The Indispensable Larry Brown

The word on the street is that Larry Brown's return to the Sixers in one capacity or another is a foregone conclusion now that his Hornets have been summarily eliminated from the playoffs.

The conventional wisdom seems to be that Brown is the pre-eminent turnaround artist. He is the man who knows exactly what buttons to press to turn a loser into a winner. Perhaps.

Over his 35 year career, coach Brown has certainly achieved noteworthy successes including an NCAA championship at Kansas and NBA championship at Detroit. But he has also left at least three franchises in shambles - New Jersey, Indiana and New York - two more if you count Philadelphia and Detroit. He also seriously underachieved with the U.S. basketball squad at the 2004 Olympics. And he certainly didn't perform any magic with the Charlotte Hornets - making the playoffs in the mediocre Eastern Conference and getting swept in the first round are not going to inspire a remake of "Hoosiers".

Moreover, Brown has a history of unreliability, having left teams with seemingly no warning and inadequate explanation. We are now told that the coach really loves Charlotte and Michael Jordan but he would really like to be with his family in the Delaware Valley. Would Jordan have gone out of his way to recruit Brown if he knew this was in the back of the coach's mind all along?

Larry Brown had one tour of duty in Philadelphia and that was enough. It's time for the Sixers to start fresh with a relatively young crew in the front office and on the bench and start building a team brick by brick. But the indispensable one, coach Brown, wants to be closer to his family so naturally he will be returning to Philly, until he is struck by another whim - like coaching the Ukrainian national team.