Larry Brown May Be Interested in Coaching the Sixers Again

Reading the tea leaves, the Philly Daily News speculates that Larry Brown may be trying to talk himself into yet another coaching gig with the Philadelphia Sixers. Brown was the bench boss in Philly between the 1998 and 2003 seasons, amassing a 460-255 record and making the Playoffs in five of the six years (including an improbable trip to the 2001 NBA Finals): “Since April 18, when it was announced that coach Doug Collins was resigning and majority owner Josh Harris stated that the organization is now basically a blank canvas, we have heard nothing from the team. There have been reports of background checks on perspective coaches, various names thrown about as to whom may replace Collins. Without Collins, who appeared to have his stamp on most of the moves made over the past few seasons, and Rod Thorn, the former president who is now in an advisory position (which means taking phone calls once in a while from his Naples, Fla., home), most, if not all, of the basketball decisions may be sitting in DiLeo’s lap. And on April 18, Harris didn’t exactly give a glowing endorsement when he said DiLeo was the GM ‘for now.’ […] ‘I have great feelings about the Sixers, I still live in Philly,’ former Sixers coach and current Southern Methodist University head man Larry Brown said earlier this week. ‘I moved Tony DiLeo up and hired Courtney Witte and am close to everybody there. I haven’t heard from them, and I don’t want to speculate. I don’t know anything about those guys and what their goals are. My relationship was with Ed Snider. He brought me here and he let me hire everybody, and Pat let me do my job. We had a pretty bad roster with bad financial situations and we had to rebuild.’ Sound a little familiar? ‘I’d love to be a resource any way I can,’ Brown continued. ‘But I have a job that I’m happy and comfortable with.’ During the conversation, Brown endlessly talked about his love for Philadelphia and the organization and the behind-the-scenes people who were with the Sixers when he was here and remain there now. He also said numerous times how happy he is to be coaching at SMU, where he went 15-17 in his first season and secured a solid recruiting class for next season. He heaped praise upon his Mustangs coaching staff, which includes Eric Snow and George Lynch, both of whom played for him during his six seasons as Sixers coach. He said all the politically correct things. He came nowhere near saying so, but the feeling here is that he certainly wouldn’t mind being considered to be Collins’ successor.”