away. The Sixers got off cheap, by comparison.

There have been distressing signs over the years that Snider and Luukko continued to solicit Brown's advice, even when he was working for other teams. Brown was, after all, the basketball guru to these two hockey-centric executives. Still, it's a terrible idea to continue giving your ear to someone as deceptive and manipulative as Brown.

So it would be very comfortable for Snider and Luukko to get the gang back together by rehiring Brown. It would also prove they haven't learned anything about winning. You don't do it by being comfortable or by looking backward. You do it by identifying and pursuing the next great GM and the next great coach, by looking forward.

The NBA executive of the year, Milwaukee Bucks GM John Hammond, was the No. 2 under Joe Dumars in Detroit. Oklahoma City is in the playoffs with a GM, Sam Presti, who cut his teeth with San Antonio and Scott Brooks, a first-year head coach.

That's how the Sixers' power brokers should be proceeding. It's the harder way, but it's the right way.

The easy way comes with a whiff of sulfur.